The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), in reaction to the defection of its Kano State governor, Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf, to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has said he would receive the treatment given to the late governor of Kano State, Abubakar Rimi.
The party stated this over the weekend in a statement titled “a cold betrayal of a sacred trust,” and issued by the National Publicity Secretary, Ladipo Johnson, in Abuja.
The NNPP recalled how late Gov. Rimi in the 1980s left his party, PRP, to NPP and lost his reelection in 1983 to the candidate of the PRP in Kano State.
The party called on members to be calm and discard the reasons given by the Kano State governor for his defection.
According to the party, the action of the governor was a betrayal of the Kwankwasiyya Movement.
The statement read in part: “It is with profound anguish and deep disappointment that we received the news of the resignation and defection of His Excellency, Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf, from the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
“We deeply regret that Governor Abba, a man entrusted by the people of Kano State on the strength of his decades of unwavering loyalty and dedicated service to the Kwankwasiyya Movement, has now chosen to betray that sacred trust. By this action, he risks returning the state to the very forces that have long opposed its progress and the aspirations of its people.
“It is noteworthy that our party, the NNPP, had recently conducted congresses for its leadership from the ward to the national convention, held on 20th December 2025, which the governor himself was present at, and INEC had supervised.
The party had also participated and won in two supplementary elections for Bagwai/Shanono and Ghari/Tsanyawa constituencies, respectively held in August 2025, about three months ago. The assertion he made of an irredeemable crisis in the party is therefore baseless and an afterthought.
“This is not the first time such a betrayal has occurred in the political history of Kano. In the early 1980s, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi defected from the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) to the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), taking with him the vast majority of elected officials—including nearly all local government chairmen and councillors, 120 out of 126 members of the Kano State House of Assembly, and most Kano representatives in the National Assembly.
“Yet, the electorate delivered a resounding verdict: In the 1983 gubernatorial election, Rimi was humiliatingly defeated by Mallam Aliyu Sabo Bakin Zuwo of the PRP, finishing second.
“Even more telling, of the 120 state assembly members who joined Rimi’s defection, only one was re-elected— an outcome that should serve as a sobering lesson to any politician contemplating the path of disloyalty.
“While this development is deeply disturbing and painful for all who have invested in the Kwankwasiyya vision, we urge the 1,019,602 people who cast their votes for his election, as well as the good people of Kano State and Nigeria, to remain calm, patient, and restrained. Let us not descend into acrimony or division.
“History has consistently shown that those who trade loyalty for expediency, and honour for deceit, rarely escape the judgment of the people. The truth endures, and the loyalty of Kano’s masses to principled leadership will ultimately prevail.”
The governor of Kano State, who was elected on the platform of NNPP in 2023, last week Friday defected to the APC, citing an irreconcilable crisis in NNPP
