By DICKSON OMONODE
SINCE the December 2014 National Convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos where President Muhammadu Buhari was elected the party’s presidential candidate, there have been indications of likelihood of cold war with the former Governor of Kano State, now a member of the National Assembly, representing Kano Central, Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, who came second in that primary election.
Close aides of the former Kano Governor revealed that Kwankwaso’s refusal to step down for Buhari during the APC primary was the beginning of their crisis.
The former Kano Governor was said to have stormed out of a peace meeting called by El-Rufai and Tinubu before the APC presidential primaries in Lagos, insisting that the party must provide a level playing field for the better candidate to emerge as the standard bearer of the party.
National Daily Intelligence gathered that but for last minute moves by Bola Tinubu, El-Rufai and Rotimi Amaechi, Kwankwaso would have emerged the presidential candidate of the APC as he had the single largest delegation to the primaries.
This, it was gathered, did not go down well with Buhari who has vowed to render the former Kano Governor politically irrelevant.
Back home in Kano, there were insinuations that Kwankwaso did not want to give the governorship ticket to his deputy governor.
Again, Kwankwaso getting the Senate ticket, at the expense of some serving lawmakers seeking re-election into the National Assembly, didn’t go down well with Buhari either.
Obviously, the cold war, now, is telling more on the former governor. Apart from the July botched arrest, Sen. Kwankwanso, at appoint, was said have been restricted to Abuja. And Ganduje is currently bearing down hard on Kwankwaso’s loyalists in Kano.
Fighting the July 2015 restriction of his client, the legal counsel to the embattled senator, Barrister Okechukwu Eze, had complained to a Kano High Court, sitting in Gezawa, that the EFCC threat of arrest of the former Kano governor confined him to his residence in Abuja.
Okechukwu Eze protested before the court: “My client has been in his house over the threat of arrest by the EFCC and have been denied the liberty to perform his legislative duties as mandated by voters of Kano Central District.”
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The legal counsel had further argued: “We have expressive fear that Kwankwaso’s right to liberty, freedom of movement as guaranteed under the constitution is likely to be violated by EFCC.”
Though he acknowledged that FCC has the power to investigate financial crimes, he contended it should be based and founded on reasonable suspicion.
The counsel had requested the court presided by Justice Mohammed Yahaya, to restrain the EFCC from arresting Kwankwaso pending the determination of the suit, arguing that “injunction would be used as a shield and not as a sword.”
There was an innuendo, then, that the president was not quite pleased over the maximum support that Kano delegates gave to the former Kano Governor at the APC national convention in Lagos.
It was disclosed that all Kano delegates voted Kwankwaso, forcing Buhari to derive the wide margin of victory from the southern delegates, many of who were influenced by Tinubu.
Accordingly, Kwankwaso, was perhaps, perceived as showing enormous influence to compete with any political leader in the north.
The National Daily investigation revealed that the lingering impasse in Kano State between Kwankwaso and Governor Ganduje is being attributed to the former governor’s presidential ambition towards 2019 when the incumbent president has not declared he will not be interested in the race for re-election.
Sources revealed that Ganduje, who has been a close political ally of Kwankwaso since 1999, is opposed to his predecessor’s ambition until the incumbent president makes his decision whether or not to contest in 2019.
Some stakeholders in Kano construe Ganduje to be fighting Kwankwaso, plucking out his loyalists from Kano government, on behalf of the president.
Moreover, some have expressed suspicions that the crisis in the House of Representatives, which is preponderantly led by two lawmakers from Kano, namely, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, former Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriation, and Hon Bashir Baballe, Chairman of House Committee on Budget and National Planning, may be an attempt to remove the Speaker of the House, Right Hon. Yakubu Dogara. He is widely perceived to be having a very cordial relationship and understanding with President Buhari.
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The minimum objective could be to devastate the House of Representatives, sowing seeds of discords among the lawmakers.
However, President Buhari had maintained a cordial relationship with Kwankwanso during the period of negotiation and registration of the APC as a political party which coincided with the era of internal conflict in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where seven PDP Governors, the G7, constituted a strong power bloc against the party and former President Goodluck Jonathan.
President Buhari had then made official visit to Kwankwaso in Kano in an overture to persuade him to dump the PDP and join the forces in the APC.
The PDP G7 comprised of Kwankwaso, former Governors Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State, Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko of Sokoto State, Mua’zu Babangida Aliyu of Niger State and Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State.
Kwankwaso also became an admirable political bride to former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu during that period.
Thereafter, Kwankwaso led five PDP governors, the G5, to defect to the APC. That defection which also involved several senators and House of Representatives members, altered the power equation among the leading two political parties and relatively upturned the majority dominance of the PDP.
Kwankwaso subsequently delivered the highest wining votes to the APC in the 2015 presidential election from Kano State.
The entrance of the G5 into the APC reinforced the then opposition party and further introduced elements of radical political behavior since the G5 understand the power structure of the PDP.
But for now, the covert crisis has been restricted to the internal conflicts in Kano where Ganduje has established his own political structure and army of loyalists.