The relationship between Dikko Radda and the Masari political dynasty in Katsina is one of the more instructive political friendships in northern Nigeria.
Radda served as Chief of Staff when Aminu Masari was governor after 2015. The Masari camp backed his elevation to head SMEDAN under Buhari in 2016. When Aminu Masari’s two terms ended in 2023, Radda won the governorship in a transition the former governor publicly endorsed. That history now sits against a growing power struggle.
The immediate flashpoint involves billboards. Campaign materials bearing the images of President Bola Tinubu and Ibrahim Masari, Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Political Affairs, were allegedly destroyed along the Modoji Junction to Katsina Government House Road.
Governor Radda’s ADC, SP Abdulganiyu Bello, and his Chief Security Officer, DSP Hassan Bello, were summoned to Force Headquarters in Abuja for questioning in connection with the incident. The Nigeria Police Force has said they were invited for an interview and were not arrested or detained. And while the billboard story is the surface, the deeper issue is the campaign council.
Radda and his key state-level allies were visibly absent from Tinubu’s recently released 2027 Presidential Campaign Council structure. Political observers in Katsina read the omission as a pointed signal about where the governor stands in the president’s political calculus. But Ibrahim Masari’s position explains the fault line.
He famously served as Tinubu’s placeholder vice-presidential nominee in 2022 before Kashim Shettima was named. Tinubu appointed him Special Adviser on Political Affairs in early 2026, and his growing control over federal patronage has steadily positioned his Abuja-based camp as a counterweight to Radda’s grip on the state party structure.
Two informal factions now exist within Katsina APC: one anchored around the governor’s office, another around Abuja’s federal appointments.
Radda’s team insists there is no rupture and that the governor supports Tinubu’s re-election. Former Governor Masari has been publicly praising Radda’s administration, apparently to preserve surface-level unity.
All of this to state what observers are pitching: that for Tinubu, a divided Katsina is a problem he cannot afford heading into 2027.
