Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, has dismissed the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as no threat to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2023 general election in Kano.
He referred to the presidential candidate of NNPP, Rabiu Kwankwaso, and PDP chieftain, Ibrahim Shekarau, as nomadic politicians, who lose followers while junketing from one party to another.
Speaking on Channels TV’s ‘Politics Today’, Ganduje expressed confidence in the capacity and control of APC in Kano, assuring that the party’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, will record a landslide victory in the state.
On how APC intends to actualise the promise for Tinubu when the presidential candidate of NNPP, Rabiu Kwankwaso, also controls a significant percentage of followers in Kano, Ganduje insisted that Kwankwaso was losing his supporters to APC.
He, however, challenged Kwankwaso to march his supporters in a rally to compare strength with the crowd of supporters that turned out for Tinubu/Shettima’s one-million march in Kano recently.
Also, reacting to whether the exit of Sen. Ibrahim Shekarau from the APC would affect the fortune of the party in the state, the governor said APC had won elections in the recent past without Shekarau.
His words: “Let me assure you that APC has overwhelming control in Kano. We are fully on the ground. On the issue of Kwankwaso, I can assure you that many of Kwankwaso’s loyalists are now in APC.
“If Kwankwaso thinks he can win the presidential ballot in Kano, let him hold a similar march like ours and see if he can match us.”
“On Shekarau, we won our election without him. Later we invited him to our party and he decided to leave to join Kwankwaso’s party.
“Later, he left Kwankwaso’s party to PDP where he originally belongs. You can see that these are nomads in politics, who lose followers at every point.”
On the wave of following the presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, enjoys nationwide and whether APC sees him as a potential threat in Kano, Ganduje described the emergence of Obi as rather a good omen to the APC.
According to the governor, if there will be any room or chance for fear with the emergence of Obi, the PDP should be in the best position to be afraid and not the APC.
“The emergence of LP presidential candidate is a good omen to APC because we would no longer have a major contender, which is the PDP.
“Now, even if we want to consider our political investment in the South East, the votes from Nasarawa Local Council in Kano is higher than the votes APC got from the entire five states of the South East.
“So, you can see that if there is any problem politically in the South East, it is the PDP that would suffer the consequences.
“Hence, the emergence of Obi will only snatch PDP votes and it is already snatching it away. Now, the attention of PDP is being diverted, apart from their internal crisis of G-5 governors, the Obi factor is another problem for them.
“Any political analyst will know that LP is a minus for PDP and, by extrapolation, a plus for APC,” Ganduje declared.
