Former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has labeled the 2023 presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, a “political bird,” who can fly from one platform to another.
Ganduje made this statement recently while discussing Kano politics on BBC Hausa.
Recall that on March 30, Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State, had joined the African Democratic Congress, citing internal crisis within his previous party.
But weeks later, the former senator joined the Nigeria Democratic Congress alongside the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi.
Kwankwaso and Obi were said to have made up their minds to move immediately after the Supreme Court judgment, which recognised the leadership of David Mark, but remitted the leadership tussle in the ADC to the trial court.
During the interview, Ganduje said that Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf had anticipated the challenges Kwankwaso and his supporters were now facing, which he claimed informed the governor’s decision to join the APC.
He said the governor had kept abreast of the political developments in Nigeria, saying Governor Yusuf joined the APC to align with the centre with the sole aim of ensuring political stability in Kano state.
“We share the political roots, having started at the PDP. Because of Kwankwaso we joined the APC. We later dumped the party. He left us there. He was groping for a new political platform, when eventually aligned with the NNPP, where he went on to form a government.
When asked whether Kwankwaso’s defection to the ADC would pose a danger to the APC, Ganduje responded in the negative.
“He (Kwankwaso) has become a political drifter; a political bird that can perch anywhere, moving from one platform to another. We deployed our political strategy to wrestle the control of the government from him. The governor is now ours.”
Ganduje said Kwankwaso’s move to the ADC would not pose any challenge to the APC in the future elections, adding that his frequent party switching signals a political decline.
“He joined a political party, which is a coalition of people of differing interests; each one of them wants be handed the presidential ticket. That very issue will ultimately disorganisd them.
“They are already in conflict with one another right now fighting each other. Meanwhile state governors are aligning with the APC. There has never been a time in the history of Nigeria when a political party has had 31 state governors.”
