Former Kano State Governor and 2027 Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) vice-presidential candidate, Dr Rabiu Kwankwaso, has declared that his estranged political allies, former governors Ibrahim Shekarau and Abdullahi Ganduje, along with incumbent Governor Abba Yusuf, have become politically irrelevant in Kano State.
During a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Personality Interview Series in Abuja, he said, “If you can even see the issue of Ganduje, who we came together and supported, and became governor free of charge. The day when he started fighting was the beginning of his problem. If I may ask: where is he now? It is difficult to see him.”
Kwankwaso argued that Ganduje would have enjoyed greater respect across Kano and beyond had he remained faithful to their shared political movement, noting that the former governor now faces severe political struggles.
He further faulted Yusuf for supposedly turning his back on the loyalists who secured his election victory. Kwankwaso explained that he had initially selected Yusuf as his preferred candidate precisely to prevent a recurrence of Ganduje’s previous betrayal.
“Abba Yusuf: we went down, right down, to make sure that we picked the right person who would not go and repeat what Ganduje had done.
“Members of my political group worked day and night to field Yusuf in the 2019 governorship election, which Yusuf won before the result was overturned through litigation,” he stated.
Kwankwaso noted that the political movement successfully reassembled in 2023 to secure Yusuf’s election as governor, despite efforts to employ similar tactics to undermine the party. He maintained, however, that Yusuf has since cut ties with the political camp that engineered his victory.
“He left us, but he is not with Ganduje now. He is in between because I don’t think he is happy for anybody to call him Dan Gandujiyya,” he said.