2019: How El-Rufai Picked Hadiza Balarabe as Running Mate
The announcement of Dr. Hadiza Balarabe as the running mate of Governor Nasir El-Rufai on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna State in 2019 took many people by surprise, including the beneficiary.
Her name had not featured among those likely to replace the current deputy governor, Yusuf Barnabas Bala as running mate in the 2019 general elections since the latter opted to vie for the Senate seat of the Kaduna South senatorial district.
But on Thursday, she was said to have been asked by Governor El-Rufai to come to Kaduna while she was attending a conference in Kenya. On arrival, she was told of the decision to submit her name as the running mate of the APC governorship candidate. The next day, her name was announced by the state government after she accepted the offer.
Since El-Rufai announced Dr. Hadiza as his running mate for the 2019 general elections, many have been eager to know what may have convinced the governor to settle for the medical doctor, giving the political configuration of Kaduna State.
Official explanation for the choice of Dr. Hadiza as El-Rufai’s running mate was that it is a continuation of the governor’s deliberate policy of promoting women in his government.
According to a statement signed by Samuel Aruwan, the senior special assistant to the governor on media, there are currently five female commissioners in the 14-man cabinet of Governor El-Rufai. He described the gesture as a great feat by the current Kaduna State Government
“This is the first time in the history of Kaduna State that a major political party will select a woman as running mate,’’ Aruwan explained.
However, this explanation has failed to satisfy people’s curiosity on why the governor settled for Dr Hadiza.
She is the executive secretary of the Kaduna State Primary Health Care Development Agency, a position she has held since February 2016.
Prior to joining the Kaduna State Government, she had served as Director of Public Health in the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA).
She read Medicine in the University of Maiduguri and graduated in 1988. She was a senior registrar in the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital before she joined the services of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in 2004.
Many who know her say she is apolitical and had concentrated on her medical career before she got the appointment at the FCT.
One of her colleagues in the Ahmadu Bello University said he could not remember her showing interest in politics.
“I can’t remember her making any strong political views. All I remember is somebody trying to get to the top of her career,’’ he said.
But if there wasn’t much that portrayed her as being directly interested in politics, Dr. Hadiza has a background that may have prepared her for politics, though administratively.
Her father, Alhaji Abubakar Sanga, was a senior staff of the National Electoral Commission of Nigeria (NECON) and even rose to the position of Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).
He was appointed as the chairman of the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission by the Ahmed Makarfi administration. He served for two terms.
But what people want to know about Dr. Hadiza is her faith. This is given what has become the norm in Kaduna State for governorship candidates of political parties to pick persons of different religious faiths from theirs as running mates to address the religious sensitivities of the state.
Dr. Balarabe, though from a largely Christian-dominated local government, Sanga, is known to be a practising Muslim and is married to a Muslim from Kafanchan. She is also said to be of the Numana ethnic stock.
While serving as the executive secretary of the Kaduna Health Care Development Agency, she is said to have seen to the implementation of the Kaduna State Government’s programme to revitalise and strengthen primary health care as the core of health service delivery in the state.
Aruwan said it’s under her watch that the state is renovating and equipping 255 primary health centres with tools to assist better antenatal services and safer delivery. He said the agency had also helped to expand vaccine coverage to protect children across the state.
Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, who was born in 1966, is from Sanga Local Government Area, which is located in the southern Kaduna senatorial district.
For now, only El-Rufai can tell the real reason behind the selection of Dr. Hadiza, considering the complexity of Kaduna politics.
Only time will tell whether the decision would work in his favour or not. For now, the battleline for the Kaduna governorship contest has been drawn between the APC, which wants to win a second term, and opposition parties.
However, this explanation has failed to satisfy people’s curiosity on why the governor settled for Dr Hadiza.