The Kano State House of Assembly has endorsed the planned defection of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf from the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), warning that internal wrangling and litigation within the party could expose his mandate, and those of other elected officials, to legal jeopardy.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, January 8, the Majority Leader of the House, Lawan Hussaini, said staying on the NNPP platform had become increasingly risky because of unresolved factional disputes and multiple court cases surrounding the party’s leadership.
According to Hussaini, the uncertainty over which faction controls the party could create complications for nominations ahead of future elections, and potentially provide grounds for court challenges against winners.
“There is an existing court judgement that recognises a particular faction of the NNPP,” Hussaini told journalists.
“We cannot continue to remain in the party and risk a repeat of the legal disaster that happened in Zamfara State,” he added.
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He said those concerns are driving the Assembly’s support for calls urging Yusuf and the leader of the Kwankwasiyya movement, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, to consider leaving the NNPP for what he described as a more stable political platform, including the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Hussaini added that lawmakers are already in talks with both Yusuf and Kwankwaso in an effort to reach a consensus on what he called a “strategic and timely” exit from the party.
He warned that if the leadership crisis and related court battles persist, the judiciary could ultimately find that the NNPP’s candidates were not properly nominated, even where they won elections, opening the door to removals through litigation. He referenced Zamfara State as a cautionary tale.
In the 2019 general elections, the APC won nearly all elective positions in Zamfara State, including the governorship and state assembly seats, but internal disputes reportedly prevented the conduct of valid primaries.
Days before inauguration, the Supreme Court ruled that the APC had no valid candidates, declared votes cast for the party wasted, and ordered that candidates with the next highest votes who met constitutional requirements be declared winners.
That ruling handed the governorship to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Bello Matawalle, while the PDP also secured almost all legislative seats in the state despite losing at the polls.