By John Olu
Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf did something in Rano on Monday that no Kwankwasiyya protégé has dared to do in over a decade. He looked his godfather in the eye, metaphorically, at least, and told him to shut his mouth.
“Do not push me to the wall,” Yusuf said, addressing party supporters during the affirmation of Sulaiman Kawu Sumaila as the APC senatorial candidate for Kano South. “Else, you will hear a lot of revelations.”
This was not the usual coded language of Kano politics where everyone pretends they are talking about someone else. Yusuf named no names, but he did not have to. When he asked, “How could a 69-year-old call a 63-year-old a kid?” everyone in that hall knew he was talking about Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.
For months, Yusuf had kept quiet. Kwankwaso had called him a betrayer. Had boasted that the Kwankwasiyya movement made him governor. Had referred to him, a sitting governor, as “my PA” in interviews. And Yusuf said nothing. People began to whisper. Was the governor afraid?
Yesterday, he answered. “Silence is not a sign of fear,” he said. Then he added the word that has Kwankwaso’s camp looking over its shoulder: “revelations.”
Whatever is in that folder, Kwankwaso does not want it opened.
The breakup happened in January. On January 23, Yusuf resigned from the NNPP. Three days later, on January 26, he formally rejoined the APC. Kwankwaso called January 23 the “World Day of Betrayal.” It was classic Kwankwaso — dramatic, self-martyring, and completely blind to his own role in pushing his protégé away.
Here is what Kwankwaso does not seem to understand. You cannot spend months calling a sitting governor your personal assistant and expect loyalty to survive. You cannot boast publicly about how you made him and expect him to remain grateful. At some point, the man in Government House starts to wonder: am I governor or am I still your errand boy?
Apparently, Yusuf decided he was done wondering.
The Movement Was Never His Alone
Here is the part of the story that Kwankwaso’s loyalists do not like to discuss. Kwankwasiyya was never his personal creation.
The movement started in 2010. According to Dr. Rabi’u Sulaiman Bichi, one of its original founders, the idea was conceived after the PDP lost the 2007 election. Bichi said he approached Dr. Hafiz Abubakar, and together they developed the ideologies, good governance, politics without bitterness, youth empowerment. They spent five months building the movement before they even brought it to Kwankwaso. And when they did, he initially rejected the idea because he “did not like anything organization.”
The man who now presents himself as the father of Kwankwasiyya did not even want it at first. He had to be convinced.
Other founding members included Dr. Yunusa Adamu Dangwani, Senator Bello Hayatu Gwarzo, and even current APC National Chairman Abdullahi Ganduje. Today, most of those original founders are no longer in Kwankwaso’s inner circle. The man who built a movement on loyalty has spent fifteen years alienating the people who helped him build it.
Kwankwaso’s camp insists they tried to make peace. Goni Shehu Wada Sagagi, a former Chief of Staff to the Kano State Government, alleged last week that Kwankwaso had directed him to reach out to Yusuf. According to Sagagi, Yusuf fixed a date for a reconciliation meeting but never showed up. Later, he stopped responding to calls and messages entirely.
Kwankwaso, Sagagi said, remained open to dialogue throughout.
Maybe that is true. But here is the problem. You cannot publicly humiliate a man and then send emissaries to quietly patch things up. Yusuf seems to have decided that if Kwankwaso wants peace, he can say it himself. In public. Without the “my PA” talk.
The immediate political math favors Yusuf. Eight members of the House of Representatives from Kano have followed him into the APC. Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin has shelved his own governorship ambitions to welcome Yusuf into the party fold. Even Ganduje, who fought Kwankwaso for years, is now in the same tent.
Kwankwaso is not finished. He still commands a loyal base among the talakawa. The red cap still means something in the villages. He has moved to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and is exploring a presidential coalition with Peter Obi. The Kwankwasiyya scholarship program has produced thousands of professionals who remain loyal to him. That is not nothing.
But here is the problem for Kwankwaso. A presidential candidate who cannot control his home state is walking on one leg. And Yusuf now controls the government house. He controls the local government chairmen. He controls the flow of resources. He also has the federal government behind him through the APC.
Kwankwaso can call Yusuf a betrayer from now until 2027. But Yusuf is the one signing the cheques.
Is the Kwankwasiyya dynasty crumbling? Not yet. Political machines in Kano have survived worse. But this time is different. This is not an outsider attacking. This is the man Kwankwaso raised — the one he made governor — standing in Rano and telling him to keep his mouth shut.
Whatever Yusuf knows, he has not yet said. That “revelations” threat is still hanging. And until we find out what is in that folder, Kwankwaso’s camp will be looking over their shoulders.
The student has decided he is no longer a student. In Kano politics, that is when things get interesting.
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