Former All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman Abdullahi Ganduje has publicly challenged a proposal by Rabiu Kwankwaso, leader of the Kwankwasiyya Movement and 2027 vice presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), for Nigeria to open negotiations with armed bandits terrorizing communities in the north-west. Ganduje questioned the feasibility of such talks, reviving a long-standing political rivalry between the two former Kano state governors.
Ganduje Dismisses Dialogue as Unworkable
Kwankwaso had recently suggested that engaging armed groups through structured dialogue, involving the NDC, could offer a path toward reducing the violence that has claimed hundreds of lives and displaced thousands across states like Zamfara, Katsina, and Sokoto. Ganduje dismissed the idea as unworkable, arguing that the nature of banditry makes formal dialogue impossible to execute credibly. He remarked: "How do you expect bandits to come from the forest? Hundreds of them, each one with a gun, coming to sit down with local chiefs, the chairman of the local government, traditional rulers, even with the police, and start negotiating. I think that system has failed."
Political Rivalry Resurfaces
Ganduje's comments drew attention not only for their directness but also because of the history between the two men. Ganduje and Kwankwaso are former political allies who later became fierce rivals in Kano state politics, with each leading opposing camps that have clashed repeatedly over governorship and federal elections. Their fallout produced one of the most bitter political rivalries in northern Nigeria.
Divergent Security Strategies
The exchange reflects a broader disagreement over how federal and state governments should handle the banditry crisis in the north-west, where criminal gangs have carried out mass abductions, attacks on farming communities, and raids on military convoys. Kwankwaso's camp believes engaging these groups could reduce bloodshed where military force alone has not delivered lasting results. Ganduje's position, however, is that previous attempts at negotiation have produced nothing durable, and that granting armed groups a seat at the table alongside government officials and traditional institutions only emboldens them.
The public dispute between the two political figures adds another dimension to an already complex security debate, with voices from different ends of Nigeria's political spectrum offering conflicting prescriptions for a crisis that has resisted easy solutions.
