Can Shekarau Garner Kano’s Votes for PDP?

With the defection of a former Governor of Kano State, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau, to the Peoples Democratic Party, Ejiofor Alike reports that the main opposition party is now strategically positioned to struggle for a fair share of the votes in the state with Governor Abdullahi Ganduje’s All Progressives Congress and former Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso-led New Nigeria People’s Party in the 2023 general election, even as the Labour Party continues to build its structure around the youths

The chances of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) emerging victorious in the 2023 general election brightened last Monday with the formal defection of a former Governor of Kano State, Senator Ibrahim Shekarau to the main opposition party.

Before the PDP welcomed Shekarau back to its fold, he had been in the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) led by a former Governor of the state, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, for about three months.

Shekarau had, in May 2022, dumped the All Progressives Congress (APC) after he parted ways with the Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje.

Before he joined the PDP, Shekarau, who is representing Kano Central at the Senate had hinted at defecting from Kwankwaso’s NNPP citing “betrayal of trust.”

Kwankwaso and Shekarau had dominated Kano State politics since 1999 until the emergence of Ganduje in 2015.

Since the return of democracy in 1999, none of them has been able to establish political superiority over the other as political power in the state has continued to oscillate between the two political gladiators.

However, the entry of Ganduje in 2015 slightly altered the political equation in the state but neither Shekarau nor Kwankwaso has had the upper hand over each other.

Shekarau stamped his feet in the politics of the state when he floored the then incumbent governor Kwankwaso of the then PDP in the April 19, 2003 governorship election in the state.  He, not only frustrated Kwankwaso’s reelection bid but also got reelected for a second term in 2007, still on the platform of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP). When Shekarau’s tenure expired in 2011, Kwankwaso defeated his anointed candidate, Alhaji Salihu Sagir Takai and returned for his second term, which was truncated in 2003.

After the ANPP and Kwankwaso’s faction of the PDP merged with other political parties to form the APC, Shekarau left the APC for the PDP in 2014 in protest against what he described as handing over of APC structure in the state to Kwankwaso, the then governor of the state.

He was appointed Minister of Education by the then President Goodluck Jonathan in July 2014.

But in the build-up to the 2019 general election, precisely on September 8, 2018, Shekarau dumped the PDP and returned to the APC in protest against the dissolution of the State Executive Committee of the PDP and the setting up of a caretaker committee by the party. He ran for the Senate in the 2019 general election and won on the platform of the APC.

With Kwankwaso in the opposition PDP during the 2019 general election, Shekarau and Ganduje joined forces in the APC to floor Kwankwaso and his supporters.

President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC won all the 44 local government areas of the state with 1,464,768 votes, representing 78.9 per cent of the total votes cast to beat the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who polled 391,593 votes of 21.1 per cent.

Kano had registered 5,391,581 registered voters, out of which 2,006,410 voters were accredited for the presidential election.

With Kwankwaso, Shekarau and Ganduje going their separate ways, their new parties will struggle to share these votes in 2023.

Shekarau left the APC again in May 2022 for the NNPP and spent only three months before rejoining the PDP last Monday.

Before he joined the PDP, many analysts believed that the bulk of the votes from Kano in the 2023 general election would be shared between Ganduje’s APC and Kwankwaso’s NNPP.

Many analysts however believe that Shekarau’s entry into the PDP has altered the permutations.

Being a formidable force to reckon with, Shekarau is expected to garner a large chunk of the Kano votes for the PDP. While the Labour Party (LP) continues to build its structure in the state around the youth, the structure of the APC rests on Ganduje, while Kwankwaso controls the structure of NNPP.

Shekarau’s defection to the PDP and the value he will bring to the table have eclipsed the distractions suffered by the main opposition party in the hands of Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State.

Speaking shortly after he was welcomed to the PDP on Monday, Shekarau urged his supporters to work for the party’s victory in the 2023 general election.

The senator said, “I welcome our dignitaries to this memorable occasion, particularly the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; former Vice-President Namadi Sambo; the PDP National Chairman; PDP governors and other guests.

“I, Ibrahim Shakarau, inform you that from Monday, August 29, 2022, my supporters and I have dumped the NNPP and joined the PDP.

“I have written to the NNPP National Chairman, chairmen at the state, local governments, and ward levels of the party that I have dumped the NNPP.

“I have equally written to INEC Chairman and to the Kano State Resident Electoral Commissioner of INEC that I am no longer contesting the senatorial position on the platform of the NNPP.”

Speaking on his latest defection from the NNPP, Shekarau said, “All the agreements we had with him (Kwankwaso) were betrayed by Kwankwaso and his boys and they did not accommodate one single person from my camp.

“We reached an agreement to accommodate my supporters into various elective positions in the party, but until now, the committee set up could not accommodate one single person apart from the senatorial slot given to me.

“I will never be a party to injustice. My integrity is utmost and not any political position that will make me compromise it and that of my people. Nobody will use position or money against my integrity.

“I am a man of honour and integrity but his governorship candidate (Abba Yusuf) who was given the responsibility to look at areas to accommodate my people into various elective positions never for one single day do so or even call for meeting let alone accepting my supporters to contest.

“Nobody will use money to change my conscience. I was a governor for eight years in Kano and people believed in my integrity.

“I am still living in a rented house in Abuja and never allocated a single plot of land to myself when I served as governor in Kano and I challenge anyone who knows my plot of land to expose it.”

Welcoming Shekarau to the party in Kano, the national chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, boasted that “…we’re going to win Kano and we’re going to win everywhere.”

Indeed, the entry of Shekarau into the PDP will boost the party’s chances in the 2023 general election if it is able to reconcile all other aggrieved members of the party.