The battle for the soul of Kano

The battle over the political space in Kano State rages between incumbent Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and Senator Musa Kwankwaso, writes KOLA OYELERE.

MONTHS after the 2019 general election, the cold war between the loyalists of a former governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso and his predecessor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje seems to be persisting. The supporters use every slightest issue bordering on the politics of the state to be at dagger’s drawn, with the most recent being a purported attack on the convoy of Kwakwanso by suspected political thugs.

There were claims that 15 persons were injured and vehicles damaged during the incident that occurred along Panshekara underpass as the thugs reportedly laid siege to his motorcade when the former governor was returning from the inauguration of the College of Nursing and Midwifery in his hometown of Kwankwaso. The institution is named after his mother to commemorate his 63rd birthday. The spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate in the 2019 polls, Sanusi Dawakin-Tofa, had alleged that the state government could not absolve itself from the attack.

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Politics of Kano

Kano is regarded as one of the major hot bed in politics in the country. A lot of lives were lost in the state at pre-and-post elections because of violent clashes. Both the governor and the senator were political soul mates, but the battle for who controlled the soul of the politics of Kano state soon put them asunder. The superiority contest peaked when the senator left the ruling APC for his former political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and made frantic efforts to facilitate the victory of the party in the last general election. He has mobilised the members of his Kwankwasiyya movement to rally round the candidate of the PDP, especially for the governorship and presidential polls.

In one of his interviews in 2018, Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, had given a brief background to his face-off with Senator Kwankwaso. He had said: “Yes, we were very, very close. Even before 1999, we have been friends. I was the commissioner for works and transport for six years during the military, and my former governor is a politician right from the military when political parties were formed. I started politics right from 1978, and in 1979 during the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) period, I even contested election and was even part of the executive members of the party in the state. So, politics is not something I am just starting now.So, we contested together for governorship in 1999 and the result was controversial. Prince Tony Momoh was in Kano to supervise the primaries, the result was controversial; the elders reconciled us that he should be governor and I should be the deputy governor. I insisted that there should be re-election, but elders pleaded and I agreed to be the deputy governor. Tony Momoh is still alive, you can ask him. And since I became the deputy governor I had to do it well. I had to be loyal, respectful and honest. So, I worked hard to add value to the government by supporting the governor not only by being loyal to him but working very hard to fill the gaps, promote the government and work round the clock to ensure when he is not around there is no difference.

“That is how we worked together. Even when he was a minister, I was with him. I was on my own when he invited me to come and be his adviser when he was Minister of Defence. I agreed because after all, we have been together, and he felt we could work together. When we won the elections in 2011, he graciously invited me, it was not as a result of any contest between us, but out of his own volition. I have to thank him for that because he could have invited someone else.”He added: “Like I said, I started seeing some elements of undercuts from his body language, and then he started attacking my administration. First, even before handing-over, he said he had paid all the contractors in Kano, but the contractors went to radio stations and said he was telling lies. You could see that he was trying to heat up the system even before handing-over.”

Accusations and counter-accusations

In his own account of the latest incident, the state chapter of the PDP through its spokesperson, Hajiya Binta Sipikin, said Kwankwaso escaped by whiskers, when he was attacked by alleged political thugs. Spikin alleged that the thugs were drafted by ruling APC the Madobi Road underpass to attack Kwakwanso. “This attack was preplanned because we were told that heavily armed thugs were kept under the bridge to attack usas we were coming from Madobi,” she further alleged. According to her, the attackers trailed the followed the former governor to his hometown, Madobi where he inaugurated the institution. She claimed that eight persons were critically injured, while several cars were damaged beyond repair. “We believe the government was behind this attack because we heard one of the officials’ name being mentioned as the convoy was being attacked by the thugs,” she alleged. She said some of the people that were seriously injured and were rushed to various medical facilities, including International Hospital in the state capital.

However, the chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Kano State chapter, Abdullahi Abbas accused the PDP sand its leaders of hallucination, describing the allegation as a smokescreen. Abbas said the APC had no hand in the alleged attack. Instead, he said the camp of Kwankwaso should look inward for the agent provocateur. In short, the APC chairman said the attackers might be members of the PDP who were disenchanted with the way the party was being “run like a one business.”

The controversy over the alleged attack on the Senator in the last National Assembly took a new twist when the state police command decided to break its silence on the matter. The spokesman of the police in the state, DSP Haruna Abdullahi Kiyiwasaid it was not aware of such incident. DSP Haruna Abdullahi Kiyiwa emphasized that the police did not receive any formal complaint from any quarters that Senator   Kwankwaso was attacked. His words: “We have not received any formal complaints from any quarter that Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso was attacked. Nobody reported to us and honestly, this is not known to us.”

Nigerian Tribune