Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, the second-term Governor of Kano State, is a well educated man. After a first degree in Science Education, he went on to earn two Masters degrees, one in Applied Educational Psychology and the other in Public Administration. He topped his formal education with a doctorate degree in Public Administration from the University of Ibadan.
The 18-year gap between his bachelor’s and doctorate degrees were filled with doses of post-graduate education and his foray into politics. Indeed, he obtained his first Master’s degree in the same year (1979) that he became the Assistant Secretary of the defunct National Party of Nigeria in Kano state and also ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives.
He would later succeed in elected office as Deputy Governor twice (1999-2003 and 2011-2015), both to Rabiu Kwankwaso. As Deputy Governor, he held the portfolio of Commissioner for Local Government. Between his two tenures as Deputy Governor, he served as Special Adviser (Political) to Kwankwaso, when the latter served as the Minister of Defence; as a member of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority; and as Secretary of the Lake Chad Basin Commission. Ganduje was eventually elected Governor of Kano in 2015 and won reelection in 2019 amidst controversies.
Ganduje’s educational and political backgrounds confirm that he is neither unskilled in administration nor is he a political novice. You may quarrel with the way he has deployed his skills but you cannot deny him of adequate training and preparation for political office. He surely has brought his education and political skills to bear on his administration of Kano state. What is in dispute is his politics and his exercise of power.
It is difficult to tease out Ganduje’s political ideology, given his migration from the People’s Democratic Party, which gained notoriety for corruption and electoral malpractices, to the All Progressives Congress. His political root in the defunct National Party of Nigeria with all its notoriety can only lead to more questions about his partisan politics. Perhaps the best one can say is that he shops for access to power like other political migrants or party switchers.
What is most worrisome about Ganduje is his bulldozer approach to the quest for power and its exercise. His conception of power seems to privilege control and exclusion rather than facilitation and inclusion. Having fallen out with Kwankwaso, his former boss and friend, he engaged the state police command to prevent Kwankwaso from coming to Kano, where the latter was a two-term Governor and a serving State Senator at the time.
True, he accused Kwankwaso of overbearing influence on local politics, referring to him as “somebody who had left office (still trying) to influence what happened in the state”. Nevertheless, barring Kwankwaso from entering the state belies Ganduje’s educational pedigree.
If it took the intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari to restore the appearance of democratic civility between him and Kwankwaso, then it means that Ganduje either lacks that quality or chose to suspend it for personal political gain. All the fight against Kwankwaso was meant to increase his (Ganduje’s) chance of winning re-election, while simultaneously reducing the chances of Kwankwaso’s PDP and its candidate.
Ganduje was not done. He took the fight to the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, by bulkanizing the Kano emirate into five, thus restricting Sanusi’s area of influence. Ganduje also instructed the traditional District heads not to participate in Sanusi’s traditional Durbar celebration. Ganduje had earlier cancelled another traditional Sallah event, which the Emir of Kano usually attends, citing security concerns.
Anyone familiar with the eminent history of the Kano emirate would understand the extent to which Ganduje has gone to trample on emirate’s history and tradition in pursuing his own political goals (see Jide Osuntokun’s historical excursion in Ganduje and the emirate of Kano, The Nation, June 13, 2019). The District heads were not unaware of this history, hence their attendance at Sanusi’s Durbar event against Ganduje’s order.
If Sanusi’s characteristic critical commentary were the only problem Ganduje had with the Emir, then Ganduje could be accused of lacking the necessary political spine to take criticism. However, his grouse with the Emir goes much deeper. It is not unconnected with the latter’s alliance with Kwankwaso in supporting the opposition Peoples Democratic Party candidate against Ganduje during the governorship election.
Sanusi’s support of Kwankwaso was predictable, although he could have been much more diplomatic in showing it. It was Kwankwaso who installed him as the Emir of Kano against odds from within and outside the emirate council: There were serious protests by the supporters of other keen competitors from within, while the Jonathan presidency did all it could to stop the installation. Ganduje cannot plead ignorance as he was Kwankwaso’s Deputy at the time.
There are several takeaways from the Ganduje-Kwankwaso and Ganduje-Sanusi conflicts. It is high time we reflected hard on the rampant conflict between politicians who previously had a boss-subordinate relationship, as between Kwankwaso and Ganduje; between Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and Nyesom Wike; between Peter Obi and Willie Obiano; and between Adams Oshiomhole and Godwin Obaseki.
The underlying theme in the disputes is the overbearing influence of the former boss. There is a lesson here for former Governors: Once you leave office, let your successor be his own man or woman. At the same time, subordinates-turn-Governor must always acknowledge and respect their benefactors. They should remember that they, too, will have to learn new ropes as ex-Governor tomorrow.
Clearly, Emir Sanusi, as the traditional ruler of Kano, should have been much less outwardly critical of Governor Ganduje, the democratic political leader of the state. Recent events pitting them against each other show that ach of them requires much more tact and diplomacy in dealing with the other.
On the surface, Ganduje’s treatment of Kwankwaso went too far, given the long-time relationship between them. Similarly, Ganduje’s tit-for-tat approach in responding to Sanusi went too far, having won re-election, despite the latter’s support for his rival.
The above notwithstanding, Nigerian politicians should brace up for rancorous encounters with highly educated and exposed traditional rulers.