National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, may have lost his grip on his political base following the defection of 1,331 APC members to the ruling New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP).
The defectors, mainly from 11 wards of Ganduje’s Dawakin-Tofa local government area of Kano State, vowed to work against the return of the APC in Kano.
Prominent among the former APC leaders now donning the Kwankwasiyya red cap include the former Vice Chairman of Dawakin-Tofa local government area, Malam Isyaku Dahiru Kwa; former State House of Assembly aspirant, Hon. Audu Magaji Tumfafi; and Bashir Musa Sani, APC Youth Leader for Takai Organization, among others.
Receiving Ganduje’s kinsmen back to the ruling party at a grand reception held in Dawakin-Tofa, state Chairman of NNPP, Hon. Hashimu Dungurawa, applauded their decision to embrace the winning team.
Earlier, one of the leaders of the defectors, Isyaku Dahiru Kwa, alleged total neglect and Ganduje’s inability to develop Dawakin-Tofa local government area during his eight years in office as the major reason for their decision.
Kwa also claimed that the former governor’s leadership deficit in managing the affairs of the party at the national level, and his alleged involvement in anti-party activities during the 2023 general elections, contributed to their decision. He pointed to the failure of Ganduje’s son, Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, to clinch a House of Representatives seat.
While accepting the new members, Dungurawa declared that the NNPP, under the spiritual leadership of Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Governor Abba Kabiru Yusuf, is committed to entrenching socio-economic and infrastructural development in Kano.
He assured that the NNPP would provide equal opportunities to all members within the party caucus and dispelled rumours of a mass defection of NNPP members to the APC.
Dungurawa maintained that the NNPP is not losing control of its party structure across the political wards and described those who claimed to have left for the APC as “419s” struggling to collect their national cake from their recruiters.
According to Dungurawa, “We learned that one APC man has been receiving members of the NNPP into the APC. Let me remind the Abuja man that we have checked the roll call of our members, and we have not noticed any reduction in the volume of our numerical strength.
“Perhaps, I need to advise the Abuja APC man to shine his eyes and beware of 419 people coming to collect public funds at his disposal in the name of defectors. In any case, we would not blame anyone claiming to have defected from the NNPP to the APC. After all, they need to collect their own share from the disposable income,” Dungurawa clarified.
