Who is afraid of Isa Ashiru Kudan?

The 2023 general elections are no doubt reaching feverish pitch with the commencement of national campaigns on September 28, 2022, by presidential and National Assembly candidates and their political parties while state campaigns by governors and House of Assembly candidates and their political parties are scheduled to begin today, October 12, 2022.

Unfortunately, despite appeals by eminent Nigerians and groups including former President Goodluck Jonathan and the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) that the campaigns should be issue-based, some politicians have chosen the path of dishonour by spreading hate speech and outright falsehood against their political opponents.

This scenario is playing out in Kaduna state where some chieftains of the All Progressives Congress(APC) are out to malign and impugn the hard earned reputation of the state governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Hon. Isah Mohammed Ashiru.

A publication last week written by one Muda Mohammed dwelt on a matter of litigation against an APC chieftain, Prof Mohammed Bello, who raised an unfounded allegation that the GCE certificate presented by the PDP candidate to enable him contest the governorship election does not belong to him, as required by law.

Prof. Bello, who is the defendant in an action for defamation instituted at a Kaduna High Court by the PDP candidate, is reinforcing earlier allegations he made against Ashiru to the effect that he had no school certificate, which formed the basis of the defamatory action. 

In his statement of claim, Hon Ashiru (plaintiff) is seeking damages amounting to N100million suffered as a result of an interview granted by Prof Bello accusing him of forgery and presenting a false certificate to INEC.

Specifically, Hon Ashiru averred that Prof Bello at press conference and in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service made disparaging allegations to the effect that his (Ashiru’s) GCE O’Level is forged.

Hon Ashiru maintained that the said words were defamatory in their plain and ordinary meanings and had therefore thoroughly disparaged his reputation as a governorship candidate and an upright and responsible citizen who has built his good name overtime. 

He presented to the court copies of a 1980 GCE O’ Level certificate, diplomas from the Hassan Usman Katsina Polytechnic, Kaduna Polytechnic and a masters degree in Public Policy and Administration, among several certificates, claiming that the allegation of forgery against him by the defendant was false, malicious to lower his acceptability among the electorate of Kaduna state. 

 It is unfortunate that such wild and unfounded allegation could be made against a frontline governorship candidate, Isa Ashiru, by people who intend to govern a complex state like Kaduna. It, in fact, raises the question as to who is afraid of Hon. Isa Ashiru Kudan?

Ashiru is one with an untainted pedigree in all the places he had serves the state and the nation as a whole.  It needs be stressed that no amount of campaign of calumny or hate speech will stop the resolve to dislodge the APC from the Kaduna Government House by the PDP in 2023. Character assassination under whatever guise, is not what we desire at this point in our nation’s history. The Kaduna electorate are ready to hear from the candidates on their agenda for the people.  Indeed, Isa Ashiru Kudan, a former  lawmaker of repute, is the candidate to beat in the forthcoming governorship election in Kaduna state as the people are wiser.