Matthew Adejoh Politics


Whether Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa
Kwankwaso, likes or dislikes the Peoples
Democratic Party is immaterial. What is self-
evident is that the man cannot stop
referencing the party in charge of Nigeria’s
Federal Government. Kwankwaso, a man
whose fixation with the PDP is easy to
understand since it is the party that made
him all that he is today, never lets a week go
by without making one pronouncement or the
other about the party which he abandoned for
the All Progressives Congress.
Kwankwaso’s latest swipe at the PDP comes
by way of a declaration aimed at squashing
some purported moves by backers of General
Muhammadu Buhari to persuade him to
discard his presidential aspiration and
instead support the former military dictator
and three-time failed presidential candidate.
The red-capped Kwankwaso says no one
has spoken to him and in any case, in his
words: “We’re talking about APC, a mega
party. We’re different from PDP where one
person decides the fate of others.”
If Kwankwaso were to come out tomorrow to
say he was misquoted, it would be
understandable. This is because referring to
the PDP as a party “where one person
decides the fate of others” is perhaps the
most disingenuous thing Kwankwaso could
have said. It would have been far truer if the
Governor had said that his newfound love,
the APC, is a party where one person decides
the fate of others.
Amusingly, the hilarious charge against the
PDP by Kwankwaso appears to have been
purloined and revised from the words of Chief
Tom Ikimi, a former Minister of Foreign
Affairs and ex-chieftain of the APC who not
too long ago bade farewell to Kwankwaso
and his opposition cronies. In a lengthy letter
that Ikimi wrote to announce his resignation
from the APC, the former minister described
the APC as “Tinubu’s party”, implying that
the party belongs to, and is permanently
tele-guided by former Lagos State Governor
Bola Tinubu. It is the height of comedy for
Kwankwaso to turn around today to charge
the PDP as being a party “where one person
decides the fate of others” even though he
seems unable to tell Nigerians who that one
person is.
Discerning Nigerians may wish to ask
Kwankwaso whether the PDP was a party
“where one person decides the fate of others”
when the party feathered his political bed,
ensuring that he not only emerged as
Governor of Kano in 1999, but kept him
strategically relevant through a senior
ministerial appointment after he lost his first
bid for re-election in 2003. Additionally, was
the PDP still a party “where one person
decides the fate of others” in 2011 when the
party supported Kwankwaso in his second
and successful attempt to be re-elected as
Governor of Kano State?
It is understandable that as the 2015
electioneering season gets under way,
politicians from all sides will say things that
stand logic on its head. However, such
politicians should not expect Nigerians to
believe the comical things they say for
amusement. Not so long ago, one such
comical statement was credited to the same
Kwankwaso. The Kano State Governor was
reported to have alleged that the PDP is
plotting to make President Goodluck
Jonathan a life President. That nobody
bothered to respond to that bit of folly
showed how preposterous Nigerians
considered the statement.
Meanwhile, the same Kwankwaso conducted
local government elections some months
ago. In a display of sheer political comedy,
the APC, which the Governor left the PDP for
only some months earlier, “won” the election
in every single local government area.
Kwankwaso himself was apparently so
unconvinced of his “victory” that he spent
millions of naira on many newspaper
earpiece adverts to publicise the Kano local
government election results to the great
amusement of Nigerians.
Today, Kwankwaso is going around saying
he will not step down from his unachievable
presidential ambition for anybody. In his
words: “I’m not under any pressure to step
down for anybody. In fact, nobody asked me
to step down for anybody and doing that will
not be even good for the party. You see many
people are used to either small parties or let
me say medium-sized parties where people
sit down and choose somebody in a room.
Now we are talking about APC mega party,
which is not ANPP, CPC, APGA or ACN. It’s a
collection of all and we always tell people to
look at the example of PDP. From 1999 to
2011, each election they had to go for
primary elections not arranged election, but
real elections.
It is good and well that Kwankwaso
remembers his PDP roots. Be that as it may,
the Kano State Governor needs to be told
that, with or without his red cap, whether in
APC or the PDP that he cannot seem to forget
about, the likelihood of him winning a
presidential ticket is next to nil. He will be
trounced for all to see what he is without the
PDP.