More than 23 Kano North support groups have defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), marking a dramatic shift in politics in the northern Nigerian state.
One of these organisations is Kano North Askarawan Gandujiyya, whose members have joined the NNPP from 11 of the senatorial district’s 13 local government areas.
Sale Musa Romo, the group’s leader, announced the defection, noting that the group that consists of 11,111 members has collapsed its structure to join Kwankwaso’s NNPP.
Romo asserts that feelings of betrayal from former Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, who is currently the acting national chairman of the APC, and Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin, both of whom are from the Kano north zone, sparked the action.
“We are here to collapse our structure and join our counterparts, Askarawan Kwankwasiyya, in the NNPP,” Romo said, aligning his group with Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso’s political movement.
The defection also includes the APC G7, a group previously used by Senator Barau to challenge Ganduje in 2022.
Other groups, such as Barau Kafa da Kafa, APC Hunters Vanguard, and Barau Enlightenment and Strategy, have also shifted allegiance to the NNPP.
Receiving the defectors, Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, the NNPP National Leader and 2023 presidential candidate, expressed his delight at welcoming the large number of APC defectors.
“I am happy that you have tasted the waters and learned the hard way in the APC. You have now joined a party that is considered a political paradise for the masses,” Kwankwaso stated.
The former defense minister also reaffirmed NNPP’s commitment to weakening APC’s influence, stating, “We have a benchmark: for every one member the APC gains from our party, we will gain a thousand of theirs. The ratio is set at 1-to-1,000, and we mean it.”
This mass defection marks a significant blow to the APC in Kano North, as the NNPP continues to strengthen its political foothold in the region.
