Battle Of Three Musketeers
POLITICS
By KOLA OYELERE
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KOLA OYELERE writes on the gathering storm over the political space in Kano State, in the North-West regarded as one of the hottest geo-poltical zones in the country.
BY all major indices, Kano State remains a hotbed of politics in the country. It has a huge voting population. Political following in the state is also volatile and awesome. Besides, party politics in the state, more often than not, has a rallying figure at a point in time. So, no key political actor takes the state for granted during preparations for general election.
The level of political awareness of people of the state was not achieved by accident. It is part of the product of the renaissance initiated by the late iconic Mallam Aminu Kano and sustained by his disciples among the talakawas (ordinary people). And in 23 years of civil rule in the country, these factors and a number of others have continued to determine the form and shape of politics of Kano. The main actors individually always try to create a myth around themselves in their bid to dominate the political space. As the 2023 general election fast-approaches, the battle is titling towards three musketeers: Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje; Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Senator Ibrahim Shekarau. Both Kwankwaso and Shekarau are former governors of the state.
In the last few weeks, the three have engaged in seamless moves to outclass one another towards controlling the political lever of Kano. Shekarau, who is the current senator representing Kano central district and Kwankwaso, a former senator that represented Kano Central district are digging in to pull the rug from under the feet of the incumbent governor, Dr Ganduje and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). Shekarau is the backbone of the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) in the state, while Kwankwaso is prrsidential candidate and main pillar of the New Nigeria People Party (NNPP).
Kwankwaso was a governor of the state from 1999- 2003, he only ruled the state for four years then, as he was defeated by Malam Shekarau, who successfully ruled the state for eight years, thereby becoming the first governor to break the jinx of administering the state for uninterrupted eight years. Kwankwaso came back to the seat of governance eight years after he had lost and ruled from 2011 to 2015. The current governor Dr Ganduje has been governor since 2015.
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Though both Kwankwaso and Ganduje won the state on the platform of PDP in 2011 but towards to the end of their tenure, they defected to the new party then, the APC. It was on the platform of that new party then that Ganduje emerged governor for a second term. Also, Kwankwaso became Senator to represented Kano central, before they parted. While the current governor stayed in APC, his former boss – Kwankwaso defected to the PDP. Shekarau contested the seat on the platform of APC, while Kwankwaso refused to re-contest and Shekarau was elected in Kano central district.
However, before the party primary, Kwankwaso left the PDP and moved to the NNPP. At that time, there was crisis within the rank and file of the parties, especially in the Kano APC. This resulted into the emergence of two factions, with one camp under the control of Ganduje while other faction belonged to Shekarau. They held parallel congresses to elect executive members. While that of Shekarau produced Alhaji Haruna Danzago as chairman, the faction loyal to Ganduje elected Alhaji Abdullahi Abass as the chairman of its executive committee. The confusion arising from the congresses culminated into a rash of litigation and it is on record that the first court ruling recognised Shekarau’s executive as authentic, but subsequent court pronouncements instituted by the other faction sacked the Shekarau exco. Consequently, members of the camp defected to the NNPP, where Shekarau was given an automatic ticket to seek re-election to the Senate. The decision did not go down well with him as he accused Kwankwaso of reneging on an agreement to allocate more elective positions to his loyalists that moved into NNPP. However, Kwankwaso refuted the allegation, saying the NNPP had settled the choice of all candidates to contest the 2023 general election as at the time Shekarau and his supporters defected to the party. So, Shekarau and his acolytes quickly abandoned the NNPP for the PDP. That singular move has redrawn the battle line for the political soul of Kano in 2023. The die is cast as the three political titans seem prepared to stake all that is needed to win Kano for their parties.
With the incumbency factor on his side, coupled with the urge to consolidate his grip on the state, as well as use the election as a public assessment of his eight years’ tenure, governor Ganduje is faced with the battle of his political career. On his part, Shekarau is determined to prove that his influence in the politics of the state is beyond the facade of rhetoric and grandstanding but rooted in grassroots connection and structure.
For Kwankwanso, the Kwankwayya Movement has become part of the subconscious of the people, who made sure that he served as governor and minister at different times in his chequered political career. Nonetheless, there are some outstanding issues as the three continued to strategise for the general election coming up in the country next year.
