No one thinks that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) state chapters are free of bickering and rancour. If the rancour appears subdued, or if party elders still command respect and exert tremendous influence on quarrelsome rank and file, it is because the party controls the national levers of power and distributes patronage. The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), and the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) are not so lucky. Since they lost the presidential election last year, both the PDP and LP have been at once strident in opposition and wracked by guilt and rage. Last week, this column explored the tangential issue of electoral cooperation between the NNPP and LP, wondering why instead of tackling their identity crises and internal conflict, they chose to focus on the more ambitious project of taking the presidency in 2027. The PDP, as nearly everyone knows, had lain in crisis since 2015. It is now the turn of the two other opposition parties to confront their fates.
While the cancer gnawing at the liver of the PDP has festered for nearly a decade, some three weeks ago, the tremor coursing through the body politic of the LP assumed monumental dimension. Now, the NNPP, an otherwise fringe party controlling only Kano State, will not be outdone. Party leaders, led by the pugnacious and vengeful Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, have managed against the run of play to furnish themselves not only an internal crisis but also a war. No party has a monopoly of internal crisis, not even the APC, let alone the naturally fractious PDP, but the NNPP is determined not to be a laggard. The Young Turks in the party, though still scheming in the shadows, and working in concert with a smattering of old and calloused hands, have signaled the start of a rebellion. Their goal is to either dissipate the influence of Dr Kwankwaso or overthrow his suzerainty altogether. They feel his overbearing presence too constraining, and his diktats, not to say his malice, bilious and anachronistic. They also empathise with the ‘helpless’ Kano governor Abba Kabir Yusuf whom they are secretly nudging to extricate himself from the stranglehold of the party leader. But they do not yet have the courage to challenge their mentor in open fight. They know a thing or two about the unappeasable Dr Kwankwaso, with a few of them having at one time or the other been scorched by his fury; and they know quite well that he does not take prisoners. For now, however, they will fight him secretly, and even hide behind the thin flak jacket of the governor.
This is of course not the first time the NNPP, which was founded in 2002 by the Anambrarian Boniface Aniebonam, will be engaged in fratricidal conflict. Since its takeover by the Kwankwasiyya crowd in 2022, the party has been ill at ease. Last April, Mr Aniebonam accused Dr kwankwaso, who is now informally described as NNPP party leader, of hijacking the party, changing its logo and flag, and mutilating its constitution. But that initial fight was half-hearted and stalemated. A new chapter in the fight has now
been opened. Unsettled by how the party leader has been riding roughshod over everyone in the party, particularly Gov Yusuf, a few party top shots reportedly schemed to throw off Dr Kwankwaso’s yoke. The alleged rebels refused to confirm the existence of any plot, but the state chairman of the party, Hashim Sulaiman Dungurawa, zeroed in on a few of the alleged masterminds and suspended them from the party ostensibly for disrespecting the party, disloyalty, and abuse of power. They are the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Abdullahi Baffa Bichi, and the Commissioner of Transportation, Muhammad Diggol.
The story of the brewing revolt in Kano is, however, not the usual kind. Sources suggest that the so-called rebellion tagged ‘Abba Tsaya da Kafarka’ meaning, Abba stand on your feet, was plotted to put an end to the dominance and dictations of Dr Kwankwaso. The suspension of the two officials has since been rescinded, and both of them have disowned the plot, but the feeling persists around the seat of power in Kano that the party leader is unsparing and megalomaniacal. The party leader himself refused to comment on the matter, especially on the suspension of the two government officials, preferring instead that all inquiries be directed to the party chairman, but no one is deceived that his reticence means absolution. The plotters may have shriveled like worms on a hot plate, but everyone knows that it is a question of time before the silent war breaks into the open. The excesses of Dr Kwankwaso will make an open confrontation certain.
Gov Yusuf is unlikely to join any rebellion now, regardless of how much Dr Kwankwaso needles him. Though it is clear to many Kanawa that the governor does not enjoy as much freedom as he would like, he would, however, continue to walk the tightrope for as long as is humanly tolerable. He has been made to inherit the party leader’s enemies, chief among whom is former governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. But he has probably seen why his predecessor fell out with the party leader. Whether his education is complete on this issue or not, he will nevertheless be wary of fighting his benefactor openly. Two reasons will account for his restraint. Firstly, he won the Kano governorship poll by a wafer-thin margin, scoring only 52 percent controversially upheld by the Supreme Court. If he is keen on reelection, he will try his utmost to accommodate the eccentricities of his mentor and party leader.
Secondly, Kano has an unenviable history of godsons fighting with and alienating their godfathers, as exampled by the late Governor Abubakar Rimi versus the statesman and NEPU legend, Aminu Kano. The end result of that open warfare did not bode well for the former governor’s political career. Dr Kwankwaso probably exaggerates his influence and power in Kano, and by overreaching himself too many times, he may already have compromised the reverence in which he is held. But Gov Yusuf will not want to find out whether he would be undone by an open warfare with his party leader. More, seeing how the SSG and Transportation commissioner ate crow last week, no one in public office in Kano will be eager to flex his muscles anytime soon. Discretion, they say, is the better part of valour. Borno, Katsina and Niger States are some of the very few states where godfathers enthroned godsons without acrimony or subsequent interferences. Kano and Rivers States could borrow a leaf from any of those three states had godfathers Kwankwaso and Nyesom Wike been made of subtler and more nuanced stuff.
