INEC Declares NNPP’s Kabir as Kano Governor-elect

The battle for the political control of Kano State in Nigeria’s North-West geopolitical zone between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has been settled with the declaration of NNPP’s Yusuf Kabir as the governor-elect.

Kabir was declared the winner of the keenly contested March 18 poll by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday morning.

Kabir scored 1,019,602 votes to defeat his closest contender, Nasir Gawuna of the APC who polled 890,705 votes.

“That Yusuf Kabir of NNPP having satisfied the requirement of the law is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected,” the Returning Officer, Prof Ahmad Ibrahim declared.

The two main contestants were backed by political gladiators in the state which boasts of high numerical voter strength. Kabir was backed by former Kano governor and NNPP presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso who has a “cult-like” following in Kano with his socio-political movement known as the Kwankwasiyya.

Gawuna was also endorsed by the incumbent governor and APC powerbroker, Abdullahi Ganduje whose two-term of eight years end on May 29, 2023.

For years, Ganduje and Kwankwaso have remained arch-political rivals over the control of Nigeria’s unarguably most populated state with a commensurate number of voters, the highest nationwide.

In the February 25 presidential poll, Kwankwaso won in 38 of the 44 local government areas in Kano with a total of 997,279 votes while APC’s Bola Tinubu won in the remaining six local governments with 517,341 votes.

Interestingly, Ganduje was Kwankwaso’s deputy when the latter was governor from 2011 May to May 2015 before they fell apart after the 2015 elections which saw the emergence of Ganduje as governor. Before then, Kwankwaso was also Kano governor from 1999 to 2003.

Meanwhile, the Kano State Government has imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew to avoid a breakdown of law and order, following tensions generated from the collation of results of the governorship and state Assembly elections.