As political activities gradually gather momentum ahead of the 2027 general elections, the emergence of Dr. Yusuf Jibril (JY), a former Kano State Commissioner for Agriculture, as the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate for the Rano, Kibiya, and Bunkure Federal Constituency has not come as a surprise to many observers.

After all, this is not his first attempt to secure the seat. However, what remains surprising is his apparent failure to learn some of the fundamental lessons of grassroots politics despite years of political experience.

Politics is not merely about ambition. It is not about appearing on ballot papers every election cycle. It is about relationships, accessibility, empathy, and constant engagement with the people whose votes a candidate seeks. Unfortunately, these are areas in which many constituents believe JY has performed poorly.

Dr. Jibril rose through the ranks of youth politics, a background that ordinarily should have made him a champion of inclusion, consultation, and grassroots mobilization. Instead, many people perceive him as a politician who has distanced himself from the very communities he hopes will elect him.

One of the most persistent criticisms against JY is his alleged inability to build and sustain meaningful relationships across the constituency. Politics thrives on personal connections. Communities expect their leaders and aspiring representatives to share in their moments of joy and stand with them during difficult times. Yet, many constituents complain that JY is rarely visible when communities face challenges or celebrate achievements.

The Rano, Kibiya, and Bunkure Federal Constituency comprises more than 30 wards, each with its own unique concerns and political realities. However, critics argue that JY’s engagement appears to be limited to only a handful of wards. Such a narrow political reach raises serious questions about his understanding of the constituency he seeks to represent.

Some political observers even argue that JY has yet to demonstrate the level of grassroots penetration, political maturity, and constituency-wide engagement expected of someone seeking a seat in the House of Representatives.

According to these critics, his current political profile more closely resembles that of a ward-level politician than that of a federal lawmaker. They contend that effective representation at the national level requires a candidate with broad-based acceptance, deep community networks, and a proven record of engagement across all wards.

In their view, the constituency needs a politician with greater political calibre, commitment, visibility, and sustained interaction with the electorate, rather than one whose influence appears confined to limited areas.

A candidate seeking election to the House of Representatives is expected to maintain a presence across all corners of the constituency. Representation begins long before election day. It starts with listening to the people, understanding their concerns, and maintaining regular contact with them. Unfortunately, many voters struggle to identify tangible evidence of sustained engagement by JY.

Perhaps the greatest weakness of his political approach is communication. In modern politics, communication is not optional; it is essential. Before voters can support a candidate, they must know who he is, what he stands for, and why he deserves their trust. Effective communication creates familiarity, inspires confidence, and projects leadership.

Yet many political observers argue that JY has failed to establish strong communication channels with the electorate. His message is often absent from public discourse, while his interactions with constituents appear sporadic and insufficient. In a political environment where visibility and engagement determine electoral success, such shortcomings can prove costly.

A politician who does not communicate effectively leaves room for uncertainty, speculation, and voter apathy. Constituents want leaders who listen, respond, and remain accessible. They want representatives who can address misinformation, explain policy positions, and provide timely feedback on community concerns. These are not luxuries; they are basic expectations.

Responsiveness is another critical measure of political leadership. Voters want to feel heard. They want to know that their concerns matter. When politicians fail to engage with constituents, they create a perception of indifference. This perception, whether fair or not, often translates into political consequences at the ballot box.

Trust remains the currency of politics. Trust is earned through consistent actions, transparent communication, and a visible commitment to the welfare of the people. It cannot be demanded, and it certainly cannot be achieved through occasional appearances during election seasons.

As Dr. Yusuf Jibril embarks on yet another journey to the House of Representatives, he faces a difficult challenge. The constituency is no longer interested in titles, past appointments, or political slogans. The people want evidence of commitment, accessibility, and genuine concern for their welfare.

If JY hopes to convince voters in Rano, Kibiya, and Bunkure, he must first confront the growing perception that he remains disconnected from the grassroots. Elections are won through relationships, trust, and continuous engagement—not through ambition alone.

The electorate deserves a representative who is visible, responsive, and deeply rooted in the communities he seeks to serve. Whether JY can transform his political style to meet these expectations remains a question that only the voters can answer.

Buhari Abba writes from Unguwar Liman, Rano.

His Excellency,
The Executive Governor of Kano State,
Engr Abba Kabir Yusuf

A TRIBUTE TO HIS EXCELLENCY ON THE OCCASION OF HIS 3RD YEAR IN OFFICE*

Your Excellency Sir,

On this milestone of your third year as Executive Governor of Kano State, I and my team join millions of Kano people in celebrating a journey defined by purpose, resilience and measurable impact. The mandate entrusted to you in 2023 has matured into visible progress across every sector.

You have governed like a master builder, not chasing applause, but laying foundations. The roads you revived now pulse with commerce. Classrooms you rebuilt now echo with the voices of tomorrow’s leaders. Health facilities you upgraded now stand as refuges where dignity is restored alongside healing.

