NGScorecard

Sought and defended the March 2023 governorship mandate against an APC legal challenge.

Yusuf won with 1,019,602 votes over APC's Nasir Gawuna (890,705). The Election Petition Tribunal nullified his win in September 2023 and the Court of Appeal upheld that decision, but the Supreme Court reversed both lower courts on 12 January 2024, affirming Yusuf as the duly elected governor after nearly a year of legal uncertainty.

Promised to reverse what his administration viewed as the unjust 2020 deposition of Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II by resolving the succession dispute in his favour.

Yusuf repealed the 2019 Emirate law and reinstated Sanusi in May 2024, but rival claimant Aminu Ado Bayero refused to vacate the palace. A Federal High Court ruled for Bayero in June 2024, the Court of Appeal reversed that in January 2025 restoring Sanusi, and a further Court of Appeal ruling in March 2025 suspended enforcement pending the Supreme Court — which has fixed the case for hearing only in April 2027, leaving the underlying dispute unresolved years into the administration.

Promised to resolve the plight of Kano indigenes stranded abroad on state scholarships after the previous administration discontinued funding.

In May 2025, the administration cleared ₦2.24 billion in outstanding tuition and accommodation fees for 84 students stranded in Northern Cyprus since the Ganduje government discontinued a Kwankwaso-era scholarship scheme, ending years of eviction threats and legal action from their host university, and ordered automatic civil service employment for the returning graduates.

Promised to prioritise education as a signature policy focus, given Kano's large out-of-school population.

The administration declared a state of emergency on education, committed roughly 30% of the state budget to the sector, distributed classroom furniture and learning materials, and won the Leadership 'Governor of the Year 2024' award for education.

Promised to address Kano metropolis's severe traffic congestion through new flyovers and rural road construction.

The administration has advanced the Dan Agundi and Tal'udu flyover bridges toward completion, and approved ₦1.48 billion for the Dangora-Masama-Dansoshiya rural feeder road and a link road to the Dansoshiya Dam in Kiru Local Government Area.

Promised to upgrade primary healthcare facilities and expand access to potable water in underserved communities.

The administration approved ₦318.1 million for renovation and equipment at Lamba Primary Healthcare Centre in Bichi LGA, and ₦398.2 million for Phase II of the Reach-Out Water Supply Project, though comprehensive state-wide facility-upgrade data was not identified for this entry.

Vowed at inauguration to investigate the roughly ₦241 billion debt inherited from the Ganduje administration, which he said had spent ₦1.2 trillion over eight years.

Yusuf publicly committed to probing the debt and criticised the 'scanty' handover notes provided, but no independently verified findings or published investigation report resolving the debt's full origin were identified for this entry.

Implicit expectation, given his rise through Kwankwaso's NNPP machinery and family ties (Kwankwaso is his father-in-law), that Yusuf would govern in continued alignment with that political base.

Yusuf defected from the NNPP to the APC in 2026, his original running mate and deputy governor Aminu Abdulsalam Gwarzo resigned amid the same political realignment, and his own former Chief of Staff, Kwankwaso loyalist Shehu Wada Sagagi, was purged from the cabinet — with Sagagi later saying Kwankwaso's peace overtures to Yusuf were rejected.

Implicit obligation to prevent the kind of financial impropriety his administration had criticised in its predecessor.

A ₦6.5 billion fraud and money-laundering scheme was alleged against the Governor's Director-General of Protocol, Abdullahi Rogo, involving fictitious contracts routed through shell companies between November 2023 and February 2025; a state commissioner separately admitted approving a ₦1.17 billion fraudulent payment linked to the scheme, and the ICPC recovered roughly ₦1.3 billion. The administration dismissed the reports as politically motivated.

Promised to overhaul revenue collection and reduce the state's dependence on federal allocations.

By overhauling the Kano State Internal Revenue Service and blocking leakages, the administration roughly doubled the state's NBS-tracked IGR from ₦37.38 billion in 2023 to ₦74.77 billion in 2024, ranking Kano the second-fastest-growing revenue state nationally that year.