April 28, (THEWILL)- The Governor of Kano State, Abba Yusuf and the current National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, appear to be walking a political tightrope in their ongoing supremacy battle. Sources say that both warring parties want to keep tearing at each other without getting the President involved.
The governor and his party, the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, are said to be subtly grateful to President Bola Tinubu “for allowing the party to retain Kano,” as there is a deep perception that “if the president wanted Kano for APC, it would have happened somehow.” And because of this, said the source, they want to be as discreet as possible in their ongoing battle with the governing APC National Chairman.
For Ganduje, however, the optics are bad for the party. The pressures are mounting and arrows are flying from different directions.
The combatants are deploying tactics and strategies to outwit one another. For Kano, sources say the ongoing probe on the Kano State Government’s multimillion-naira fraud allegation against Ganduje is an immediate goal. But the long-term plan is to remove whatever influence or hold on local politics that the former governor still has in Kano, one of the North’s largest sources of votes during elections.
While the probe goes on in the short term, the politics of control of the state from now through 2027 is said to be the long-term plan.
THE KWANKWASO CONNECTION
For one, Governor Yusuf’s mentor, Dr Rabiu Kwankwaso, who was presidential candidate of the NNPP in the 2023 general election, is still targeting the 2027 presidency and the control of Kano politics is crucial to that ambition.
But the carpet is being pulled from under the former governor’s feet and accusing fingers are pointing in the direction of his enemies in the state. Last week, eight months after a faction of the party accused him of anti-party activity for meeting President Tinubu and later holding talks with the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2023 general election, the founder of the NNPP, Boniface Aniebonam, accused Kwankwaso of betrayal of trust.
He accused Kwankwaso and the Kwankwasiyya Movement of trying to hijack the party structure, which he described as a betrayal of trust. He said that he gave Kwankwaso a platform to achieve his political ambition of becoming Nigeria’s president on a silver platter.
Aniebonam claimed that he personally established and developed the NNPP from 2002 to 2022, at which point Kwankwaso and his associates requested him to represent the party just before the 2023 presidential election.
He said: “Buba Galadima led the delegation, including Sen. Suleiman Hunkuyi and Professor Sam Angai to my country home in Anambra to plead for us to accept Kwankwaso in the NNPP.
“After the talks, I placed a call to Kwankwaso and after asking him questions about his intentions for Nigeria, I offered him the platform of NNPP as its sole candidate.”
Aniebonam held that Kwankwaso would be forgiven if he mended his ways and even then, with no exclusive rights to the NNPP’s candidacy.
Efforts by THEWILL to get Galadima’s response to Aniebonam’s claims were unsuccessful as he did not respond to calls and messages to his phone.
But in an earlier explanation, Galadima reportedly exonerated Kwankwaso of any blame. He said the former Kano governor violated no known rules of the party as he often told key members of the party, numbering 13, of any of his meetings, either with President Tinubu, once in France and twice in the Presidential Villa or with any politician.
He pointedly accused Ganduje of orchestrating the crisis in the NNPP, betraying the trust of his mentor Kwankwaso in a bid to continue his dominance of Kano politics. According to him, there was nothing wrong in Kwankwaso holding a meeting with the President and then agreeing to “work together to uplift Nigeria.”
Working together to uplift Nigeria is a platform that gives Kwankwaso the negotiating power that the retention of Kano by the NNPP has consolidated since the Supreme Court gave the judgement that upturned the Election Petition Tribunal and Appeal Court rulings. The electoral victory has given Kwankwaso more leverage at a time Ganduje had to quit governance of the state for Yusuf, Kwankwaso’s godson.
GANDUJE’S TRAVAILS
With the Kano State Government bent on going ahead with a probe of Ganduje’s tenure and alleged dollar contract kick-back, the governing party’s National Chairman is being kept busy trying to put out the fire.
From his ongoing experiences dealing with expulsion by his ward chairman to his reinstatement after an intervention by the court to protest calls for his resignation, the immediate past governor of Kano faces an uncertain future as considerations for 2027 politics gather momentum.
But the APC is not abandoning its Chairman yet. Just as Galadima accused Ganduje of orchestrating Kwankwaso and NNPP’s problems, the APC authorities have accused the Kano State Government of witch-hunting the national chairman of their party.
They attribute Ganduje’s expulsion by his ward and later by a faction of the APC in Kano to the handiwork of the state government in an attempt to blackmail their Chairman.
In the aftermath of his expulsion and then reinstatement by the court of law, 37 chairmen of the state chapters of the party, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, paid the former governor a solidarity visit and passed a vote of confidence on him.
Moreover, the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka, said, “We are right now in the stage of status quo where we were before the purported suspension of Ganduje as the national chairman. He still remains our national chairman.”
According to dependable government sources, Ganduje has nothing to fear when it comes to the President choosing him as a loyal party man and a trusted ally who will always be in his good books. But then a source noted, “Politics is also about managing conflict, plotting to capture power by conciliating interests at play.”
Accordingly, the ongoing power play in Kano is to be expected given the calibre of politicians involved and the timing, which is considered auspicious because there is still time to study and evaluate the situation. Even so, stakeholders are not unmindful of what is at stake in Kano.
The centrality of Kano to the country’s politics, notably for its voter strength as well as its importance in commerce and business: Some of the country’s captains of industry come from Kano; Aliko Dangote, Rabiu Abdul Samad, the Dantatas. It is also a politically volatile state, given its strong tradition of radical politics dating back to centuries.
These are the reasons why, sources say, the President would maintain a warm relationship with Kwankwaso of NNPP while keeping Ganduje, his National Chairman, as an ally in spite of the bitter conflict between the duo. But can two strong captains maintain a ship?
ENTER 2027
For the aforementioned political and economic reasons, capturing Kano is crucial for President Tinubu who has lately come under the criticism of some critical stakeholders from the North for “implementing policies that adversely affect the region.”
In the midst of these challenges, other arrows are pointing at Ganduje. His travails have opened a campaign by the North-Central geopolitical zone for the position of the party’s Chairmanship.
Indeed, former National Vice-Chairman of the party in the North-West, Dr Salihu Lukman, last year, resigned his position in protest against installation of Ganduje as National Chairman. He said the appointment breached the party’s zoning arrangement, which reserved that position for the North-Central.
Last Thursday, Lukman’s position re-echoed in Jos, Plateau State, when the North-Central All Progressives Congress Forum condemned the vote of confidence passed by the 36 governors on Ganduje.
Speaking further, Alhaji Saleh Mandung Zazzaga, said the vote of confidence which the state chairmen of the party passed on Ganduje was not in the interest of the zone and called on the former Kano governor to resign. He called on President Tinubu to remember that all the North-Central states, except Plateau, are all controlled by the APC, meaning that the zone is party compliant besides being robbed of its deserved right to produce the party’s National Chairman as aptly captured in Article 31.5(i) of the APC constitution dealing with what to do when there is vacancy.
While Zazzaga may be reacting to the crisis in the party at the moment. THEWILL has learnt that what may be displeasing to Ganduje is that his arch-enemy may reopen talks with the President on a working plan, ahead of 2027. With his recent ouster by the founder of the NNPP, Kwankwaso is said to be ready to open talks with the President for a likely defection to the APC with the possibility of pairing with Tinubu as Vice President, a position Ganduje himself “is eyeing but may be too old and tired at 78 to vie for in 2027,” said a party source.
About the Author
Amos Esele is the Deputy Editor of THEWILL Newspaper. He has over two decades of experience on the job.
