The Emerging Progressives Leaders’ Forum, a political pressure group within the All Progressives Congress (APC), has blamed Barau Jibrin, the Deputy Senate President, for the defection of the party’s 2023 governorship candidate in Kano State, Yusuf Gawuna, to the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
On Thursday in Abuja, the group’s National Coordinator, Hafiz Idris, signed a statement saying that Barau had made it harder for Gawuna to get a key political job after he lost the 2023 gubernatorial election to Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP).
The group says that this event finally made Gawuna decide to leave the APC and join the ADC.
The forum also said that the Deputy Senate President was trying to stop the nomination of Murtala Sule Garo, Gawuna’s former running mate, as the next Deputy Governor of Kano State after Aminu Abdulsalam resigned.
It remembered that Garo had been Barau’s campaign director-general in both the 2015 and 2019 elections, showing that he has been loyal to him for a long time.
The statement also talked about the controversy surrounding Barau’s political career in 2015 and said that Garo, who is from the same senatorial district, stood by him during that time.
Sources inside the Kano State Government House say that Governor Yusuf has decided to make Garo the Deputy Governor. They say this is because Garo is popular with the people and was the APC’s deputy governorship candidate in the 2023 elections.
After looking at a number of candidates, the governor is said to have narrowed his choice to the Kano North politician because he sees Garo as a strategic way to bring the state’s political parties together.
But it seems that powerful people in Abuja are strongly opposing the expected appointment.
The group said that Barau is “deeply uncomfortable” with the possibility of Garo’s nomination and is working behind the scenes to stop it, supposedly because he prefers another candidate for political reasons, such as regional balance and influence.
Political experts say that the situation shows a bigger fight for power within Kano’s political system, especially as groups start to form ahead of upcoming elections.
Even though there is a lot of pressure on him, insiders say that Governor Yusuf is sticking to his decision and is unlikely to change his mind unless he faces serious political consequences.
As tensions rise, people are warning that the standoff could make the political class even more divided and start a bigger fight for power in the state.
