From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Ahead of the 2023 gubernatorial election in Kaduna State, citizens through various accountability mechanisms on Tuesday engaged the candidates of four political parties on issues bordering on security, poverty, politics, education, social protection, health, local government and people living with disabilities.
The maiden (first batch) 1-day Agender-setting dialogue with governorship candidates in the state was organised by Partnership for issues-based Campaign in Nigeria (PICAN) supported by Partnership to Engage, Reform and Learn (PERL/FCDO) in collaboration with Legal Awareness for Nigerian Women (LANW We-You Pro).
The four candidates that participated in this batch are Hayatudeen Makarfi of People Redemption Party (PRP), Jonathan Asake of Labour Party (LP), Andrew Duya of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and John Ayuba who is the running mate to Isa Ashiru of People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
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Opening the floor for the dialogue on behalf of PICAN at a hotel in Kaduna, Yusuf Goje remarked that, the issues-based campaign became necessary for citizens to know whether the candidates have the will and way to address critical issues lie ahead of them.
He noted for example that, poverty rate is put at 43.48 percent, insecurity with 645 deaths in first six months of 2022, unemployment and underemployment at 67 percent and debt per capita at N32,484 of the total debt of N307bn (2021) is to be shared per citizens.
“That is why we must have this conversation now to know whether they are capable to fix these issues rather than telling us that they did not know it was this or that bad after being elected as we have heard from some of them in power.
“So if their primary purpose of wanting to be there is us the citizens, then, we should be able to tell them what our problems are and what they can do to salvage the situation when they get to the office.
“We are not doing this just because we are citizens, but because the constitution also give us the opportunity to do so,” Goje said.
He lamented that only about 26 per cent of 3.932 million eligible voters in the state voted to elect the current administration in 2019 which was a bad representation of about 10 million populace.
There were goodwill messages from the representatives of PERL/FCDO, Action Aid Nigeria, LANW -We-You-Pro.