Former U.S. lawmaker Mike Arnold has strongly kicked against a potential joint presidential ticket featuring former governor Rabiu Kwankwaso.
The developments follow the recent defection of former presidential candidate Peter Obi and Kwankwaso from the African Democratic Congress (ADC) to the Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC), where both hope to secure the party’s presidential flagbearer slots.
Reacting to the potential political combination, Arnold made it clear that he opposes Kwankwaso running alongside Obi, pointing out that Kwankwaso is deeply embedded within the Sultan of Sokoto’s inner circle.
Arnold also criticized Kwankwaso’s history of jumping between different political parties, noting that despite his shifting platforms, he “never once strayed from fealty to the throne”.
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In a detailed Facebook post, Arnold wrote: “When the future Sultan was — as a senior officer of an OIC nation — operating in the shadows during the war on terror, his assignment from the Nigerian government was to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Every active jihadi theatre of the post-9/11 era. One Nigerian Defence Attache who is a descendant of Muhammed. Five radical Islamic countries. Three years. There are only two other people in the Nigerian government who knew what he was up to. The President. And Kwankwaso, who was serving as Defence Minister at the time,” he said.
Arnold further highlighted that shortly after the current Sultan returned from that assignment in 2006, ten reform-minded generals of the Nigerian Army tragically died in a plane crash.
“The committee Obasanjo had assembled to clean up the military, gone in one flight,” he said.
“A few weeks later, the sitting Sultan, his son and heir Senator Badamasi Maccido, and several grandchildren were killed in another plane crash. The Abuja airport radar was turned off when their plane went down. The Aviation Minister declared it pilot error within 24 hours. The President ordered arrests of aviation officials within 48 hours. Question closed. The future Sultan was turbaned four days later. Record time. Skipping past Maccido’s surviving adult sons and past dozens of older brothers in the line — Sa’ad Abubakar was the youngest of 52 children of Sultan Siddiq Abubakar III. The Sultanate Council reached past all of them. And not long after that, all those terrorist groups from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia started showing up in Nigeria — where they have been slaughtering Christians and raping the land ever since,” he said.
The former U.S. lawmaker emphasized that Kwankwaso served as the Defence Minister during all of these pivotal incidents, adding that this is far from the only stain on his political record.
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He pointed out that during his tenure as Governor of Kano State, Kwankwaso formally declared Sharia law on June 21, 2000, and went on to establish the Hisbah Board—the religious enforcement body responsible for arresting Kano residents over “improper dress” and “indecent mixing of the sexes.”
“He lost his re-election in 2003 anyway, for being insufficiently Islamic for the Kano clerical establishment. Obasanjo handed him the Defence Ministry the same year. When he returned as Kano Governor from 2011 to 2015, he left behind allegations that he misappropriated roughly N10 billion in pension contributions from Kano state workers. The EFCC interrogated him over it in 2021 and sealed his property. The investigation has stalled. A separate panel found that the EFCC chairman at the time had personally directed his operatives not to investigate Kwankwaso. Today, his nephew Musa Garba is under criminal investigation in Kano for a multi-billion-naira pharmaceutical procurement fraud allegedly tied to a contract awarded to his company without due process. Kwankwaso is publicly accused of interfering with the investigation to protect himself. Sharia. Hisbah. Pension funds. Pharmaceutical contracts. The defence ministry during a genocide. A different party every cycle. And now the vice presidency. That is why I will actively oppose any ticket with Kwankwaso on it. No matter who is on top. Peter Obi, if you want my open mind, pick a running mate who is not a puppet of the Sultan,” he said.
