Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, Kaduna State Governor, has claimed that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) hired from Niger Republic the enormous crowd that attended the Monday rally in Sokoto.

El-Rufai, who made the claim on Tuesday during the inauguration of the campaign council of the All Progressives Congress in Kaduna, said the PDP had nothing to offer Nigerians.

The governor described the opposition party’s campaign inauguration in Sokoto as a gang-up of “thieves”.

El-Rufai said, “Thieves have ganged-up against President Muhammadu Buhari.  Yesterday, they were in Sokoto and they rented a crowd from Niger Republic just to show people that they have supporters because Sokoto people refused to come out.

“So, when it is time to launch President Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign in Kaduna, people should come for the whole world to see that, it is not Niger Republic people that are disguising as Nigerians.”

Speaking during the inauguration of the 69-member Kaduna APC Campaign Council, the governor noted that the 2019 General Elections were between patriotic leaders and those who went to Abuja to loot.

He said the APC government anchored its agenda on putting the people first, saying the government since 2015 had focused on running an “equal opportunity government.”

“We have tried to empower our people by anchoring our programmes on putting people first.

“We are making life better and reordering the priority of government to focus on human capital development.”

The governor claimed the APC government for the last three years had been fixing the rot the PDP left behind in its 16 years rule.

He added,  “The task in 2019 is to continue to work towards the uplift of our people. We cannot allow the people whose ideology is looting to return to power.

“The PDP has nothing to offer the people of Kaduna State and they have nothing to offer the rest of Nigeria.

Over 16 years, they left most of our 4,250 primary schools in terribly bad conditions; many did not have toilets, roofs, windows or doors.”