The ex-minister expressed confident of victory in 2019 general elections with her new platform, United Democratic Party, UDP.
Mama Taraba, as she is popularly known, is the governorship candidate of the UDP in Taraba.
Alhassan expressed the optimism on Wednesday in Abuja when she visited the UDP national secretariat with Taraba State Executive to submit the state’s report to the party’s National Chairman, Godson Okoye.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, she said it was not the name of political party that mattered in winning elections but the structure and followership in any election.
“Mama Taraba’’, as well as her counterpart, the former Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, were disqualified by the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship election Screening Committee before the just concluded primaries of the party.
Alhassan said she now had more followers in UDP than she had before because of the injustice that was done to her by APC, saying what APC did had turned out to be a blessing.
She said “APC is just like a platform like any other political party, you can win election on any platform as long as you have people from the grassroots and you have the structure.
“It is just the name of our platform that is changed. As far as we are concerned, the followership is still intact. In fact we have more followership now.
“Because of the injustice done to me by the APC, we have a lot of sympathies now. 2019: Senate committee approves President Buhari’s N242 bn virement request.
“The request for the UDP membership card now is overwhelming. I have told them to get a big hardcover note book and just be writing the names.
“So far we have printed 120, 000 membership cards within two weeks. People are still asking for more.’’
She assured the party leadership that there was nothing to be afraid of about the coming elections in Taraba, saying UDP is well rooted.
Alhassan said that all her followers, supporters and key stakeholders left the APC to join her in UDP.
“All of us that nurtured the APC to where it was, completely left the party to the UDP.
“The executives and all that matter moved. The party has no structure any longer in Taraba,’’ she said.
