The Rifts that May Ruffle Kano APC in 2023
The sudden resignation of the Speaker and Majority Leader of Kano State House of Assembly in December last year was considered by the majority as one of the indication of the latent conflict brewing underneath the apparent calmness in the Kano All Progressive Congress (APC). The after-effect is expected to spew over even more as the year 2023 progresses.
The impending face-off between Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and the state’s House of Assembly was already eminent, prior to the telling resignation. This was a confirmation of the suspicion within and outside the party that perhaps some of the lawmakers were dissatisfied with the governor’s handling of the affairs of the state and the party.
Of course, time without number, the party’s officials deep-rooted the notion that there is no such thing as a looming crisis within the party. They put the blame of such ‘gossips’ on some sponsored fellows trying to create division within the party.
“But they failed because the governor has proven to all and sundry that he is a father to all. It is not true that our lawmakers or any of our chieftains are angry with the governor,” they said in a statement.
On the other hand, the issue of the ‘Chinese Loan’ can easily be tied to the seeming division within the party. The un-ceremonial resignation of the former Speaker of Kano State House of Assembly and the Majority Leader of the House further consolidated that indeed there was a rift.
A murmur of Gafasa conniving with some Kano elders to prevent the actualization of the loan was heard prior to his resignation. It turned out to be not just gossip because the Kano State Elders, under the aegis of the Kano Unity Forum, led by Bashir Otyman Tofa, petitioned the President Muhammadu Buhari, the National Assembly and the Federal Ministry of Finance, asking them to stop the N300bn loan the state plans to obtain from China.
There appeared to be a rational link between the in-house crisis, the alleged connivance of the former House leader, and the vehement opposition by the Kwankwasiyya movement towards the loan acquisition.
Reacting to the petition, the Special Adviser to governor Ganduje on Media, Salihu Tanko-Yakasai, said there was a need for the elders to understand that the loan was not new as the process started three years ago. It should be recalled that the move to stop the governor from acquiring the loan started in August last year.
The proposed project of light rail that will engulf the gigantic sum is, without doubt, going to be beneficial for Kano state people if executed diligently. Kano is facing a serious congestion problem. Commute axis such as Katsina road is becoming alarmingly congested that if something (such as the light rail project) is not done in time, it will soon become something not witnessed even in Lagos during the bad traffic days.
However, a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Alhaji Aminu Abdussalam, was heard describing the proposed light rail project in Kano as a waste of resources.
Soon enough, Kano State under Ganduje’s watch was dragged to court by the opposition, sighting several concerns among which was a procedural violation that would lead to the misappropriation of the money if acquired.
The loan saga alongside the resignation of the House leader has highlighted the probable existence of grievance and the possible rift within the Kano APC. Even though both the outgoing, incoming House leadership as well as the majority of the lawmakers who spoke on the matter swore that their allegiance is still to the party, time remains to tell how much of such grievance actually exists, and to what extent it is going to affect the party’s potency to hold on to power beyond 2023.