Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Vice-Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the 2027 general elections and former Governor of Kano State, has declared that former Governors Ibrahim Shekarau and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, as well as the incumbent Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, are politically finished in Kano State.
Kwankwaso made the assertion on Sunday while featuring on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Personality Interview Series in Abuja. Reflecting on the political fortunes of former members of his political family who had fallen out with him, he described as unsustainable any political success built through “treachery.”
“You cannot succeed with treachery. I have not seen one. Now we have taken about two and a half decades,” Kwankwaso stated. He noted that his experience over the past 25 years has shown that those who betray their political allies usually descend into political oblivion.
He specifically cited Ganduje, who served as his deputy for eight years before succeeding him as governor in 2015. Kwankwaso said Ganduje’s political career would have fared better had he remained loyal to the structure they built together. “If you can even see the issue of Ganduje, who we came together and supported, and became governor free of charge. The day when he started fighting was the beginning of his problem. If I may ask: where is he now? It is difficult to see him,” he said.
Turning to Governor Abba Yusuf, Kwankwaso recalled that his political group carefully selected Yusuf as a candidate precisely to avoid a repeat of Ganduje’s actions. He noted that the structure worked tirelessly to field Yusuf in the 2019 governorship election (which Yusuf initially won before the result was overturned through litigation) and again secured his victory in 2023 despite concerted opposition.
Kwankwaso, however, accused Yusuf of distancing himself from the political camp that brought him to power. “He left us, but he is not with Ganduje now. He is in-between because I don’t think he is happy for anybody to call him Dan Gandujiyya,” he said. He added that Yusuf’s association with Ganduje had created political difficulties for the governor and alleged that Yusuf was attempting to supplant him as the dominant political figure in Kano an ambition he described as unsustainable. “People have no patience and that is why they are making those mistakes. It is just a matter of patience,” Kwankwaso remarked.
The former governor observed that struggles for political succession and control are not unique to Kano but form a recurring feature of Nigerian politics. He recounted a conversation with President Bola Tinubu in which the President urged him to reconcile with Ganduje. Kwankwaso said he responded by pointing to the fate of several once-close associates of the President who had faded from political relevance, citing former Lagos Deputy Governor Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele and former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode as examples.
Kwankwaso, who singled out former Osun Governor Chief Bisi Akande as one of the few political associates he still regards as a friend, concluded that while political relationships often prove transient, the Kano experience remains particularly instructive.