OLAOLU OLADIPO 
The outcome of the Kano State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal can be seen from divergent angles by many political pundits who are conversant with the politics of the state reputed to be the commercial centre of the North.
Something many saw as unthinkable occurred last Wednesday when the panel entertaining the petition of the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Nasir Ganuwa sacked the state governor, Yusuf Abba who contested and won the governorship on the platform of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP).
According to the tribunal Gawuna who was the deputy to the immediate past governor of the state and now the National Chairman of the APC, Alhaji Abdullahi Umar Ganduje was declared the winner of the March 18 governorship poll.
The road to the arrival at the verdict had been rough and tough owing to the fact that the build up to that Wednesday declaration was very tense with the supporters of the two feuding parties engaging in intrigues to assert their dominance of the politics of the state.
So tense was the buildup that some serving members of the state’s executive committee had to be shown the way out over what was considered the inflammatory and incendiary comments against the panel and members of the petition panel.
In the end, the three-man panel, led by Justice Oluyemi Akintan-Osadebay who sat virtually a few minutes before 10:00 am transmitting from Miller Road, Kano venue of the Election Petition Tribunal held that Ganuwa not Yusuf was validly elected to lead the state. After considering the fact that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Yusuf winner for polling 1,019,602 votes to defeat Gawuna, who scored 890,705 votes, the panel deducted votes from Yusuf describing them as invalid.
The outcome of the tribunal has continued to elicit reactions and comments from watchers of Kano State politics with many wondering whether there exists covert or clandestine moves to ‘cut down’ the influence of the National Leader of the NNPP, Engineer Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in the North and particularly in Kano which is considered as his traditional base.
One of such reactions was that which came from the police authorities who never wasted time to impose a 24-hour curfew to forestall a total breakdown of law and order that may occur should the supporters of the two contending parties engage themselves in a battle.
The measure is expected to be in place till when it is deemed appropriate to be lifted when the security agencies feel that the frayed nerves have cooled down. Those in the know are of the opinion that Kwankwaso may actually be dealing with internal and external forces that have converged or massed together to cut him down to size citing immediate and long term threats that he poses to some entrenched interests within and outside the state.
A supporter of the NNPP, Mr. Suleiman Abdulmalik maintained that his party won the election clearly and that what the APC was trying to snatch power through the back door.
“We know that there has been a series of attempts to win Kano which is considered as the economic and political nerve centre of the North. They failed at the ballot box but they are now using the judicial route,” AbdulMalik said. The Kogi State born chieftain maintained that the other reason the ruling party needed Kano desperately was to curb the rising influence of Kwankwaso in the North and that the best way to do that was to cut him down at his base, which is Kano.
While identifying the 2027 general elections as the sole reason Kano is vital, the NNPP chieftain said, “Once they capture Kano as they are trying to do, there would have succeeded in demobilizing Kwankwaso whom they reason might wish to square up with them in next election.”
He stated that all these plans are being coordinated by the National Chairman of the APC whom he stated has assumed the status of a sworn political enemy of Kwakwanso. Despite these permutations and attempts to wrest the state for the APC, Abdulmalik stated that the basis upon which the tribunal arrived at its judgment would be upturned by the two appellate courts.
