US sanctions against Kwankwaso may turn political gift

By John Ogunsemore

United States-based Nigerian academic, Dr Farooq Kperogi said proposed US sanctions against former Kano governor, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, may turn to “a political gift”.

He said this in an opinion piece shared on Facebook on Thursday.

The journalist-cum-academic was reacting to a report that four US congressmen had introduced a bill in Congress titled, ‘The Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act of 2026,’ which recommends visa bans and asset freezes against Kwankwaso, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria and the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore over alleged violations of religious freedoms in Nigeria.

The bill draws inspiration from the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act which recommended visa bans and asset freezes against individuals and entities accused of involvement in religious freedom abuses.

Kperogi stated that Kwankwaso did not fit the description of a religious fanatic by any stretch of imagination.

He recounted how as Assistant News Editor for Weekly Trust he monitored events around the time Sharia law was introduced in Kano under Kwankwaso in June 2000.

He said Kwankwaso was so reluctant to introduce it that it pitched him against the Islamic religious establishment in the state.

Kperogi said, “Anyone with even the faintest familiarity with Kwankwaso’s trajectory and disposition knows that he is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a religious fanatic.

“As Kano’s governor, he was famously (and for Sharia advocates, infamously) unenthusiastic about the introduction of Sharia in 2000. I know because I covered the intrigues that culminated in its declaration that year, as this screenshot testifies.

“My June 30, 2000, Weekly Trust report, co-written with the paper’s then Kano correspondent Sulaiman Aliyu and titled ‘Sharia: Triumph of Kano Masses,’ showed that Kwankwaso resisted declaring Sharia for months and was at odds with both everyday people and the Muslim clerical establishment over the matter.”

According to him, the ex-Kano governor and ex-Minister of Defence may have been targeted as he was the only nationally prominent Nigerian politician who openly criticised the United States’ designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern.

He said the US lawmakers may inadvertently turn Kwankwaso into a larger-than-life political figure in Northern Nigeria comparable to late Muhammadu Buhari.

Kperogi said, “Meanwhile, this seems to me like a rhetorical and political gift to Kwankwaso, whom I once dismissed as a ‘local champion’ at the expense of inviting the raw rage of his supporters. He has struggled for years to gain political traction outside Kano.

“This is probably the gift he has been waiting for to become the unofficial Sardauna of Hausaphone Muslim Arewa, like Muhammadu Buhari was.”