Kano governor, Abba Yusuf meets Tinubu at Aso Rock

The governor of Kano state, Abba Yusuf, has met with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday.

Yusuf arrived at the President’s office around 4:13pm local time.

The meeting comes amid heightened speculation over Yusuf’s planned defection from the New Nigeria Peoples Party to the ruling All Progressives Congress, a move that has been postponed multiple times since early January.

The governor’s visit to the Villa is his first known audience with President Tinubu since returning from Abu Dhabi, where the President attended the 2026 Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

Sources familiar with the negotiations had earlier told The PUNCH that the defection stalled because the APC leadership refused to grant Yusuf’s demand for a documented assurance of an automatic gubernatorial ticket for the 2027 elections.

The governor is also reportedly seeking the right to nominate a minister to represent Kano State in the Federal Executive Council and the authority to replace Kano-based federal appointees with his loyalists.