President Bola Ahmed Tinubu held separate closed-door meetings on Tuesday with former Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and former Defence Minister Badaru Abubakar at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa. The meetings come amid growing political unrest in Kano and Jigawa States, where the ruling APC is facing a surge of defections to the opposition All Democratic Congress, ADC. In Kano, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, the 2023 NNPP presidential candidate, defected to the ADC on Monday with his Kwankwasiya Movement members, a move followed by APC's 2023 gubernatorial candidate Yusuf Gawuna. The APC now faces fears of further losses ahead of the 2026 party primaries.
Ganduje, a former national chairman of the APC, is expected to help stabilise the party in Kano, where control is contested between Governor Abba Yusuf, a recent party member, and old guard loyalists. He is also expected to play a role in selecting a new deputy governor after Aminu Gwarzo, a Kwankwaso ally, defected to the ADC. In Jigawa, Badaru Abubakar has been locked in a power struggle with Governor Muhammadu Namadi over control of the state party structure. This conflict reportedly led to the rejection of Badaru's nominee, Bashir Gumel, in favour of Namadi's pick for the position of National Financial Secretary at the APC's recent national convention. Though Badaru has not defected, speculation persists that some of his allies have joined the ADC.
Tinubu's emergency meetings with Ganduje and Badaru reveal the depth of internal decay within the APC in northern strongholds. The fact that two former governors had to be summoned over party survival—rather than policy or development—shows that the administration is prioritising political containment over governance. With Kwankwaso now in the ADC and taking key APC figures with him, the party's dominance in Kano is no longer a given. This isn't just a leadership tussle—it's a signal that Tinubu's coalition is fracturing at the edges, and the 2027 election map is already shifting.
