A few days after the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) lost a serving Senator, Abdulrahman Kawu Sumaila, to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), prominent members of the opposition, including federal lawmakers, have also dumped the party.

Top among the new decampees are former Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Abdullahi Bichi, former Commissioner for Transport, Mohammed Diggol, Kabiru Alhassan Rurum, and the member representing Rano, Kibiya, and Bunkure Federal Constituency of Kano State.

Others are Hon. Abdullahi Sani Rogo, member representing Karaye and Rogo Federal Constituency; Zubairu Hamza Massu, a member of the Kano State House of Assembly representing Sumaila Local Government, and former gubernatorial candidate in Kano under the ADP, Sha’aban Ibrahim Sharada.

All the decampees except Sharada are strong loyalists of the leader of the Kwankwasiyya movement and NNPP Presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, before parting ways.

The NNPP defectors and former ADP Governorship candidate were led by Senator representing Kano South, Sumaila to the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, at a private residence in Abuja.

A reliable source told The Guardian that the decampees who were sighted in a joint picture that went viral on social media had restated their willingness to support President Bola Tinubu’s reelection in Kano come 2027.

Although the NNPP had suspended the decampee Senator, SSG, and other lawmakers for alleged anti-party and unwholesome romance with the APC, many believed their defection was intended to join forces against the Kwankwasiyya dynasty in Kano.

Prior to the defection, the APC National Chairman had described NNPP as dead wood, just as he boasted that a majority of its members, including his erstwhile political godfather, Kwankwaso, would return to APC.

Efforts to reach out to some of the newest decampees on what propelled their decision to rejoin the APC were not successful, as many of them declined calls for comment.

Reacting to the mass defection, the factional Chairman of NNPP, in Kano, Hashimu Dungurawa, disclosed that the decamp of the suspected members was not unexpected, saying the defection will rather bring relief to the party.

Besides, Dungurawa described the exit of Senator Sumaila, former SSG, and others as inconsequential to NNPP, claiming that they have no value to add to the party.

“We are not surprised because it is something that we have been expecting. As far as my party is concerned, we have already suspended them because they have no value to add in the party. We don’t lose anything. In fact, the party will now have peace.”

In a contrary view, the Boniface Aniebram-led factional Chairman in Kano, Senator Jibril El-Mashud Doguwa, considered the defection of Sumaila and other NNPP members to the APC as a sad development for the opposition.

Although Doguwa believed the decision to leave NNPP is a personal choice, he insisted that losing one person in a political party means a lot since a single vote can be a deciding factor.

“It is sad I’m losing a prominent person in my political party. That’s all. But it is a rebuke to leave my party for another party. I can’t stop them because going to go into another party is a personal view. So if their views are to leave the party, we can’t stop them,” Doguwa said.