One of the issues has to do with the cold war that led to the collapse of the romance between Shekarau and Kwankwaso in NNPP. Shekarau said: “I resolved to abandon my senatorial ambition to join the party. I was not happy with the way Dr Kwankwaso treated me and my members on all the promises to allocate elective positions were betrayed, hence the need for us to leave the party for the PDP.” The senator assured that he and his supporters would work for the victory of the PDP in 2023 because they believed that the presidential candidate of the party Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would rescue the country from, most especially the prevalent insecurity and harsh economic situation. The national chairman of the PDP, Senator Iyochia Ayu is ecstatic about the decision of Shekarau and his supporters to dump NNPP for the main opposition party in the country. Ayu says the action of Shekarau marks the crystallization of one of his objectives when he became PDP national chairman. Ayu enthused: “Thank God, history has been made and Mallam Shekarau has returned to his original house.” The ex-president of the Senate in the Third Republic belied that Shekarau is a veritable asset for PDP in the quest to regain power next year.
The governor of Delta State, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa also sees the defection of Shekarau to the PDP as a blessing. In his view, this will translate into the PDP amassing more than 60 percent votes of the electorate in Kano in 2023. Dr Sule Yau Sule, media aide to Shekarau, who also served as his Director General, when he was governor 2003 – 2010, said his boss is a staunch advocate of justice and fairness to everybody irrespective of tribe or ethnicity. He recalled that his administration gave non-indigenes political appointments.
A lot people are already predicting possible paradigm shift in Kano politics in 2023. They are saying the general election will be a different ball game. One of those that hold such view is a chieftain of the PDP, Alhaji Musa Ibrahim. He said the gladiators should be ready to prove their mettle instead of counting on some extraneous factors. He warned that the issue of any candidate riding on the crest of President Muhammad Buhari to win election would not arise again since the president would not be on the ballot.
The PDP stalwart provided some statistics to corroborate his claim on Kano politics for the past 20 years. He said Buhari monopolised the votes in Kano. In 2011, Buhari under the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC), polled 1.6 million votes, when Shekarau was the incumbent governor of Kano. In 2015, Buhari polled 1.903 million votes, while PDP got mere 215,777 votes. In 2019, even with Kwankwaso in PDP, Buhari still polled 1.4 million votes, leaving Atiku Abubakar with 391,593 votes. According to Ibrahim, the situation is likely to be different next year because Buhari’s votes are non-transferable to anyone. For example, when he won the 2019 election with a margin of over 1 million votes, two weeks after, Ganduje struggled to win the election with 8,982.
Again, the role played by some presidential aspirants during the convention of PDP is said to have influenced Shekarau to join the PDP. He was reportedly on the same page with a particular aspirant from the North that paved the way for Atiku to clinch the PDP ticket. All those forces believe they need to coalesce behind the candidature of Atiku against the perceived opposition from certain elements. The leaders believe that Shekarau has the pedigree, clout and skill to add value to the PDP ticket, especially from the North-West. They claim that he commands a lot respect and goodwill to checkmate Ganduje and Kwankwanso. They also reason that in the event of a possible alliance between APC and NNPP, Shekarau remains the masterstroke for PDP during the election.
Some politicians in the camp of PDP said that with Kwankwaso on the ballot as the only candidate from the North-West, the party is well-prepared despite speculations about the possibility of an alliance between the NNPP and APC. Honourable Abdulmummin Jibrin, the spokesperson of Kwankwaso, recently refuted the purported alliance. Kwankwaso has equally denied the rumours making the round that he would step down or support any other presidential candidate. “I am in the race to win the presidential election and I am not contemplating of stepping down for any candidate,” Kwankwaso boasted.
As Ganduje, Sheharau and Kwankwaso sustain the battle for supremacy in the state, Atiku will be looking at how to improve his votes in Kano as the highest votes he got from the state was 391,593 in 2019. With Buhari out, he may fancy his chances, but considering that Kwankwaso is on the ballot and Ganduje is working to deliver the State for Tinubu, the Kano votes may be depleted and not in its usual bulk.
