Kano State Commissioner of Finance and Economic Development, Hon. Shehu Na’Allah Kura, has obtained the expression of interest nomination forms of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) to contest for House of Representatives seat in 2023.

Hon. Kura is believed to be a loyalist of former Kano State Governor and Senator representing Kano Central, Sen. Ibrahim Shekarau, who officially joined NNPP on Wednesday.

He, however, obtained the NNPP nomination forms shortly after his resignation from Governor Ganduje’s cabinet.

Kano State Commissioner for Information, Malam Muhammadu Garba, confirmed the resignation via a statement on Thursday.

The statement read: “One of the commissioners nominated for appointment by Senator Ibrahim Shekarau into the administration of Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje in the lucrative ministry of finance and economic development, Shehu Na’Allah Kura has resigned and joined his boss.”

Garba noted that Kura was appointed as a commissioner into the ministry at the request of Sen. Shekarau after the 2019 election.

Hon. Kura had previously served as Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning.

Sen. Shekarau had revealed, during his defection speech to the NNPP on Wednesday, that he nominated Hon. Kura as his only candidate in Ganduje’s cabinet.

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He said: “Ganduje approached me in his first tenure and asked me to nominate one person to be appointed commissioner. Shehu Na’Allah Kura was one of the loyal and hardworking party members. So I gave his name.

“The governor approached me again during his second term that he was granting our group two positions of commissionership, but he has selected one for us, we are to select another. And he said, he had selected Musa Iliyasu Kwankwaso and we said this is fraudulent.

“In the first place, we were not disowning Kwankwaso but the fact is that he had been in APC and as a commissioner over a year ahead of our defection to APC and as such, while we agree he’s one of us, but if we were to select, he couldn’t have been the one by any standard.

“I therefore said since you are technically giving us only one position, you already had Shehu Na’allah Kura. If you want to continue with him, we have no objection and he agreed and hence Kura was reappointed for the second term.”

Although Hon. Kura is yet to publicly announce his defection from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the fast-growing NNPP, his name appeared in a widely circulated list of NNPP concensus candidates for Kura/Garun Malam/Madam Federal Constituency.

The Star