After prosecuting five previous governorship and presidential elections together as a team, immediate past Kano State Governor and senator representing Kano Central, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and his estranged former deputy, incumbent governor, Alhaji Umar Ganduje, tested their political strength and hold on Kano politics, for the first time two weeks ago on February 23.
This weekend again, they will be going for what is known in the football parlance as a return leg, the outcome of which will determine the eventual winner at least for the next four years.
Kwankwaso is not on the ballot. But he is the arrowhead of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. Besides, apart from the fact that he has a political axe to grind with Ganduje, his son in-law, Abba Yusuf, is the party’s governorship candidate, just as he has his army of loyalists contesting for the state House of Assembly seats. Will he triumph this Saturday?
But if the outcome of the presidential and National Assembly elections held about two Saturdays ago is anything to go by, then, it appears safe to say this Saturday’s contest may have been won and lost.
In the February 23 presidential and National Assembly elections, Ganduje had the upper hand as his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) trounced Kwankwaso’s PDP, winning the presidential election by a very wide margin and taking all the three senatorial seats at stake and all 24 available seats in the House of Representatives, leaving the PDP, which went into the contest with nine seats with none.
For Kwankwaso and PDP therefore, they appear to be going into this Saturday’s election with what pundits described as a huge deficit. Their case,Daily Sun gathered, appears to have been made worst by the decision of the Federal High Court, Kano, which nullified the primary election that produced Abba Yusuf as the governorship candidate of the PDP.
The judge, Lewis Allagoa, held that the PDP did not conduct a governorship primary election in the state and therefore declared Yusuf’s candidature as “null and void.”
Shortly after the emergence of Yusuf, another PDP governorship aspirant, Ibrahim Amin-little, approached the court to challenge the process that produced Yusuf as the PDP’s candidate. Amin-little, had among other things insisted that the purported primary election that threw up Yusuf, contravened section 87 (1) (2) of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended, article 50 (1) (2) 5 (b) of the PDP constitution 2017 and electoral guidelines. To this end, the court directed the PDP to conduct a fresh primary election for the purpose of nominating a governorship candidate before Saturday, March 9, a date set aside for governorship elections in 27 states including Kano.
However, counsel to PDP, Bashir Yusuf, is of the opinion that last Monday’s judgment did not in any way affect the PDP governorship candidate, Yusuf, stressing that he was not a party in the case. PDP and INEC are yet to take any position. Regardless, whether Yusuf is on the ballot or not, the contest this Saturday in Kano is between the APC as represented by Ganduje and the PDP, as represented by Kwankwaso.
Historical perspective
Since 2003 when President Muhammadu Buhari joined the presidential race before his win in 2015 and 2019 respectively, he has never lost Kano State, in spite of the fact that until 2003, Kano was an exclusive enclave of the PDP. But Buhari did the magic, when he rallied support for Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, a relatively unknown teacher-turned politician, who ended up sacking Kwankwaso in 2003.
But before Shekarau could complete his first tenure, he fell out with Buhari, and Buhari and his men tried, albeit without success to prevent him from securing a second term. During the party’s primary in 2007, Buhari had sided with Shekarau’s former deputy, Magaji, to clinch the party’s ticket ahead of Shekarau. Shekarau’s name miraculously found its way on the Ribadu’s list of indicted politicians.
Interestingly, the man who handled the controversial fertilizer contract, that almost did Shekarau in, was allegedly introduced to the Kano State Government by the leadership of the ANPP. In spite of the squabbles between Buhari and Shekarau, which saw Buhari’s men and women openly campaigning against Mallam, as he is fondly called, towards the build up to the 2007 polls, he weathered the storm and broke the jinx of a second term in Kano, thus, eroding the Buhari factor, albeit temporarily, in Kano politics.
Pundits are therefore of the view that if Shekarau could win Kano without Buhari’s full backing in 2007, then Ganduje who enjoys tremendous support from Buhari should not have an encumbrance winning his re-election bid.
Also, in the build-up to the 2011 polls, the major opposition in the state was the PDP, which lost the state in 2003, not only because of the implementation of Sharia, which Mallam capitalised on, but owing largely to the in-fighting within the party. Even in 2007, but for its internal wrangling, the party would have won the governorship, in spite of the fact that it fielded a relatively unknown politician, Garba Bichi, as its candidate.
