A 30-Year-Long Political Contest
It now seems like a century ago when President Bola Tinubu uttered the words emi lokan in the lead up to the 2023 presidential election.
It was cry of frustration, and even desperation on Tinubu’s part that President Muhammadu Buhari did not appear to support his bid to succeed him as president.
From Tinubu’s point of view, he had made all the relevant sacrifices; given up the historically tradition political party promoting the Yoruba agenda, going all the way back to Obafemi Awolowo in the first and second republics.
He had offered Buhari a platform to capture votes in the southwest and put an end to a 12-year losing streak.
And when the time came to pay him back and pay back the southwest for providing the winning votes, Buhari wouldn’t reciprocate.
In fact, he wouldn’t even get involved in the succession battle.
For a short period in 2022, Tinubu’s investment in Buhari and in the north appeared to have been a loss.
But the fact that he is president today is testimony that the ACN, CPC merger was the best political investment he ever made.
It just wasn’t enough to earn him the APC presidential ticket for the 2023 election.
His second best investment earned that for him.
And that was when he chose to intervene in the 2019 governorship election in Kano when Governor Abdullahi Ganduje was on cusp of losing his re-election to a Rabiu Kwankwaso inspired movement.
Tinubu poured money, engaged in political arm-twisting and mobilised security forces to change the outcome of the election even though all he was at that time, was a national leader of the ruling APC.
But unlike Buhari, Ganduje didn’t forget.
At the time when the whole country was waiting for Buhari to provide a sense of direction on who his successor would be, the president proved to be indecisive.
It was left to the state governors, particularly those from the north, to form a consensus and coalesce around a single candidate.
But the search for that candidate never really took off because at least one governor was dead set on only one person and wouldn’t budge.
For Abdullahi Ganduje, there was only Tinubu.
Ganduje happened to be governor of Kano. And where Kano goes, the rest had to follow.
Recent events in Kano have forced participants, bystanders and political observers to retell a political rivalry that goes back to 1998 when both Kwankwaso and Ganduje challenged each other for the governorship ticket of the PDP.
It was a contest that was decided in Kwankwaso’s favour, but never really ended.
What comes out from the stories being retold is how two politicians with their destinies intertwined and both friend and foe to each other, have come to dominate the politics of the state for nearly 30 years.
After winning the PDP primaries, Kwankwaso couldn’t alienate Ganduje and had to make him his running mate.
Four years later, they confronted defeat and were pushed out of office by Ibrahim Shekarau who ended up interrupting their partnership and quiet rivalry for eight long years.
It was in part a result of national politics and the effect it had in Kano.
Kwankwaso had supported Olusegun Obasanjo’s re-election in 2003 even though the president was unpopular in the state.
It was also when Buhari first contested a presidential election.
At the time when the whole country was waiting for Buhari to provide a sense of direction on who his successor would be, the president proved to be indecisive
Across the north, sentiments were high and exceptionally so in Kano during the 2011 presidential election.
Umaru Yar’Adua had just died before completing a full term in office.
There was pressure on Goodluck Jonathan not to contest the election and instead let the north complete two terms after the eight years of Obasanjo, all under the PDP.
In the opposition, Buhari’s popularity was at its peak even though he had broken away from the ANPP.
Riots even broke out in some northern states after Buhari lost the election.
It was under that atmosphere that Kwankwaso would make a comeback and reclaim the governorship seat, showing the strength of his character.
It was akin to a man rising from the dead.
But he came with Ganduje as his deputy again, proving they could come together when needed.
The late George H W Bush once said the hardest job he ever had was being Vice President because you couldn’t be yourself.
You had to stand by the president no matter what.
The same can be said about deputy governors.
But there is a difference.
While both positions do not have meaningful constitutional powers, vice presidents manage to exert some level of political power.
Mike Pence, who was Vice President during Donald Trump’s first term proved that on January 6, 2022 when protesters broke into the US Congress in support of Trump.
While Trump was slow to act, it was Pence who ordered the National Guard to quell the riots.
And that was in spite of the fact that he had no constitutional authority to sidestep the president.
That political influence a vice president wields is a notion Tinubu must have glimpsed recently.
He can’t replace a vice president like he replaced a deputy governor without bearing significant political cost.
There are even suggestions in certain circles to replace his deputy with a northern minority.
Names like Hassan Kukah and Chris Musa have been mentioned.
The move could jolt Nigerian politics towards an unpredictable direction with radical outcomes.
That is because the office is one that represents the aspirations of entire regions, whether north or south and also because of the influence, symbolic weight and authority of being vice president.
On the other hand, the most commonly used phrase to describe a deputy governor in Nigeria is a spare tire; which is trampled upon, used and discarded at will.
It turned out Ganduje was no ordinary deputy governor.
His strength was unseen and yet, working behind scene and quietly wait for his turn.
The political forces that stood against Kwankwaso were too strong for him to name anybody other than Ganduje as his successor.
That was despite wanting somebody else just like he wanted someone else to be his running mate back in 1999.
But the moment Ganduje became governor was when the rivalry between them really exploded leading to the near defeat of Ganduje in 2019 and the eventual victory of Abba Kabir Yusuf, backed by Kwankwaso over Nasiru Gawuna who was Ganduje’s chosen candidate for the 2023 governorship election.
Kwankwaso had finally come out on top, wresting power from the ruling party using a little known platform of NNPP.
Apparently Ganduje had become sloppy.
According to tradition, as people age, they become more attached to money, power and to the life of this world.
But still, it was Ganduje that had the president’s ear and was even named national chairman of APC
All through 2025, President Tinubu was consolidating power, enticing state governors across the country to join the APC and Kano has been no different.
The president even replaced Ganduje as national chairman to pave the way for Kwankwaso and his protege, Abba Yusuf to defect to the APC.
But Tinubu and Kwankwaso couldn’t come to agreeable terms. The reasons are not far-fetched.
There was always the risk of APC imploding in Kano with Kwankwaso’s defection.
It is bad enough that both he and Ganduje would find themselves in the same party, but hundreds of other politicians would have to be displaced and ambitions dropped.
An implosion of the ruling APC in Kano would open opportunities wide as the heavens for the opposition parties.
In this scenario, that would be the ADC.
As fate would have it, the NNPP is the party that is imploding.
Seeing moves by Kwankwaso to deny him the NNPP ticket, Yusuf chose defection to the APC without his mentor, signaling an end to the reign and rivalry of Kwankwaso and Ganduje.
But politicians are like sharks and the smell of blood.
They can sense opportunities from a thousand kilometers away.
They are circling around Tinubu, Yusuf, Ganduje and Kwankwaso waiting for the slightest opening.
And just like Tinubu’s intervention in Kano politics back in 2019 was critical in ways that aren’t so apparent but real, a wrong move today could have the very opposite effect and bring his mighty house tumbling down.