The record is not over yet.

SenseiX:
I  have watched the former governor of Kano State and newly minted Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso for sometime now. The signals coming from him are justifiably worrisome. I don’t know much about his stewardship during his reign as the governor of Kano State, but I heard he did some good for the people of the state, and that he is immensely popular. I cannot vouch for both.

But what I do know of him from his public presentations and utterances in the last two years have helped me to build a character portrait of him and come to an informed opinion of him: Kwankwaso is a man who lures his friend or colleague to the guillotine with a false smile, viciously stabs him to death and then turns around to brag about it in public as if the evil of treachery and betrayal are virtues for celebration. I have come to see Kwankwaso as a man you turn your back on at your own peril. And as the saying goes in the land of my fathers: “Backstabbers are only powerful when you turn your back”.  He is good at the “game” when your back is turned on him, otherwise, he is impotent. Clearly outsmarted by the new Senate President, Bukola Saraki, Kwankwaso has suddenly remembered that the party’s position should have been followed, describing the emergence of Saraki — his co-traveller in the New PDP charade — as “dangerous for Buhari’s administration”.  He regretted that the Senate President had used his ambition to destroy party discipline and should be punished - expressing fears about betraying the confidence which Nigerians reposed in them by voting for change. It was honestly shocking reading these statements attributed to him, and whatever modicum of doubt I had about the dishonesty of our politicians instantly vapourised.

Kwankwaso is now talking about discipline? In case many Nigerians have forgotten, he was one of the people who alongside Saraki, used their ambitions to bring down their former party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The betrayer, who gloats about his treacherous exploits, now wants Nigerians to take him serious. This must be “a joke taken too far” – as a man who rose to political relevance on the platform of his former party — the PDP — as Minister of Defence, and a two-term governor, but ended up robbing the PDP of the mandate and giving it to a party that was not even in existence when the mandate was given by the people, is the least qualified to moralise about discipline and betrayal. 

Particularly striking now is that his position during the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) crisis is different from his new position on toeing the party line. His position then was that nobody must choose a Chairman of the NGF for them. His shots were directed at Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency which was not disposed to Rotimi Amaechi remaining as the NGF chair.

[b]Recall that at the height of the NGF election debacle, which former governor of Rivers State, Amaechi, clearly won, it was Kwankwaso who came out to regale the public with tales of his exploits as a betrayer, declaring triumphantly that he set up the then Governor of Plateau State Jonah Jang to fail. He admitted that he personally nominated Jang to contest for the chairmanship of the NGF and urged the then Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswam to support him only to satisfy the yearnings of some governors for a compromise candidate to run against Amaechi. “Let me say that we are northerners and I think we should be consulted on what we need for the North. Some people have decided that we should produce the chairman of the NGF - that is not our choice. We know what we want in the politics of this country, and even if that is what we want, we are not expecting anybody to choose for us - we should choose for ourselves. I think that point should be very clear. It was a game and we were trying to prove to them that nobody can shave our heads in our absence – we have proved to them that they are still at the elementary level of politics,” he said at that time.  I don’t know why he felt the need to remind Nigerians about being a northerner. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t necessary[/b].

Well, he was marooned at the International Conference Centre (ICC) waiting for the purported meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari when he heard that the election of the Senate President had commenced. According to him, he immediately jumped into his car and raced to the National Assembly only to find Saraki taking the oath of office as the Senate President. He could only look on with seething rage inside him. For once, the self-acclaimed master of the game of numbers was beaten flat at his own game. His head was not even shaved with a razor blade in his absence, but with broken bottle that left deep cuts and gashes on his head.

