THE immediate past National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has described the 2023 presidential candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, as a “political bird” capable of moving from one political platform to another.
News Point Nigeria reports that Ganduje made the remarks while speaking on Kano politics during an interview with BBC Hausa.
Kwankwaso, a former governor of Kano State, had on March 30 joined the African Democratic Congress, citing internal crisis within his former party.
However, weeks later, the former senator dumped the ADC and joined the Nigeria Democratic Congress alongside the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi.
The duo were said to have concluded plans to defect immediately after the Supreme Court judgment, which recognised the leadership of David Mark but remitted the leadership tussle in the ADC back to the trial court.
Speaking during the interview, Ganduje claimed that Kano State Governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf, had foreseen the challenges now confronting Kwankwaso and his supporters, a situation he said informed the governor’s decision to join the APC.
According to him, Governor Yusuf had closely monitored political developments across the country and decided to align with the APC at the centre in order to ensure political stability in Kano State.
“We share the political roots, having started at the PDP. Because of Kwankwaso we joined the APC. We later dumped the party. He left us there. He was groping for a new political platform, when eventually aligned with the NNPP, where he went on to form a government,” Ganduje said.
When asked whether Kwankwaso’s defection to the ADC would constitute a threat to the APC, Ganduje dismissed the possibility.
“He (Kwankwaso) has become a political drifter; a political bird that can perch anywhere, moving from one platform to another. We deployed our political strategy to wrestle the control of the government from him. The governor is now ours,” he stated.
Ganduje further argued that Kwankwaso’s latest political movement would not pose any challenge to the APC in future elections, insisting that the former governor’s repeated party defections reflect political decline.
“He joined a political party, which is a coalition of people of differing interests; each one of them wants be handed the presidential ticket. That very issue will ultimately disorganize them,” he added.
According to Ganduje, members of the coalition are already battling internal disagreements.
“They are already in conflict with one another right now fighting each other. Meanwhile state governors are aligning with the APC. There has never been a time in the history of Nigeria when a political party has had 31 state governors,” he said.