Bichi did not start off as a contender; he was a running mate to Kwankwaso in the build-up to the 2007 polls. But the former governor had to give way when it became apparent that his indictment by the Shekarau’s administration would be used against him even if he emerged victorious at the polls.
Kwankwaso did not lose in 2003 because of non-performance, apart from the strong Sharia sentiment; his open association with former President Olusegun Obasanjo contributed to his woes. But because he believes he still has something to offer the North’s commercial nerve centre, once the 2007 elections were won and lost, he began preparations early enough for the 2011 polls, as he formed a political movement, known as Kwankwasiyya.
The movement was so strong that it came handy, in prosecuting the 2011 polls. He was to later emerge victorious at the polls. But no matter how strong the movement may appear then, the Buhari factor also helped him to maintain a winning streak in Kano, after his surprise return in 2011, in spite of a big wedge placed on his path, by the PDP chieftains, from both within and outside the state.
Interestingly, the Buhari factor sent him packing in 2003, when he sought a re-election. Buhari factor also helped him to return to power in 2011, after his then nemesis, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, fell out with Buhari, before the 2011 polls. In the build-up to the 2015 elections, crisis broke out in the PDP in 2013, which saw two states, Kano and Sokoto, leaving the then ruling party, PDP, for the opposition party, through the defection of their governors.
Once Kwankwaso joined the APC, he automatically became the leader of the party in the state, a thing that forced Shekarau, a hitherto leading figure of the APC in the state, to leave for the PDP. Ironically, Kwankwaso and others had left the PDP, because they felt party leadership in the various states, were imposed on them, against their wish.
Therefore, at the polls, the same Buhari factor, coupled with Kwankwaso’s outstanding performance, made the APC’s victory against the PDP double sure. Besides, the old PDP members were angry that the governorship ticket went to a new entrant. All these, made it difficult for the PDP to make any headway in Kano.
After the 2015 polls were won and lost, Shekarau emerged as a minister in the PDP-led administration. He remained in the PDP until last year when Kwankwaso’s return to the PDP forced him again to return to the APC.
Pundits are, therefore, of the view that the mass movement of Shekarau and his supporters from PDP to APC, combined with Ganduje’s performance in infrastructure, education, health, youth empowerment, in addition to the influence of Islamic clerics, would no doubt make it difficult for the APC and Ganduje to fall. Shekarau was elected two Saturdays ago to replace Kwankwaso in the Senate.
Kwankwaso, Daily Sun gathered, had criticised Islamic clerics recently over their involvement in politics, a development that led to an uproar within them. The clerics are veritable weapon in mobilising voters in Kano especially.
Apart from Shekarau and his supporters, a few chieftains of the PDP like Prof. Hafiz Abubakar, a former deputy governor to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, a former managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Aminu Dabo; the immediate past National Treasurer of PDP, Bala Mohammed Gwagwarwa; Security Adviser to Kwankwaso, Gen. Danjuma Dambazzau (rtd); Senator Isa Zarewa; and Mu’azu Magaji Dan Sarauniya, who was a former Senior Special Assistant to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on SURE-P, have all deserted the PDP. They are expected to lead the onslaught against their former benefactor in their respective areas. All these factors appear to make PDP’s task of wanting to dislodge the APC from Kano, where it enjoys a cult-like following a daunting one. But the PDP believes it could turn the tide against the APC.
But the Commissioner for Information, Internal Affairs, Youths and Culture, Alhaji Muhammad Garba, insisted APC will carry the day: “Our governor is fully on ground and the support for him is beyond APC. The people are happy with his performance. So far, he has completed all the projects left behind by Kwankwaso, and he has started new ones and completed a few of them.
“Even the Kwankwaso group cannot fault him on performance. The five-km road per LG, about half of 44 LGs were less than 10 percent completion as at the time we came in. But today, we have completed for more than 11 LGs. I can go on and on to list our works that have made our governor the toast of an average Kano man.”
Last line
Having failed to get Ganduje disqualified through the millions of dollars bribery allegation against him, which analysts say is the original intention of those behind it, it is now clear that Kwankwaso will be making a final attempt this Saturday at burying Ganduje politically in Kano.
Will he succeed? It seems only time will tell. But the outcome of this Saturday’s contest will go a long way to determine the political future of the two gladiators.
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