When shoe salesman Haruna Abubakar voted for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 and again in 2019, he was one of more than a million Nigerians backing the former army chief in his stronghold of northern Kano State.
Home to Nigeria’s second-largest city and the economic heart of the country’s Muslim north, Kano was key to getting Buhari elected and re-elected four years later mainly on his twin promises of fighting jihadists and corruption.
After giving Buhari two chances, Abubakar said he has given up hope his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party can deliver and will cast his ballot elsewhere in Saturday’s presidential election.
Kano has long been a bastion for Buhari, an ethnic Fulani from nearby Katsina State. Now he is stepping down, the large bloc of voters who helped deliver his two election victories are up for grabs.
“We gave him a second chance so things would change for the better,” Abubakar said of his votes for Buhari. “But the opposite has happened — there is more insecurity, and people are in difficulties.
