Kano Determines who wins the  2023 Polls

With last week’s storming of the ancient and commercial city of Kano by unofficial supporters of ‘Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo for President’ and a message to build a ‘New Tribe’ for Nigeria, the quest by aspirants to woe voters in Kano State, noted for its highest voter population and turnout in the country, has gathered momentum.

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu kick-started the rush in 2021 when he held his 69th birthday celebration under the 12th Bola Ahmed Tinubu Colloquium on March 29, 2021 in the state and consolidated on that event with the recruitment of one of his director of campaigns, Alhaji Jibril, from the state.

For Senator Sola Adeyeye, who addressed the crowd at the launch of ‘The New Tribe’ of patriotic, detribalised and progressive Nigerians whose leadership is represented in Vice President Osinbajo, Kano’s role in setting the tone for 2023 polls is political.

Adeyeye said, among other things: “With its population, history of activism, level of political awareness and peculiar political culture, it is no wonder that Kano’s votes have always come as a political tide to push Nigeria in the right direction, at the most critical juncture. …Yemi Osinbajo is the man who will lead us in the right direction, with the help of God and millions of Nigerians, the New Tribe, that have been yearning for an opportunity to side-step all the forces that have been pulling us apart, so that Nigeria can truly emerge as the giant it long should have been.”

Kano is currently reeling from a deep political crisis arising from the controversial parallel congresses of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), which has pitted Governor Abdullahi Ganduje against his predecessor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau and their factions. As both combatants battle for the control of the soul of the party in the state through the law courts, while the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), led by former Governor Rabiu Kwakwanso, wait on the wings to harvest the fall-out of the lingering crisis, Kano is forging ahead in another political direction.

Unruffled by the internal bickering of its politicians, Kano appears ready to to set the tone for the 2023 general election. Presidential aspirants are courting it with carefully planned campaigns and an eye to the three million plus votes that it usually turns in every election to sway the tide of votes for candidates. Also, the state returns the highest number of delegates for party primaries.

With the country’s highest voting population of 4.9 million out of its 10.4 million citizens, according to the 2006 population and housing census, and 16 million persons, according to the 2016 projections by the National Bureau of Statistics, Kano has progressively caught the attention of serious politicians over the years.

In 2015, Muhammadu Buhari of the APC won the presidential election with 15,424,921 votes or 53.95 percent of the 28,587,564 total valid votes cast. President Goodluck Jonathan, of the PDP, won 12,853,162 or 44.96 percent. 1,903,999 of Buhari’s total votes came from the 2,172, 444 voters in Kano alone, the most populous state in the country, followed by Lagos and Katsina States.

Buhari repeated the feat in 2019 with 15.2 million votes against PDP’s Atiku Abubakar with 11.3million in the general count. Out of this figure, Kano gave Buhari 1464,768 votes.

For the presidential primary of the party, the story was the same. During the presidential primary of the APC, for example, Kano returned 2.9 million votes for Buhari. Other states like Rivers gave APC 388,653 votes; Lagos brought in 1.9million votes; Zamfara returned 247,840, votes; Imo State fetched 697,532 votes and Katsina threw in 802, 819 votes. It is therefore understandable why Kano will take centre stage for aspirants, ahead of the 2023 general election, beginning with the primaries and then the general elections.

Apart from the purely political, Kano is also setting the tone for sectarianism through involvement of clerics, usually weaponised by politicians across the country for myth making, diversion and prescription to the electorate.

This was what the Managing Director of the Federal Housing Authority, Abdullmumini Jibrin Kofa, did recently when he put together over 2,500 clerics to offer prayers to God on the 2023 presidential ambition of Tinubu.

Kofa, former member of the House of Representatives, who represented Bebeji/Kiru Federal Constituency, organised the prayer session in his hometown of Kofa in Bebeji Local Government Area of Kano State.

The prayer, which was attended by politicians across the state, was led by the Chief Imam of Kafin-Maiyaki, who recited verses from the Holy Qur’an.

According to Kofa, “This special prayer was organised for the success of the presidential ambition of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the forthcoming general election as well as for peace and stability in the country.”

Tofa who now goes as a Director of Campaign for the APC National Leader, explained that “the spiritual men were drafted to seal the foreseen presidency of Tinubu.”

Reacting to these developments, Malam Yisar Ibrahim, Director of Press to Governor Ganduje, sounded a note of caution.

He told THEWILL that it is like a homecoming event for aspirants who are trooping to launch their campaign in Kano. The politicians, he said, have had a long affinity with Kano either through their numerous friends and associates but he conceded that, “one would not rule out the possibility that politics is creeping into their affiliations anyway.”

He added, “Most of these aspirants have links with Kano before now. They come to Kano once in a while. The launching of their platforms is not necessarily about vote-catching and as for the prayers for the ambition of politicians, people do it in the country. You cannot stop them. One cannot, however, rule out the possibility of politics creeping into these things, anyway.”

A senior journalist based in Kano, Bernard Awogu, said assuredly that it was all about the 2023 general election.

He said, “Senator Adeyeye’s argument is that Kano is the bedrock of politics from where the late Aminu Kano spread his dragnet, insisting that when you win in Kano, you have won Nigeria. That is the bottom line.”

On the prayer session organised for Tinubu’s ambition, Awogu noted that religion and politics in Nigeria are like Siamese twins, adding, “They have and will continue to be the means to control the gullible electorate, forgetting that man created the problems for which they are seeking God’s divine intervention and it is only man that can solve them.”

Explaining further, he said that until the people wake up to the reality of this deceit by politicians that sustains them in their oppression of the people, which ironically Aminu Kano fought against in his lifetime, things will continue to remain the same.

These sectarian and partisan outlook is a habitual practice by Nigeria politicians, even though it was cleverly done in the past republics. Awogu submitted that the radical politics that was people-centered is still noticeable in Kano because it was ideologically based. It has only been concealed by the opportunism of many present-day politicians.

For both the APC and the PDP, which have taken turns to govern Kano State since 1999, with a notable interlude by the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), under former Governor Abubakar Shekarau between 2003 and 2011, these mentioned issues have dominated, coloured and shaped the erstwhile radical and grassroots politics of the old state from which Jigawa was excised in 1991.

“This is the time for many of these politicians to relate with the people they have known for a long time in Kano,” said DG Ibrahim. That is, indeed, why and how Kano is setting the tone for the 2023 general election.