- Ahead of local government election,no fewer than 23 support groups from Kano North have abandoned the All Progressives Congress (APC) to join the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP).
However,among these groups is the Kano North Askarawan Gandujiyya, which its members from 11 out of the 13 local government areas in the senatorial district have defected to NNPP.
Making this known at the occasion, the Commander of the group, Sale Musa Romo, leader of the group announced the defection, emphasised that their political structure, which includes 11,111 members, has been collapsed to Kwankwaso’s NNPP.
Romo however explained that the move was motivated by feelings of betrayal by Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin and former Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, now acting National Chairman of the APC who were from the Kano north zone.
According to him,”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.
Also,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.
While 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.
Dr.Kwankwaso,who was a former defense minister then 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.”
He however disclosed that 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.