Abdullahi Ganduje, the witty national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, did not see the missile coming until it hit him. It was a bad hit from the home front. Sometime in the middle of April this year, some fellows from his Ganduje Ward in Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area of Kano State announced his suspension from the ward branch of the party for alleged sundry criminal infractions.
For effect, the dissidents approached Justice Usman Na’abba of the High Court of Kano State. They asked him to affirm their action by restraining Ganduje from parading himself as the national chairman of the APC. The learned judge obliged them.
As the national political firmament was taken aback by what could pass for a deft civilian coup and political manoeuvre, the party leadership responded swiftly, making it very clear that it would not accept what it considered an illegal order of a court. “The purported suspension is downright criminal, and of no effect whatsoever,” Felix Morka, the APC national publicity secretary, thundered, adding, “The legitimate Executive Committee of the Ganduje Ward has since denounced the action and reaffirmed Ganduje as a bonafide member of the party in the ward, and in good standing.”
Dismissing the action as the devious act of a group of impersonators of ward officials out to cause mischief and create confusion in the otherwise peaceful Ganduje Ward chapter of the party, Morka apprehended the main opposition party, New Nigeria Peoples Party, as the mischief-makers who are working in tandem with some dissidents in the APC.
The APC leadership was spot-on. Every card-carrying member of the party who is bound to have, and read its constitution would have known that no national executive member, particularly, the national chairman, could be disciplined by any other organ than the National Executive Committee. It is the NEC that is empowered to sanction any infraction of party rules by its NEC members. To that extent, any ward that purports to take that course of action acts in vain.
Not to be caught in the web of illegalities, the party leadership took the right step of approaching the Federal High Court, sitting in Kano to obtain an order restoring Ganduje not only as a member but also as the legitimate national chairman of the APC. Justice Abdullahi Liman obliged the prayers of the party leadership, effectively restraining anybody from harassing the national chairman from performing his duty until issues are joined before him and resolved.
The court has only offered Ganduje relief. He would need to properly locate the sources of his troubles and tackle them if he wants lasting peace. Not a few keen watchers of the politics of his ascendancy to the office of national chairman, knew that he had to maintain a delicate balance of interest between those who see him as a usurper and those who installed him to leverage their hold on the party.
Chosen by President Bola Tinubu as a replacement for Abdullahi Adamu, who had fallen out of favour and had to resign, Ganduje was seen by powerful interests from the North-central zone who felt that the former chairman’s substitute ought to have come from their zone. It is believed that these forces may have colluded with the national chairman’s political foes in his Kano home state to embarrass him.
Politics at his Kano homestead had become zerosome since his quarrel with his erstwhile godfather, Rabiu Kwankwaso, who handed over to him in 2015. Following Ganduje’s decision to switch loyalty to President Muhammadu Buhari as both began their tenure and had to work closely together, Kwankwaso felt stranded and betrayed and became openly hostile to his godson. The explanation that the governor had to maintain a smooth relationship with the president if the state was to benefit maximally from federal patronages did not impress Kwankwaso, who later left the APC to return to the Peoples Democratic Party.
Efforts by political associates to reconcile Kwankwaso and Ganduje failed and the hostility became so intense that the latter could only survive his contest for a second term after a keen rerun election that took an arm and a leg. Ganduje’s second term was tough as Kwankwaso and his supporters turned Kano into a political battleground. So bitter was the political contestation that despite Ganduje’s sterling achievements, his preferred candidate, who ran on the APC ticket in the 2023 election, Nasiru Gawuna, could not prevail over Kwankwaso’s NNPP candidate, Abba Yusuf.
Since Yusuf took over in 2023, he has continued the hostility towards Ganduje, renovating sundry allegations of corruption that had remained unproven to date. He has attempted to obliterate in less than one year, the glowing achievements that his predecessor made in eight years of hard work. The governor’s main strategy has been to discredit his predecessor by all means possible, including renewing the investigation into a bribery allegation made in 2018. Yusuf had procured the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission to renew the investigation into an allegation that Ganduje demanded and collected $5 million from contractors to the state government. Again, the former governor sought refuge in the court as a High Court of Kano State on March 4, 2024 restrained the commission from proceeding with the investigation.
However, many social critics believe that Yusuf’s continuation of hostility towards Ganduje is unwise, maintaining that he should recognise his predecessor’s milestones and improve on them. They pointed at his strides in the field of education and health and admonished the new governor to take them forward.
True, Ganduje paid special attention to education in the belief that it was the only way the future of the state could be assured. He instituted free and compulsory basic and secondary education in the state in 2019, spending over N7 billion to ensure that every child gained free access to education. To tackle the scourge of out-of-school children, he signed a law on Free and Compulsory Basic and Secondary Education, particularly for girls and vulnerable children with special needs. The policy and the law addressed the issues of access and pre-entry of adolescent girls to school in the state. To facilitate funding, he established the Education Trust Fund to complement the state government’s financial commitments.
Under Ganduje’s watch, over N20 billion was spent on overseas postgraduate scholarships in 14 countries for 111,687 indigent students. Many students also enjoyed scholarships to undergo postgraduate studies in Nigerian universities while indigenous Kano law graduates were sponsored to the Nigerian Law School. In addition, over 50 lecturers from the two universities and other tertiary institutions in the state were sponsored for their doctorate degrees in French prestigious universities under a programme jointly carried out between the French and Kano state governments. Over N600 million was committed to the joint tuition-free postgraduate scholarship between the state government and the French Embassy in Nigeria.
Ganduje left an indelible mark in the health sector, establishing the contributory healthcare scheme and healthcare management agency. The scheme covered workers in the state civil service, primary school teachers and local government employees, as well as the organised private and informal sectors, while other citizens in the state also had access to the scheme.
Yusuf, and other Ganduje haters, some analysts say, ought to be hailing rather than harassing him for his good works.
According to Prince Oliver, “Ganduje is a strategic and composed leader, who has a grip of the nitty gritty of administering a political party. And that is what he has been doing trenchantly.”
Ladan, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Abuja
