Written by Ibrahim Hassan-Wuyo
Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the leader of the Kwankwasiyya Movement and the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) in the 2023 general election, has stated that Abba Kabir Yusuf, the governor of Kano State, and his political associates will eventually regret their decision to leave the party.
In an interview with the BBC Hausa Service, which our correspondent in Kaduna watched on Wednesday, Kwankwaso made the claim, characterizing the governor’s defection as startling and hard to understand.
The former governor of Kano State claims that even he found the circumstances surrounding Yusuf’s departure from the NNPP to be bizarre and perplexing.
“A lot of individuals have told me that they think what happened was part of a plan, either between me and him or between me and those in his immediate vicinity. Kwankwaso remarked, “Even I find it difficult to believe that events have unfolded the way they did on several occasions.”
He insisted that Governor Yusuf and others who followed him would come to regret leaving the NNPP, expressing confidence that time would show the effects of the choice.
After declaring his resignation from the NNPP on Friday, January 23, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf publicly defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Monday, January 26, 2026.
Less than three years had passed since Yusuf, running on the platform of the NNPP—a party strongly linked to Kwankwaso and the Kwankwasiyya political movement—won the governorship of Kano State.
Given Kwankwaso and Yusuf’s long-standing political relationship and the NNPP’s crucial role in the governor’s rise, the defection has continued to elicit strong emotions both inside and outside of Kano State.