I was taken aback by his public boast of treachery and backstabbing – as backstabbers have never been known to come out and claim credit for their dishonourable conducts. They always hide behind the cloak of anonymity and when suspicion falls on them, they often deny any role because of the ignominy associated with it. But this was different – that Kwankwaso came out to gleefully claim credit and gloat about an act that is considered one of the greatest forms of vice in all of humanity’s history speaks to his character and moral standing. It really rankled me, and I took note of the man not necessarily because of who he supported, but the chest-thumping after the clear act of betrayal. I agonised for days that a public officer in the calibre of a sitting governor could publicly claim to have set up his fellow governor - who was not even interested in the race in the first place - but was lured into it by Kwankwaso himself only to turn round and betray him. I felt that day, that our country had reached a new low in moral decadence. The then Governor of Bauchi State Isa Yuguda was so shocked by Kwankwaso’s public boasting that he reportedly questioned the calibre of leadership being provided by his likes. He was quoted to having said: “Kwankwaso has spoken his mind, and has confirmed that his idea behind nominating Jang was to disgrace him. If I, as a leader, as a governor, will look at my colleague and take a decision ostensibly to disgrace him, then it is a tragedy. Where is our morality? Where are Islam and Christianity in this country for goodness’ sake?”

I didn’t miss the clear clannish arrogance explicitly exhibited and the implied superiority complex in Kwankwaso’s statement - what he said and the manner he delivered the message were quite instructive.

[b]My fears were amplified further when I read an interview he granted some newspapers in April in Abuja. Asked if he thought the former president, Goodluck Jonathan, was a hero for conceding defeat, Kwankwaso responded: “I believe the president is naive because he had all the opportunities to change direction. I don’t blame him; he didn’t play this sort of game for sometime at the national level. So, he didn’t know who was who in this country. He was just looking at faces and those who were well-dressed, carrying many cell phones and they meet at the airport. They smile and he says well, these are good people. He sits down to listen to gossip and sometimes, he doesn’t even know their names. He made a big mistake by picking the wrong people.

“Let me tell you, our leaders who have been in this game before us especially those who were in the First Republic told us so much about our friends in this country and he happens to come from the South-south, where they are very close to our leaders. We did everything possible to work with him but of course, he vandalised the opportunities. He didn’t handle it very well, up to the extent that most of us saw that we didn’t have any future as PDP members and as individuals, thereby galvanising us into action by coming together to defeat him.

“Look at what his wife was saying that northerners are this and that; how could you say that to northerners? You can’t insult us and think that you will get away with it. This is democracy - a game of numbers, and that is why we went back and put Almajiris together to get about two million votes.”

He was referring to the Kano State presidential election result which produced over two million total votes cast out of which 1.9 million votes went to Buhari. The boast of mobilising Almajiris to defeat the president is quite instructive, and should be seen for its underlying meaning.[/b]

[b]This same Kwankwaso, it should be recalled, was the one who moved against the appointment of Chief Festus Odimegwu, an accomplished technocrat, as the Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), because according to him, the former managing director of Nigerian Breweries is an “alcoholic”. He was quoted thus:  “We (the North) are not happy about that appointment, and think (that) it was a mistake. Odimegwu shouldn’t be there in the first place. Why? It’s because, you see unfortunately we were together, somebody read his curriculum vitae.

“He had only worked in alcoholic industry - all his life. And my guess is that he’s taking a lot of his products and that is why we feel (that) his appointment is a mistake because he cannot be the Chairman of NPC and at the same time attacking what his predecessors had done.’’

But Odimegwu’s only sin was his brutal frankness - that he dared to criticise the credibility of all previous censuses carried out in the country, vowing to conduct the most accurate and credible census in 2016 “that will accept itself”. Of course everyone is conscious of the significance of population data as an indispensable tool for national planning and resource allocation. Politicians across-the-board, whether in the North or in the South, but more so in the North, have for ages been known to falsify and manipulate census data to gain resource advantage.