What distinguishes your leadership most is your commitment to those who came before us. By settling outstanding gratuities and severance entitlements, you honored the service of retirees and former office holders. That act did more than clear arrears, it restored faith. It reminded every public servant that service to Kano will never be forgotten.

Let us also place on record, our profound respect for one of the most difficult sacrifice, yet far-sighted, decisions of your administration: embracing APC, the party of the central government, in the interest of Kano people. Political alignment at that level requires courage. You chose principle over politics, unity over division and development over discord. By bridging Kano with the center, you positioned our state to attract resources, partnerships and opportunities that would have been out of reach. History will record that as statesmanship, not convenience.

We also hold in deep respect the political courage you demonstrated by wielding the broom to sweep away entrenched “wall Geckos”, that is, by releasing office holders whose loyalty lay elsewhere so that your government could move forward with one mind and one direction. It was a decisive, difficult act. But history teaches that a house divided cannot stand. By clearing space for men and women who share your vision, you ensured that governance would not be held hostage by inertia. That was statesmanship.

Your Excellency, the choice of *Alhaji Murtala Sule Galadima Garo as your deputy* was a brilliant decision that grounded your administration in Kano. As a grassroots politician, he understands our markets, our wards, and the daily realities of our communities. Like strong roots that keep a tall tree firm in a storm, his close connection to the people gives your government depth, balance, and wider reach. With him by your side, the distance between Government House and the last compound in every local government is shorter, and the voice of ordinary citizens reaches the table of power.

Your Excellency, I and my team believed that your swift response to the security challenges in Gwarzo, Shanono and Tsanyawa proves that the safety of Kano people is not just ink in a manifesto, it is the heartbeat of your administration. Like a vigilant shepherd who moves before the wolf scatters the flock, you acted with urgency to shield lives and property before fear could take root. That same resolve extended to the victims and families shattered by bandit attacks, and to the frontline security personnel standing in harm’s way. You looked beyond the numbers and saw grieving families. You looked beyond duty and saw brave men and women at the frontline. Like a father who binds the wounds of his children while strengthening the hands that guard the gate, you chose to comfort the broken and fortify the brave. In that dual commitment, to protect Kano and to heal Kano, governance is revealed not merely as power, but as humanity.

Accordingly, Your emergence unopposed in the APC primaries and the calm wisdom with which you guided fellow aspirants, further affirmed your role as a unifier. You understood that when leaders contend without restraint, the people bear the cost. You chose consensus. Kano is better for it.

Your Excellency, you carry leadership like the baobab carries its crown, not for show, but to shelter all who stand beneath it. You wear responsibility heavier than any title.

As I write this, I do so as an APC aspirant for UGG/MJB Federal Constituency who, through the party’s consensus process, yielded the ticket in deference to party unity. That decision does not diminish my commitment. It strengthens it. My pledge to the good people of UGG/MJB and to this administration remains unshaken.

May Allah SWT continue to guide you, grant you strength and crown your efforts with success that outlives your stewardship. May your name be etched among those who turned vision into heritage.

Kano is moving. Kano is grateful.

