President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has reportedly begun moves to reconcile the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Ganduje and the 2023 presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Both Kwankwaso and Ganduje are former Governors of Kano State and major stakeholders in the North West state.
According to Daily Trust, the president communicated his intention for reconciliation to both leaders separately during a meeting with Kano APC stakeholders at the State House in Abuja last week Thursday.
It was said that President Tinubu had given Kwankwaso and Ganduje some time to inform their stakeholders and return at a later date to finalise the reconciliation process.
The newspaper said the president plans to personally chair a reconciliation meeting where the two former governors of Kano State are expected to come with two persons each.
One of the sources close to Ganduje confirmed that the president had asked the APC leader to meet with APC stakeholders in Kano on Thursday and commence the process of solidifying the unity of purpose amongst them.
The source said: “Contrary to what is trending that the president ordered the (national) chairman (Ganduje) to reconcile with Kwankwaso, the president never spoke specifically about Kwankwaso during the stakeholders’ meeting at the Presidential Villa, last week. During the meeting, the president praised Ganduje’s reconciliation skills in Ondo and Edo and said he wants him to do similar things with Kano.”
The source added that it was during a private meeting between Tinubu and Ganduje that the president informed the APC leader of his intention to bring Kwankwaso into APC and asked the latter to devise a strategy for realising this objective.
He said as a first step towards achieving that goal, however, the president asked Ganduje to convene a meeting in Kano, in order to secure the buy-in of APC stakeholders in the state.
It was gathered further that while many of the APC stakeholders at the meeting in Abuja had their reservations about what the president was proposing, none could raise a dissenting voice.
“There was no room for that (dissenting voice). What happened was that the plan for the meeting with the president was to allow the chairman to do the opening remark and then yield the floor to Barau (Jibrin, the deputy Senate President) as well as (Alhassan Ado) Doguwa (member representing Doguwa/Tudunwada Federal Constituency of Kano State).
“But as the chairman was rounding off his speech, the president put on his microphone, signalling that he was ready to speak, and he did not mince words in what he told them. First, he learnt that the members of the APC family in Kano were unhappy with the Supreme Court judgment that retained Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf and that many of the party faithful felt let down by him (the president) over this development,” the source said.
The president was then said to have appealed to the party’s leaders at the meeting to reach out to the Kano APC family in Kano and appease them, assuring them that he played no role in the loss suffered by the party.
“The second thing the president said was that our chairman should use the reconciliation skills to effectively manage the Kano APC stakeholders, after which he should return to him for further consultation.
“Shockingly, the president never said anything about possible ‘compensation’ for Gawuna and Garo (the governorship candidate and his deputy) with some political appointments,
” the source added.