And of course, Kwankwaso saw the danger in Odimegwu’s position – a man with such determination to right all previous wrongs and such outspokenness of truth to power couldn’t be trusted. This is because he is able to claim the numbers’ game because of the “true lies” contained in our censuses which give the North numerical advantage. According to Odimegwu in an interview with THISDAY months after he resigned as the NPC chairman: “Governor Kwankwaso is the biggest beneficiary of the fraud that is the demographic data in Nigeria.” Kano State had the highest population figures in the 2006 census. So, his vehement opposition to Odimegwu was borne out of the fact that he, Kwankwaso feared that those census numbers would unravel for what they truly are – official “true lies.”

It is noteworthy that before Kwankwaso’s campaign to get Odimegwu fired, he had written a letter dated June 28, 2013, soliciting the technical assistance of the Odimegwu-led commission for the Kano State house-numbering, street-naming and provision of an identity card project. When he wrote that letter, he didn’t realise that Odimegwu had been “taking too much beer and was an alcoholic”, but suddenly, he realised this after Odimegwu’s statement about falsification of results of previous censuses.

Interestingly, Odimegwu and Kwankwaso have found a common purpose  as members of the same All Progressives Congress ( APC). The former was even a member of Buhari’s Transition Committee. Talk of how politics brings strange bedfellows together in this clime. Kwankwaso, the senator representing Kano Central, is already advertising Buhari’s achievements barely three weeks after inauguration when no single decision has been taken by the president - no policy direction has been unveiled, no ministers have been nominated, no secretary to the government of the federation, no chief of staff, no special advisers save for the two media spokespersons which in itself is odd. The only thing we have seen so far is a ruling party headed for the rocks. According to him, “From the day President Buhari’s victory was announced, things have started changing in the country - the power situation is improving, shares in the capital market are going up, while the exchange rate is stabilising.” Are you kidding me? Are we seeing another campaign based on “true lies”? One is tempted to think that somebody somewhere and not Odimegwu is actually taking “too much alcohol” and has lost his sense of reality.

My final take on Kwankwaso is that he is one of those opportunistic politicians who thrive on our fault lines - ethnic and religious - to advance and sustain their political careers. He sadly sees himself more as a northerner out to defend the interests of the North, than a Nigerian out to advance the interests of Nigeria. His likes are masters of deceit and illusion who thrive on the ignorance of the poor whose name they severally use in vain in pursuit of their personal goals.  He is certainly one of those who have held this country down through their politics of dirty intrigues, ethnicity, double-speak and betrayal. The nation needs a break from them. We need a leader who will inspire and unite all Nigerians in hope and faith. Not these ethnic irredentists and heretics of faith masquerading as patriots.[/b]
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/kwankwaso-the-master-beaten-at-his-game/212865/
Cc lalasticlala

@Op God bless you sir for your deep and robust exposition.

Kwankwaso, Nigeria is waiting for you when you will come to play game again.

The op is obviously a Jonathan/PDP apologist. He seemed pained by the role Kwankwaso played in bringing down the ignoble destroyer regime of Jonathan. We revere Kwankwaso for the same reasons. Politics is a game and nobody wins any game every time. We are OK with the chosen leadership of the National Assembly as Buhari is OK with it.

[size=14pt]Bigots calling democrats Bigots. Once the the pendulum does not swing to their end the other person becomes a bigot. He taught that loser from Otu of Oke a great lesson. They avoided his performance and decided to play the tribal card. Bunch of losers[/size]

onatisi:
This article and writeup describes the character and nature of 99% of nigerian politicians and not only kwankwanso. Only gullible ppl will believe that nigerians politicians or leaders actually go into government to change the lives of the masses. The bitter truth here is pdp and apc are exactly the same thing,

You know this and you shout daily here and insult people cos of PDP. Hypocrite baba ghana

ECOTERRORS:
Did you read the article? You need to be flogged for making this comment

How does this negate anything... You need an urgent medical attention no doubt...

Is too early to read long article....


I really need my breakfast***

fulanimafia:
What a ridiculous, vindictive, myopic and naive writer...

The writer clearly avoided discussing performance because Kwankwaso and Fashola were by far the BEST performing governors of the last republic...

