While specifically reeling out his humanitarian achievements especially in the area of education, he said the kind of leadership he would provide the nation if elected in 2023 would be totally different from what the other political parties had offered.
The former governor of Kano State stated these in Abuja during a colloquium organised by the Kwankwasiyya Development Foundation to mark his 66th birthday with the theme, ‘Democracy and good Governance in Nigeria: The legacy of Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.’
According to him, his political group was concerned about the general development of the nation.
At the event, the vice presidential candidate of the NNPP, Archbishop Isaac Idahosa, dismissed the recent prediction by Fitch, a global rating company, that the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, may win the 2023 presidential election.
He described the Fitch report and the outcomes of other poll surveys ahead of the forthcoming elections as fake and “paid for”, saying the NNPP would spring surprises nationwide, going by the political structures and alliances it was building across the country.
Kwankwaso said, “I’m happy to say that in the 2019 elections in Kano, we (the Kwankwasiyya Movement) had no governor, no minister, no serving or former member (House of Representatives). We had just these young men and women and we were able to win our election for the governorship.
“And that was why I was encouraged to create the scholarship scheme for our young men and women. When we advertised in 2019, believing that there are few people who are first class, we exhausted them in Kano. Second-class upper – we exhausted them. We went on to second-class lower levels when I left government in 2015.
“We had over 3000 of them going to 14 countries across the world. I’m also happy that we sponsored students into private universities in Nigeria. More than 412 benefited and over 3000 were sent abroad. They are in different sets all sponsored by the Kwankwasiyya Foundation.
“I feel the best investment for any politician is education because I was trained in Kano, in northern Nigeria. And Nigeria can only grow if we have educated people. When I was governor, we were able to feed our children in primary schools, return them to school.
“I realised that I had a few things that I didn’t need, and I had to sell almost all things that I didn’t directly require for myself to pay for the scholarships.
“Our scholarship was not only for Kano indigenes. It was for residents, people who are living in Kano because we believe in the fact that where you live is your home.
“Today, they have an association of those who collected our uniforms in primary schools. They are in millions,” I thank all my brothers and sisters, my friends across the countrymen who supported the foundation.”
