By Alphonsus Okoroigwe
Distinguished Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso is 70!
Not just 70, the figure, I mean seventy years of a life that has moved from the drafting board of a water engineer to the command centre of Nigerian politics. And Nigeria, honest enough, would admit that it has not produced many of his kind in the last three decades.
Born in the pre-colonial town of Kwankwaso to the royal family of the late Alhaji Musa Saleh Kwankwaso, past District Head of Madobi and Majidadin Kano on October 21, 1956, Senator Kwankwaso’s story typifies the classic Nigerian promise: Kwankwaso Primary School, Gwarzo Boarding Senior Primary School, Wudil Craft School, Kano Technical College, Kaduna Polytechnic, Middlesex Polytechnic, Loughborough University of Technology, and Sharda University.
In 1975, he joined Kano State’s Water Resources and Engineering Construction Agency (WRECA), where he rose to Principal Water Engineer.
Politics found him in 1992 when he became Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives in the botched Third Republic.
Since then, he has been two-term Governor of Kano State (1999-2003, 2011-2015), Minister of Defence [first in the Fourth Republic without military background (2003-2007)], and Senator for Kano Central (2015-2019), as well as Special Envoy to Somalia and Darfur, and Presidential Candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) in 2023.
Defined by ideas, not titles, Kwankwaso is arguably the most education-friendly Nigerian alive today. He established the Kano State University of Science and Technology, Wudil, the first state university in Kano; and the Yusuf Maitama Sule University, Kano (formerly North West University).
He built 230 secondary schools across Kano State, including 47 technical colleges, 44 schools of Islamic studies, Chinese and French colleges, and the first girls’ boarding college. He also established 26 academic and manpower institutes through which over 360,000 women and youths were trained.
During his first term as governor, Kwankwaso introduced free school meals, free uniforms, and free learning materials for primary school pupils through his administration’s Community Reorientation Committee (CRC). He revived this policy during his second term, significantly increasing primary school enrollment in the state to over 3 million in 2015. This was scaled nationally under the Federal Government’s Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP). His administration awarded over 2,600 foreign undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships in 14 countries, with thousands of others in different Nigerian universities.
Believing that infrastructure must be seen and felt by the common man, Kwankwaso made a bold statement that is evidenced from Kofar Nassarawa Flyover, Ibrahim Taiwo Road Flyover, Kabuga and Gadon Kaya underpasses, to the 5-kilometer dual-carriage lighted roads in each of the state’s 44 local government areas. And to decongest Kano metropolis, he built Kwankwasiyya, Amana, and Bandirawo cities.
Perhaps the Kwankwaso enigma is more bound by ideology than philosophy, going by what the Kwankwasiyya Movement stands for today. Symbolised by its signature red cap with a white stripe, the movement has endeared itself to millions of Nigerian youths who feel totally locked out of the elite consensus.
Kwankwaso is socially conservative but economically left-leaning, a rare ideological clarity in Nigerian politics. He is a fearless voice of truth, be he in PDP, APC, NNPP or NDC.
At 70, Kwankwaso remains the father of Kano politics, holding all the aces. Despite holding no public office at present, he holds a constituency that is too dangerous to ignore. If in doubt, check out the strength of his foot soldiers across the 44 local government areas of Kano State.
As Nigeria inches towards 2027, Kwankwaso at 70 represents a reminder that politics is about ideas – free education, youth empowerment, mass housing, and pro-people infrastructure. For him, populism is it!
I join millions of impoverished Nigerians – the downtrodden – to celebrate a visionary leader and statesman who turned governance into a tool for lifting the poor.
Happy 70th birthday, Madugu!
Alphonsus Okoroigwe is an international multimedia journalist based in Enugu