Kwankwaso was 'shocked' at Saraki's emergence the same way PMB was 'too late' to meet Tinubu & Co. after asking them to wait for him..

Naivety of the highest order

E pain am

shamelly:
Too long

Yh, lng buh worth it. l hate reading lng article, buh l finished dz 1. Nice piece!

Onyejiuwaokoh:
Kwankwaso is a betrayal and wicked man. l know how we suffered and risked our lives to vote for in 2011 despite threat from the defunct ANPP and CPC, he rewarded us(Christians) in his state with total neglect and abandonment. He used his evil tricks and hypocrisy to woo and deceive us but later proved his atrocious life.

You just took the words outta my mouth, this man kwakwaso is simply wicked and mischievous, despite the so called work he did in kano, Sabon Gari didn't benefited, Sabon Gari is left with non existence of light, good road and water, the marginalization is just too much, his ex deputy will feed him the same measure of Betrayal and wickedness he meted to his perceived enemies.

Naija politics has now turned to game except the rule of fairplay does not apply
Meanwhile please patronize Hary Building Concept. As the best awaits you with us. Thanks.

fulanimafia:
What a ridiculous, vindictive, myopic and naive writer...

The writer clearly avoided discussing performance because Kwankwaso and Fashola were by far the BEST performing governors of the last republic...

Kwankwaso was 'shocked' at Saraki's emergence the same way PMB was 'too late' to meet Tinubu & Co. after asking them to wait for him..

Naivety of the highest order

Performance in terms of what? Kano produces the highest number of Almajiris/uneducated chikdren- Naija has 10million kids not enrolled in school and Kano accounts for about 5million. This is leadership?

Kwankwaso is both a performer and a pro-Northerner!

bastasd haters.there is no sense in dis article.kwankwaso is our next president like it or not.what has kwankwaso done.Nigerians are stupid.

Shaka momodu, this is a good one. My Pple from the other part of the Southern Nigeria will never understand this write up untill they are dragged as usual to the slaughter house.

Nice one bro.

LordVarys:

Kwankwaso would never ever become President Of Nigeria, Buhari was able to overcome his sectional baggage due to people's desperation for change, Tinubu's backing and an appearance overhaul, For Kwankwaso even Tinubu considered him too much of a Northern hawk to support as president when he ran for president last year, his reputation as a bigot is well known.

u mean same Tinubu that said in 2003 dat Buhari is too ethnocentric to be a national leader?
That opolo eyed man is only interested in his belly

OREMUSSANCTUS:
Who d hell is kwankwaso?

He is za great giant sluaghter and killer.

and mysteriously the kano REC got burnt alive with his family after he said he wasn't the one who recorded the scores in the presidential election.. i had always thought kwankwaso was a very noble lad. thank you op, my eye don open

TheImp:
It is a fact that Kwankwaso remains the biggest bigot in national politics, I like him for one thing though, he does not pretend, he's proud of the fact that he is a bigoted Northern irredentist and supremacist,
He is only pissed that Saraki outsmarted him in the 2019 race should Buhari as expected chose not to seek a 2nd term.

Kwankwaso & Goje my role models Saraki my Hon Senate President and Tinubu my god father wetin you wan say again

Chai..! What a tanoid crap. So anti-kwankwasoish and nothing more than just a lopsided hate-text against the person of kwankwaso, simple.

OREMUSSANCTUS: Who d hell is kwankwaso ?

The man who subdued the otueke drinker!
Well said,he is the also subdue the lions,tigers ,vuitures ,hyenas ,dinosaurs and the giants my brazzers.

Very nice write-up

Eugenedimgba:
You know nothing about kwankwasiya....These are preposterous statements.

Ok. We are waiting for your own thread where u would tell us the truth about "The Real Kwankwaso".

The op is pain that kwankwaso have sent the drunkard home. U may decide not to like him but north and in particular kano are proud with him, so deal wit it

ModiKen:


Ok. We are waiting for your own thread where u would tell us the truth about "The Real Kwankwaso".

not kwankwaso..... say after me Kwan/Kwa/Si/Ya ....put the stress level on the Si/ and /Ya.....one more time,KwanKwaSiYa!!. If you dont reside in Kano,pls close your mouth.

