Former Kano State Governor, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has announced he is fully ready to forgive and reconcile with his former protégé, Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, despite the deep political rift now dividing them.
The national leader of the Kwankwasiyya movement made this known during a BBC Hausa interview, explaining that the door to peace stays open because he never turned his back on the Governor in the first place.
“I still love Abba and I didn’t reject him, he is the one that left. So not just Abba, if anyone who left comes back, I won’t be unforgiving. Look at Ganduje, in the many years we worked together, we fell out several times and got back together. That is how politics works,” he said.
Tensions flared between the two heavyweights after Governor Yusuf abandoned the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP)—the platform that brought him to power in 2023—to join the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Kwankwaso insists that Yusuf’s historic election victory was fueled entirely by the formidable engine of the Kwankwasiyya movement, dismissing any fears that staying with the party would have cost him his seat.
“We picked Abba to contest under the NNPP and we won, but he left to join the people we defeated. Some say he did so because he feared losing his position, but he knows there was no way we would have been defeated in Kano. If that were the case, we would have lost when he contested under our party,” he stated.
The veteran politician openly admitted that Yusuf was strategically chosen for the 2023 race as a litmus test to show the world exactly how much raw political muscle their movement still commands.
“We did not choose him because he was the most senior or the most educated. We chose him because we wanted to test the strength and calibre of the Kwankwasiyya movement at that time,” he said.
Rounding off his thoughts on power and loyalty, Kwankwaso stressed that true leadership requires a massive capacity for tolerance and a willingness to embrace people of all viewpoints.
“As a leader, you need to have an open heart. You cannot force people to think the way you do because we all come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives. Without forgiveness, we would not have come this far,” he added.
