Kwankwaso: A Consistent Leader With Misfortune Of Being Betrayed By Associates

By Abdulmalik Suleiman

If there is any politician in Nigeria who is consistent to his ideal of making life better for the less privileged that person is Engineer Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the immediate past governor of Kano State.

As much as his desire has continued to push him to serve the downtrodden, the former federal lawmaker and one-time Minister of Defence has suffered on equal measure the big misfortune of being betrayed by many of his political associates.

A careful appraisal of his persona and the kind of politics that the Madobi Local Government born politician will show that ordinarily he would not set out to move from one party to the other but the exigencies and reality of the Nigerian political space has made him so.

Few examples of such betrayals will suffice, one, it is on record that Kwankwaso was a leading gladiator in the formation, organization and eventual success of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) not only in Kano but in Nigeria at large.
He was the rallying pillar in the north, he provided both financial, moral and physical supports for the party and candidate Muhammadu Buhari.

For instance, it is on record that Kwankwaso led other six (6) governors of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under the banner of the new PDP (nPDP) to join other like-minds in the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressives Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), a splinter group in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to form the APC.

In the end, Kwankwaso pulled sizable votes for the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari who emerged as the candidate of the APC not only in Kano but in the North but what did he get in return? Nothing!

Kwankwaso was soon abandoned by the leaders of the new party and government who deliberately did all they could to whittle down his influence by refusing to make a recourse to him by obtaining his contributions and inputs to government and the party. From Minister to SA or even PA, he had no input from the state.

Key decisions and appointments were made from Kano without his inputs and not just that, members of his KWANKWASIYYA Movement were shut out of all the levels of party structure as if they were lepers who should not be dealt with.
His successor in office, governor Abdullahi Ganduje was instigated against him without any intervention from the centre to settle both.

This prompted him to dumped the APC again back to his former party, the PDP where the same treatment was meted to him by his comrades within the party who also showed open disdain for him despite the fact that he polled a significant amount of votes for the PDP and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in 2019.

It is on record that but for official banditry and under tactics employed by the APC in Kano, the PDP would have wrested power from the APC.
His godson, Abba Kabir mercilessly defeated the incumbent governor Abdullahi Ganduje.

What did Kwankwaso get in return? Officials of the PDP did all they could to undermine him in many ways before finding his way to the now alternative party in the north, New Nigeria People Party (NNPP).

Many leaders of the PDP in the North West have not hidden their envy for his rising profile as a political genius and what they did was to ‘cut him down to sizes’ by refusing him and his platform to compete fairly for seats at the zonal levels of the party.

Last year, the leadership of the party ceded the Zonal Chairmanship of the party to Kano State but the governor of Sokoto state Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, backed by the national leadership opposed Kwankwaso who is the leader of the party in the state from nominate a candidate to fill the position. A position that remains vacant till date.

In the end, what is a loss to both PDP and the APC has become gain to the NNPP considering the large number of people who are daily making the party (NNPP) their new fortress ahead of the forthcoming election in 2023.