Ganduje: I won the 1999 PDP governorship primary, but the election was rigged for Kwankwaso

By Umar Idris Shuaibu, Kano 

Former Kano State Governor and immediate past National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has claimed that he won the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship primary election in Kano State in 1999 but that the outcome was manipulated in favour of Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.

Dr. Ganduje made the remarks while receiving the Chairman of Dawakin Tofa Local Government, party elders, and other stakeholders from the area, where he reflected on the events leading to the 1999 PDP governorship primary election in Kano State.

According to him, Kwankwaso did not emerge as the rightful winner of the PDP primary.

“I swear by Almighty Allah that Kwankwaso did not win that primary election. I was the one who won, and the person who rigged the result in Gabasawa Local Government is still alive. He is even closer to me despite rigging the primary election in favour of Kwankwaso,” Ganduje said.

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He further alleged that officials of the PDP who were sent from the party’s national headquarters intervened after he challenged the outcome of the primary election.

According to Ganduje, the party leaders pleaded with him not to insist on the cancellation of the primary, arguing that doing so could create a crisis similar to what happened during the 1991 governorship election under the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC).

He said party officials feared a repeat of the political division between the Santsi and Tabo factions, which eventually paved the way for the then relatively unknown NRC governorship candidate, Architect Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya, to defeat the widely favoured SDP candidate, Engineer Magaji Abdullahi.

The 1999 PDP primary eventually produced the Kwankwaso-Ganduje ticket, with Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso as the governorship candidate and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje as his running mate. The pair won the governorship election, and Ganduje served as Deputy Governor of Kano State from 1999 to 2003.

After returning to power in 2011, Kwankwaso again selected Ganduje as his deputy, and they served together until 2015, when Ganduje succeeded Kwankwaso as Governor of Kano State.

Before venturing into elective politics, Ganduje served as Commissioner for Works and Housing under the military administrations of the late Colonel Muhammad Abdullahi Wase, the late Colonel Dominic Oneya, and the late Colonel Aminu Isa Kontagora. He resigned from the position in late 1998 to contest the PDP governorship primary.

The political relationship between Ganduje and Kwankwaso later deteriorated, with both leaders officially parting ways in March 2016 during Ganduje’s first tenure as governor. Their fallout followed allegations that Kwankwaso politicised a condolence visit after the death of Ganduje’s mother, who passed away in Ganduje town, Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area.

Ganduje’s latest remarks have revived public interest in the events surrounding the 1999 PDP governorship primary, one of the defining moments in Kano State’s political history. However, Kwankwaso has not publicly responded to the allegations at the time of filing this report.