National Secretariat Quashes ‘Illegal’ Ousting of Kano NNPP Chairman

The high-stakes political drama within the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) took a dramatic turn this Tuesday as the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) moved with surgical precision to invalidate the purported removal of its Kano State Chairman, Alhaji Hashimu Dungurawa. In a stern communiqué issued from the party’s national headquarters in Abuja, the leadership dismissed the actions of a local ward executive committee as a legal “nullity,” effectively reinstating Dungurawa and signaling a firm crackdown on internal insubordination.

The controversy erupted earlier in the week when executive members of the Gargari Ward in the Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area—Dungurawa’s home base—announced his expulsion. The ward-level officials had accused the state chairman of fostering internal divisions and failing to meet the basic financial obligations of party membership, including the payment of dues. However, the national leadership was quick to point out that such a move was not only “undemocratic” but a fundamental violation of the hierarchical logic that governs Nigerian political parties.

National Publicity Secretary, Bamofin Ladipo Johnson, who signed the clarifying statement, did not mince words in his assessment of the situation. He characterized the attempt by ward-level officers to sack a state-level chairman as a “gross act of anti-party behavior.” According to the NNPP’s national organ, the party’s constitution does not grant a ward executive the authority to discipline or remove a state chairman, making the entire exercise an exercise in futility that had “no effect whatsoever” on the leadership structure in Kano.

This internal friction comes at a delicate time for the NNPP in its primary stronghold. Kano, the only state currently governed by the party, has been a tinderbox of political rumors recently, most notably regarding the alleged dissatisfaction of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf with the party’s central leadership. Speculation has been rife about a potential realignment that could see the Governor move toward the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Observers suggest that the move against Dungurawa—a staunch ally of the party’s national leader, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso—may have been a proxy battle in this larger struggle for the soul of the party in the North.

By stepping in so decisively, the NWC has effectively shielded Dungurawa, whom they described as a “conscientious, hardworking, and dutiful” leader. The national body credited him with the significant growth and stabilization of the party’s structures in Kano since the 2023 elections. This high-level endorsement serves as a clear warning to local factions that any attempt to restructure the party from the bottom up, without the blessing of the national secretariat and Kwankwaso, will be met with stiff resistance.

The party’s spokesperson emphasized that the NNPP would not tolerate “questionable actions” that threaten to create parallel leaderships or weaken the party’s resolve ahead of future electoral cycles. Johnson urged all members to strictly adhere to the established channels for grievance and discipline, reminding them that respect for the party’s internal democratic processes is the only way to maintain the unity required to govern a state as politically complex as Kano.

For Dungurawa, the national intervention is a total vindication. He had previously dismissed his “sacking” as a orchestrated distraction, insisting that he remained the legitimate head of the party in the state. With the Abuja headquarters now firmly in his corner, his focus is likely to shift back to managing the various factions within the state and attempting to maintain a unified front between the Kwankwasiyya movement and the state executive led by Governor Yusuf.

As the dust settles on this specific skirmish, the broader question of the NNPP’s stability remains. The tension between the ward executives in Dawakin Tofa and the state leadership suggests a deeper dissatisfaction that a simple statement from Abuja may not fully resolve. However, for the time being, the hierarchy has been restored, and the “Gargari Coup” has been relegated to a footnote in the ongoing saga of Kano’s volatile political landscape.