With highest regards,
Naziru Alhassan Bachirawa – Ungogo

By Aliyu Mohammed Idris, PhD,

There is a particular kind of political optimism that refuses to be corrected by evidence. It is the optimism that survives a catastrophic electoral performance, reinterprets the catastrophe as a near-miss, constructs an elaborate narrative of stolen victory to explain away the margin of defeat, and then proceeds to the next electoral cycle with essentially the same strategic assumptions, the same candidate, and the same fundamental misreading of the political landscape that produced the catastrophe in the first place. It is the optimism currently driving Peter Obi’s 2027 presidential campaign under the banner of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, and it is an optimism that the verified electoral arithmetic of the 2023 presidential election exposes, with the cold and irrefutable precision of numbers, as a strategy built on a foundation that the facts of Nigerian political geography simply do not support.
The numbers are not in dispute. They are drawn from the official records of the Independent National Electoral Commission, verified by multiple fact-checking organisations, and confirmed by the Africa Report’s real-time election coverage. Peter Obi secured 43.0 percent of votes from the South in the 2023 presidential election and only 14.2 percent from the North. That 14.2 percent figure is not merely a disappointing performance or a correctable underachievement. It is a structural indictment of a campaign that presented itself as a genuinely national movement while failing to build anything resembling a genuinely national electoral coalition. In Gombe State, he polled 26,160 votes against Atiku’s 319,123. In Sokoto, he managed 6,568 votes. In state after state across the North-West and North-East, his performance was so marginal as to be politically irrelevant in the context of a contest governed by the constitutional requirement that a winning presidential candidate must secure not merely the most votes nationally but at least 25 percent of votes cast in no fewer than 24 of Nigeria’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The constitutional arithmetic is the most devastating dimension of this electoral reality. Nigeria’s presidential election is not won by national popular vote alone. It is won by a combination of national plurality and geographic distribution, a system specifically designed to ensure that the president of a federation as diverse as Nigeria cannot be elected on the strength of a single region’s enthusiasm, however overwhelming that enthusiasm may be. In 2023, Peter Obi won the South-East with majorities that were, in several states, greater than 90 percent of votes cast. In Anambra, his home state, he polled 584,621 votes. In Enugu, he secured 91.42 percent of total votes cast. These were extraordinary performances. But they were extraordinary performances in a geographically concentrated region that, however impressive its margins, could not on its own satisfy the constitutional distribution requirement that makes a presidential victory mathematically possible. The 25 percent threshold in 24 states is not a formality. It is the architectural expression of Nigeria’s federal character, and Peter Obi’s 2023 campaign failed to meet it not because of electoral malpractice alone, as his supporters persistently claim, but because the underlying electoral coalition he had built was geographically insufficient to satisfy a constitutional standard that any serious presidential campaign must plan from the outset to meet.
The question for 2027 is whether the Obi-Kwankwaso ticket has credibly addressed this structural deficiency. The honest answer, when examined against the current political landscape of Northern Nigeria, is that it has not, and that the specific political assets that Kwankwaso was expected to bring to the ticket have been substantially eroded by the events of the past two years in ways that the NDC’s campaign strategists appear to be either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge. Kwankwaso’s political capital in the North was always most concentrated in Kano State, where the Kwankwasiyya movement had built a formidable grassroots organisation over more than a decade of investment in community mobilisation, welfare distribution, and political education. That organisation delivered Kano State for the NNPP in the 2023 governorship election, producing the administration of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, the man who was supposed to be the institutional expression of Kwankwaso’s continued relevance as a northern political force.
But Governor Yusuf is no longer Kwankwaso’s man. He decamped to the APC earlier in 2026, taking with him the 36 members of the Kano State House of Assembly and all 44 local government chairmen, in one of the most consequential political defections in Kano’s recent history. The Kwankwasiyya movement, which was already showing signs of internal stress before the defection, has been structurally fractured by the departure of the governor it helped elect. The political organisation that Kwankwaso was counting on to deliver Kano’s substantial electoral weight to the Obi-Kwankwaso ticket in 2027 is now a significantly diminished force operating in a state whose government, whose legislative machinery, and whose local government structures are all aligned with the APC and the federal administration of President Tinubu. Beyond Kano, Kwankwaso’s influence across the wider North-West and North-East was always more aspirational than organisational, more a function of his national profile than of the kind of ward-level mobilisation infrastructure that actually moves voters on election day.
The one-term promise that Obi has repeatedly deployed as a tool for managing northern political anxieties about southern presidential dominance adds a further layer of analytical complexity to the electoral arithmetic question, because it highlights the extent to which the NDC’s northern strategy is built on political arrangements rather than genuine political support. A presidential candidate who needs to offer a constitutionally unenforceable promise to serve only a single term in order to persuade northern stakeholders to consider supporting him is a candidate who is acknowledging, in the most direct possible terms, that the northern support he is seeking is contingent rather than organic, transactional rather than ideological, and dependent on political calculations that could shift dramatically between now and the February 2027 polling date. Political opinion across Northern Nigeria, as Vanguard’s reporting confirmed, remains sharply divided over the one-term promise, with many stakeholders describing it as politically strategic but lacking enforceable guarantees. That assessment is correct. And a northern electoral strategy built on a promise that cannot be legally enforced, delivered by a candidate whose history of party-switching has demonstrated a consistent willingness to abandon commitments when political conditions become inconvenient, is a strategy whose foundations deserve the most rigorous scrutiny.
The electoral mathematics of 2027 are not fundamentally different from those of 2023. The constitutional threshold is the same. The geographic distribution requirement is the same. The northern political landscape, far from having been transformed in Obi’s favour by the Kwankwaso alliance, has in critical respects shifted against him, with Kano State, the single most important northern electoral prize, now firmly within the APC’s political architecture following Governor Yusuf’s defection. The 14.2 percent that Obi secured from the North in 2023 was not a floor from which he will inevitably rise with the right running mate and the right messaging. It was a ceiling built by a combination of the IPOB credibility deficit, the geographic concentration of the Obidient Movement’s energy, the constitutional distribution requirement’s structural demands, and the deep cultural and political instincts of northern voters whose relationship with presidential candidates is governed by a set of expectations and requirements that Peter Obi’s campaign, in 2023 and so far in 2027, has not demonstrated the capacity or the willingness to genuinely meet. The numbers said it clearly in 2023. They are saying it still. The question is whether anyone in the NDC’s campaign structure is listening