Kwankwaso and Tussle Ahead of Kano PDP State Congress
By Adnan Mukhtar Tudunwada
There is strong indication that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kano State will soon be plunged into a serious crisis over the election of the state executives of the party in the state.
It would be recalled that the party is under the leadership of a caretaker committee since the defection of Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso from the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2018.
The state executives of the party were dissolved by the National Executives as part of the agreement reached between national leadership of the party and Senator Kwankwaso before he finally agreed to join the party ahead of the 2019 election.
A caretaker committee was constituted and saddled with the responsibility of taking the affairs of the party against the wishes of some members that are against the Kwankwasiyya movement in the state.
The committee was under the leadership of Rabiu Sulaiman Bichi, a former Secretary to the State Government during the administration of Kwankwaso.
The party had almost cost to victory in the 9 March 2019 governorship election with its candidate Abba Kabir Yusuf, until the election was declared inconclusive and slated for March 23, last year.
Since the constitution of the caretaker committee, all is not well within the party. It has faced and pass through legal battles instituted by some members that are not loyal to Kwankwaso.
Though some political gladiators from the camp of Salihu Sagir Takai, a former governorship candidate of the party in 2015 have parted ways with him by joining the Kwankwasiyya movement, party members loyal to the camp of a former Minister of foreign affairs Amb. Aminu Wali stood their ground and worked against the emergence of Abba Kabir Yusuf as governor of Kano.
According to them, the candidature of Abba emerged through a fraudulent and undemocratic process that was condemned by all governorship aspirants of the party, with Ibrahim Ali Amin Little and Jafar Sani Bello, instituting and filing a legal action in court. Wali and other members participated in anti-party activities against Kwankwaso and his godson, a move that earned the camp the position of a Commissioner of Water Resources in the Ganduje administration.
There is clear indication that the party may be facing another serious crisis ahead of the congress, though Kwankwaso as leader of the party prefers consensus mostly on party leadership, but some members of the party are insisting that a congress must hold to pick party officials.
A member of the Kwankwasiyya movement who preferred anonymity told POLITICS DIGEST that, “There will be election this time and the tradition of imposing candidates for us will no longer be accepted. Even Abba Kabir Yusuf was imposed on us not because he is the most competent but we accepted it because of our loyalty to the party. I heard that our leader Senator Kwankwaso is doing whatever to maintain Abba as the governorship candidate of the party in 2023 against the wishes of many of us. Imposing a party chairman is dictatorial, the party does not belong to him,” he said.
The defection of the Chairman of the Party Rabiu Suleiman Bichi to APC some months ago paved way for the Secretary of the Party Shehu Wada Sagagi to take-over in acting capacity, until recently when a seven-man caretaker committee was constituted and sent by the National Headquarters of the party, under the leadership of Danladi Mohammed as Chairman and Air CDR Sani Zakari as secretary.
They are to act for a period of three months according to the National Organizing Secretary of PDP Col. Austin Akobundu Rtd but in another similar letter by a camp loyal to Aminu Wali and Senator Bello Hayatu Gwarzo contradicts the latter with different names as caretaker committee of the party under the Chairmanship of Amb. Zanna Hassan and Engr. Ahmed Lawan Safana as Secretary, the said letter was also signed by the same National Organizing Secretary of the Party Col. Austin Akobondu and Amb. Ibrahim Kazaure, the Vice Chairman of the Party North West.
All effort to reach the organising secretary to confirm the authenticity of the two letters proved abortive as his lines were not reachable at the time of filing this report.
This was contained in a letter sighted by POLITICS DIGEST.
There are many contenders for the position of the party’s chairman in the state. They include Shehu Wada Sagagi who joined the Kwankwasiyya movement from the camp of Aminu Wali. Some aggrieved party members told the Politics Digest that the action is in total breach of the Kwankwasiyya ideology.
Sagagi is having the support of some stakeholders of the party including a business mogul and former member of the House of the Representatives, Muhammad Abubakar Mai Fata. They are ready to resist any attempt of imposing a party Chairman on them.
In Kwankwasiyya, aspirants and potential candidates are not expected to publicize their aspiration for any political office until they are told to do so. Most of the elective positions held by its members were through consensus.
Apart from Sagagi, there other likely contenders who are yet to publicly declare their interest for the fear of being harassed by the leader. Some of the potential candidates include Aliyu Sani Madaki a former member of the House of Representatives; Umar Haruna Doguwa a former Chairman of APC in Kano; Barr. Aminu Dala who is the state Chairman of the Kwankwasiyya Movement and Uba Magaji Abubakar, a personal assistant to the former commissioner for land Yusuf Bello Danbatta among others.
Kwankwaso is very careful this time as he is scared of plunging the party into any crisis.
Most of the party members that are kicking against the idea of imposition have enormous resources to fight back against any political intricacy.
Being a former governor and political juggernaut in Kano, Senator Kwankwaso is in a dilemma on how he could produce the state party chairman among his loyalists without ‘backfiring’ and forcing him to political oblivion.
Meanwhile most political watchers have cautioned that since Kwankwaso has been out of political power for more than five years; he should be careful on how he intends to impose a party chairman against the likely wishes of other prominent stakeholders.
His action or inaction should never destroy the future of the party in the state, they warned
Adnan Mukhtar Adam
Manager, PRNigeria Centre Kano
