By
Engr. Bello Gwarzo Abdullahi, FNSE
5 October 2026
Kano is never just another political battleground. With nearly six million registered voters, its political temperature vibrates far beyond its borders, catching the attention of Abuja and the entire North alike. Yet, as the state's political elites lock heads in high-stakes maneuvering ahead of 2027, a dangerous gap is widening. While power brokers shake hands across polished conference tables, regular people are being pushed to their absolute limits by a crushing economic crisis. Nowhere is this disconnect more obvious than in Kano North Senatorial District.
The recent realignment within the All Progressives Congress (APC)—triggered by Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf’s defection from the NNPP in early 2026 and the dramatic replacement of his deputy with Murtala Sule Garo—was praised by party insiders as a masterstroke of political engineering. In Kano North, heavyweights like former governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Senate Deputy President Barau I. Jibrin, and former minister Abdullahi Tijjani Gwarzo quickly patched together a fragile consensus.
But backroom deals do not feed families, and elite handshakes do not wipe away grassroots resentment. While the leadership shares the stage and smiles for the cameras, ordinary people across Kano North are locked in a brutal, daily battle just to survive.
The removal of fuel and energy subsidies has hit the commercial nerve center of northern Nigeria with devastating precision. From bustling metropolitan trading hubs to the quiet farming communities of Bagwai and Shanono, a severe cost-of-living crisis is rewriting the rules of daily life. Skyrocketing petrol and diesel prices have pushed commuter fares on Adaidaita Sahu (tricycles) far beyond the reach of everyday laborers. In major markets like Kantin Kwari and Sabon Gari, a failing power grid forces small-scale manufacturers and traders to rely on expensive generators, triggering a painful industrial decline and widespread job losses. Food inflation has accelerated heavily, turning basic staple grains into luxury items. In the dusty mornings of rural local governments, families are forced to make impossible choices just to secure clean water and a single daily meal.
Against this backdrop of economic desperation, the APC's forced political marriage is cracking from a "double disaffection." The NNPP voters who originally elected Governor Yusuf feel deeply let down and have not blindly followed him into the ruling party. At the same time, the APC old guard, who spent years building the party from scratch, feel completely marginalized by the influx of newcomers. Every major actor has a conflicting motive: Ganduje is fighting for national relevance, Barau is protecting his home base, Garo is looking for an independent footing, and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu simply needs a stable monolith.
Consequently, the assumption that the 2027 contest in Kano will be a walkover for the ruling party is no longer sustainable. A dangerous vacuum has emerged. Political loyalty cannot simply be transferred by executive decree, a reality underscored in September by the reported defection of thousands of supporters from Bagwai and Shanono away from the APC toward the opposition. Their movement is driven less by elite friction and more by an underlying sense of total abandonment.
This internal strife provides the opposition with a visible, expanding opening. However, a political opening is not an automatic victory. To exploit this fracture, the opposition must look entirely beyond individual defections and elite rivalries. It must speak directly to the real, day-to-day pain of the electorate—offering concrete, practical solutions for unemployment, agricultural neglect, and collapsing purchasing power.
Structures rarely collapse overnight; they weaken gradually when grassroots loyalty is eroded by hunger and broken promises. The embers in Kano North are burning. Whether they remain isolated fires or merge into a wider political realignment depends entirely on whether the opposition has the discipline and imagination to turn a smouldering economic discontent into a credible, people-centered democratic alternative.
Abuja Network News
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Opinion