News coming out of the Kwankwasiyya camp says its leader, former Kano State Governor and PDP presidential aspirant, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has decreed the Kano PDP governorship ticket to his son in-law. He has also awarded two House of Reps tickets to his son and another son in-law.
This is a deplorable brew of anti-democratic imposition and nepotism. And yet this man wants to run against Buhari and replace him.
I’ve always said that Kwankwaso is a mini-Buhari, a Buhari wanna-be, a poor man’s Buhari–take your pick.
The man mirrors Buhari’s political style and temperament in several ways. He is parochial, nepotistic, and insular.
At a time when there is nationwide outcry about the nepotism, provincialism, and insularity of Buhari, Kwankwaso somehow thinks that Nigerians are ready to replace one nepotistic leader with another.
Kwankwaso’s desperation to replace Buhari as leader of the Northern political grassroots and to inherit the mantle of Mai Gaskiya has prevented him from transitioning from a Kano and Northwest champion into a national political figure.
He is always positioning himself through his actions and utterances as a champion of the North, just like Buhari. He has never made any radical statement challenging the political and economic status quo. At least Atiku gets some points for broaching the subject of restructuring, no matter how pretentiously or opportunistically.
Buhari has already cornered the market on pro-Northern provincialism. Kwankwaso cannot out-Buhari Buhari. But he is trying though.
I have not seen any pan-Nigeria, cosmopolitan, nationalist political statement of Kwankwaso’s. If you know of any please apprise me of it.
When he goes to the South on political outreach, it is to interact with or condole Hausa-Fulani communities there, not to build political bridges.
In his inner political circle, he has no Southerners or people from the Middle Belt. His political family is peopled mostly by his Kano protégés and a sprinkling of people from other Northwestern states.
Of course, it is election season and he will make the usual pan-Nigerian noises. But his pedigree is very much that of Buhari, and his aspiration is not to become a pan-Nigerian leader but the inheritor of Buhari’s political capital in the North.
It’s a shame, really, because Kwankwaso is a political talent and a performer who could easily have transitioned into a formidable national political personality. Instead, his desire to cater to a narrow ethno-regional constituency has stunted his political influence and spooked Nigerians outside his northwest geopolitical base.
Source: Facebook
