Ganduje picks deputy as preferred successor

Nasir Gawuna, Deputy Governor of Kano, has been anointed as the preferred choice of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the 2023 governorship election.

Gawuna’s choice was made at a stakeholders’ meeting Governor Abdullahi Ganduje presided over, Daily Trust reliably gathered.

• 2023: Mass resignation hits Ganduje’s cabinet
• Shekarau loses out as Supreme Court upholds Ganduje’s APC faction

The stakeholders were also said to have agreed that the former Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Murtala Sule Garo, should be the running mate of Gawuna in the election.

It was gathered that it took intervention of party leaders and elder statesmen to prevail on Garo to step down for Gawuna.

Garo, who is believed to have the control of the party structure at the local government level, was seen as the preferred candidate of the wife of the governor, Hafsat Ganduje.

The incumbent governor had served as the deputy of Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso during the two terms he governed Kano.

Kwankwaso had endorsed Ganduje to take over from him, but the duo fell apart shortly after the 2015 elections.

If Gawuna wins the 2023 election, the tradition of deputy governor succeeding their principals would have been maintained in Kano’s recent political era.