Rabiu Kwankwaso on Friday morning named Aminu Abdulsalam Gwarzo as the Nigeria Democratic Congress governorship candidate for Kano State in the 2027 elections, making the former deputy governor the party’s flagbearer after a closed-door stakeholders’ meeting in Kano.
Kwankwaso announced the choice in a video broadcast posted on Facebook by his media aide, Saifullahi Hassan, and said Gwarzo’s selection came after consultations inside the party. In the same broadcast, he also unveiled Nasiru Gawuna as the party’s candidate for the Kano Central senatorial seat.
“I am delighted to announce that His Excellency, Comrade Aminu Abdussalam Gwarzo has been selected as our Kano NDC gubernatorial candidate for the upcoming elections,” Kwankwaso said. He added that Gawuna would contest for the Kano Central Senatorial Seat, and said the decisions reflected “equity, fairness, loyalty, and competence” — values he described as central to the party and to Kwankwasiyya’s progress and unity.
The announcement matters because it fills one of the biggest openings in Kano politics ahead of 2027 and brings two familiar names back into the center of the state’s contest. Gwarzo served as deputy governor of Kano State under Governor Abba Yusuf before leaving office, and he previously held the post of Commissioner for State Affairs during Kwankwaso’s administration. He also served as chairman of Gwarzo Local Government Area.
His nomination follows a turbulent exit from government. Gwarzo resigned as deputy governor in March after a dispute with Yusuf over the governor’s defection to the All Progressives Congress in January. He stepped down just weeks after the state House of Assembly began impeachment proceedings against him, a sequence that turned him from a sitting deputy governor into a fresh party standard-bearer within the same political season.
Kwankwaso’s move also placed Gawuna in a new contest of his own. Gawuna, who served as deputy governor of Kano State during the administration of Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, had been the APC’s governorship candidate in the 2023 election before leaving that party in March after months of protests over alleged marginalisation following his unsuccessful bid. On Friday, Kwankwaso said Gawuna would replace incumbent senator Rufai Hanga in the Kano Central race.
The NDC had already announced Kassim Batayya as its senatorial candidate for Kano South, but it had still not named a candidate for Kano North. That leaves the party’s Kano ticket partly complete, even as it pushes ahead with Friday’s affirmation exercise.
Kwankwaso said he was optimistic about the process and prayed for a peaceful and successful affirmation. The immediate question now is whether the party’s choices, built around old rivals and recent defectors, can hold together long enough to turn internal consensus into an election-winning coalition in Kano.
