Kwankwaso Allegedly Moving Towards APC to Ensure Gov Yusuf’s Re-election– Party Chieftain
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Musa Iliyasu Kwankwaso, has alleged that Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, leader of the Kwankwasiyya movement and presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in the 2023 election, is making moves to align with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to facilitate a second term for Kano State governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf.
Speaking to journalists in Kano on Thursday, Iliyasu, a former commissioner and current Director of Finance at Hadejia Jama’are River Basin Development Authority, claimed that Kwankwaso is attempting to rejoin the APC for political leverage.
“We are aware of Kwankwaso’s persistent efforts to gain President Tinubu’s attention so that he can return to the APC and pave an easy path for his governor’s second term,” Iliyasu stated.
He cautioned Tinubu against trusting Kwankwaso, referencing past “political betrayals” involving former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former President Goodluck Jonathan.
“Tinubu should ask Atiku and Jonathan about their experiences with Kwankwaso. He aligned himself with Atiku several times, yet history tells the rest of the story. Under Jonathan’s presidency, he pretended to support him, only to abandon him in 2015 when he joined the APC merger.”
Iliyasu further alleged that Kwankwaso left the APC for the PDP in 2019, only to later join the NNPP in 2023—a move he claimed was aimed at undermining Atiku’s support in Kano.
“Even after reducing Atiku’s votes in Kano, Kwankwaso couldn’t remain in the PDP. He moved to NNPP, abandoning Tinubu in the process,” he added.
He also referenced a court ruling that questioned Kwankwaso’s membership of the NNPP, suggesting that key figures who once supported him such as Abdulrahman Kawu Sumaila and Alhassan Rurum have already defected.
“Most NNPP House of Representatives members who won under the party’s fruit and basket logo are now aligning with the APC. Soon, Kwankwaso will be left politically isolated,” Iliyasu concluded.
But Chairman of the NNPP in Kano, Hashim Sulaiman Dungurawa, said it is not true that key members of the party were planning defecting to APC.
“We, as NNPP stakeholders, leaders, and governors, remain in the NNPP, and we are doing well. Our governor is performing, he is, in fact, the best-performing governor in Nigeria. So what would we gain by leaving the NNPP for the APC?” he questioned.
Dungurawa criticized the APC’s governance, calling its policies “difficult and useless,” particularly concerning taxation, subsidy removal, insecurity, and economic hardship.
“How can an NNPP member join the APC? For what purpose? To waste his time or deceive his people? The APC has failed in governance. Even one of their former governors, the immediate past governor of Kaduna State, admitted that the party lacks talented people who understand governance,” he argued.
He further dismissed suggestions that Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the founder of NNPP, would return to the APC, stating that such a move would be against the principles that led to the party’s creation.
“How can you ask an experienced civil engineer, a respected leader, to return to the APC? Kwankwaso built the NNPP, without him, the party wouldn’t exist. Anyone claiming NNPP members are defecting is simply lying,” he declared.
