TheCable

Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, has named Hadiza Balarabe, deputy governor-elect, as the head of a 38-member transition committee ahead of his inauguration on May 29.

In a statement on Tuesday, Samuel Aruwan, the governor’s spokesperson, said the duty of the transition committee is to prepare the ground work for the government.

El-Rufai was re-elected in the March 9 election, having polled 1,045,427 votes to defeat Isa Ashiru of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who had 814,168 votes.

Members of the committee include Emmanuel Jekada, Kaduna state chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the two senators-elect, Suleiman Abdu Kwari and Uba Sani, as well Zainab Ahmed, finance minister.

Others are Idris Othman, Husaini Adamu Dikko, Charles Bonat, former SSG in the state; Hafsat Baba, commissioner for women affairs and social development; Kabir Mato, commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs; Muhammad Abdullahi, commissioner for planning and budget commission and Ben Kure director-general, Kaduna state APC campaign organisation.

Muhammad Bello and Sani Sidi, former director-general of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), also made the list. Bello and Sidi had decamped from the PDP to the APC few days to the election after they lost in their bid to secure the PDP governorship ticket at the primaries.