TheImp:

One thing i've learnt from Nigerian politics is never to rule anything out, in 2019 the 'Sophisticated' brothers might clamour for him as the one true saviour the country needs........they'll tell you how much of a great nationalist he is and how he only has 5 cows and has only 10k in his account and thus he is over qualified for the presidency.

God willing, we are waiting for him to declare interest in presidency 2019,my strongest belief is that he won't be APC flag bearer,he can never,with tinubu,atiku and co,still there,then PDP,trust fayose,wike,enweremadu,he will not make it there,it is reserved for his brother shekarau and lamido,and peter obi,so the best for him is labour party, and only almajaris in kano will vote for him,he is a mentally deranged bigot.

Eugenedimgba:
not kwankwaso..... say after me Kwan/Kwa/Si/Ya ....put the stress level on the Si/ and /Ya.....one more time,KwanKwaSiYa!!. If you dont reside in Kano,pls close your mouth.

God bless you ... 100 likes

This is a great article op, we now know who this is

fulanimafia:
What a ridiculous, vindictive, myopic and naive writer...

The writer clearly avoided discussing performance because Kwankwaso and Fashola were by far the BEST performing governors of the last republic...

Kwankwaso was 'shocked' at Saraki's emergence the same way PMB was 'too late' to meet Tinubu & Co. after asking them to wait for him..

Naivety of the highest order

What did he do?

The little I know about Kwankwaso is that he likes to present everyone to be bad. He susceeded Shakarau who had so many projects ongoing in Kano but as a bigot, Kwankwaso abandoned the whole projects.

As a bigot, Kwasnkwaso relegated the non indigent of Kano to Sabongari. These Nigerians in Sabongari pay tax but gain nothing from the government. They are often treated as slaves.


Sabongari area of Kano state lack the presence of Government.


Its a well known fact that happenings in Nano state do not go beyond two PHCN poles. Record has it that so many were killed when he conducted local government election in attempt to secure all the state constituencies to APC.


Nano State don't conduct election. Human life under Kwankwaso in Kano state is cost N500 ( if you want to kill anyone, pay those almajiris he referred to N500)

If you want to visit Sumaria, I suggest you visit Nano first.

Xyg12:
The little I know about Kwankwaso is that he likes to present everyone to be bad. He susceeded Shakarau who had so many projects ongoing in Kano but as a bigot, Kwankwaso abandoned the whole projects.

As a bigot, Kwasnkwaso relegated the non indigent of Kano to Sabongari. These Nigerians in Sabongari pay tax but gain nothing from the government. They are often treated as slaves.


Sabongari area of Kano state lack the presence of Government.


Its a well known fact that happenings in Nano state do not go beyond two PHCN poles. Record has it that so many were killed when he conducted local government election in attempt to secure all the state constituencies to APC.


Nano State don't conduct election. Human life under Kwankwaso in Kano state is cost N500 ( if you want to kill anyone, pay those almajiris he referred to N500)

If you want to visit Sumaria, I suggest you visit Nano first.

kano people loves him, what non indigenes and inconsequential people thinks of him amount to nothing. His mandate is to serve kano indigenes first and nothing less

TheImp:
It is a fact that Kwankwaso remains the biggest bigot in national politics, I like him for one thing though, he does not pretend, he's proud of the fact that he is a bigoted Northern irredentist and supremacist,
He is only pissed that Saraki outsmarted him in the 2019 race should Buhari as expected chose not to seek a 2nd term.

Ehn ehn!

If kwankwaso is the biggest bigot Nuhu ribadu is d Biggest fool in d history of politics in Naija..

aniwaiz Kwankwaso is arguably the best governor in d last administration..



#notinnterestedinthegame

#iappreciatethework