2019: el-Rufai Picks Fellow Muslim, Hadiza Balarabe, As Running mate

Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, on Friday picked the Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, as his running mate for the 2019 governorship election in the state.

The choice put to rest speculations that the Chairman of the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress, Air Commodore Emmanuel Jekada (retd.), would emerge as the governor’s running mate.

The governor’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Samuel Aruwan, said Balarabe’s choice was el-Rufai’s deliberate policy to promote women.

“There are five female commissioners in his 14-person cabinet, a feat not attained even by governors that had much larger cabinets,” he said.

Born in 1966, Balarabe is from Sanga Local Government Area in Southern Kaduna.

Prior to joining the Kaduna State Government, Balarabe was the director of Public Health in the Federal Capital Territory.

A former senior registrar at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Balarabe studied Medicine at the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, and graduated in 1988.