The Northeast geo-political zone is a critical factor ahead of the general elections. ANDREW ESSIEN, in this piece, writes on the move by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to capture the region, beginning with Governor Jibrilla Bindow’s campaign declaration.
Without any iota of doubt, the Northeast will be an interesting arena in the emerging ‘theatre of politics’ in the push for who becomes what, especially as regards the contest for presidency between the two major political parties in the country, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
There is no gain saying that the region has been the worst affected with the scourge of insurgency that has deeply eaten into the fabric of the livelihood of its people.
Adamawa becomes central in the discourse because of its positioning and the calibre of politicians in this all-important contest. For starters, the wife of the APC presidential candidate and incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, Aisha, is from Adamawa. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha is also from the state.
The Presidential candidate of the major opposition party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is also from the state. Adamawa also boasts of heavyweights like former national chairman of PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, former minister of health, Prof Jubril Aminu, former EFCC chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, former governor Murtala Nyako, Brig. Buba Maruwa, Senator Binta Masi Garba, Late Air Marshal Alex Badeh, former FCT Minister Muhammed Bello and a host of others.
This undoubtedly will elicit APC’s desire to ensure it controls Adamawa hence the interest of political heavyweights during the official flag off of the governor’s second term bid.
The carnival-like event did not however come easy. On the day PDP held its North-central campaign in Lokoja, Kogi State, the APC in Adamawa was mobilising thousands of supporters who will eventually throng the Ribadu square for the flag off of the party’s campaigns not only in the state but an indication of its intent for the region as a whole.
Sources say it was not just co-incidence but a political move by the party to tactically ‘humble’ the PDP’s presidential candidate in his own state. In fact, an impressive number of Nollywood and Kannywood celebrities temporarily relocated to the state as they brought life to what the people had hitherto seen only in movies. The message was clear, the APC was going to bring to life the dividends of democracy that the people had hitherto dreamt about.
The central message ‘preached’ at the campaign flag off by the APC was that Nigerians ought not to be deceived by the promises of the PDP, adding that a party that had set the country back in many respects, was not capable of taking the nation to the ‘Next Level’.
The APC insisted that PDP remained an assemblage of ‘thieves’ whose attitude to the nation’s common wealth will never change. This, the APC Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole did not mince words in stating in an attempt to paint, what he termed “the gory picture of the past.”
At the rally, the director general of the Buhari Presidential Campaign Council, Rotimi Amaechi, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, influential Adamawa female politician, Hajia Aishatu Dahiru Binani Ahmed, Senators Ali Ndume, Paul Wampana, Binta Masi Garba, federal and state lawmakers as well as members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party and a host of others underscored the importance of the flag off to the APC campaign train.
The event also put paid to the rancour that had greeted the party’s primaries in the state as APC officially presented Gov. Mohammed Jubrilla Bindow as the governorship flagbearer of the party in the state.
In his opening remarks, the
director general of the Presidential Campaign Council, Rotimi Amaechi, said the major opposition party’s aim was to squander the successes of President Muhammadu Buhari to recoup their investment after this electioneering period. He also dared them to compare their scorecard with the three and a half years of the APC-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari, insisting that a “thief is a thief”.
He said: “The only way we can show these men that we are serious is not to allow them come back because if they come back, they will use four years to recoup what they have lost. They will do what our parents used to teach us while we were kids, ‘do not talk while you are eating’. If you disturb them, they will tell you they are eating. They will be busy eating from what is left, all the struggles of Buhari is what they would squander. And they will do that in four years. After that, they will ask for another four years.
“The National Chairman of PDP, Secondus had said they were sorry for what they had done but a thief is a thief; they will never change.
Read Also:
“This election is between two parties that have been in power. We challenge PDP to an open debate where the masses will be present. Let them show their scorecard and we will show our own too. The only place they will beat us is in corruption. You know before, when you attend rallies, they will give you money and you will not ask them where the money was coming from. When they give you N5, 000, they will go and take N5 billion.
“Please do not go and sleep. There is what they call apathy. Avoid apathy. Do not just assume that we have won. On February 16, come out with your PVCs and vote APC. We want to beat PDP mercilessly. You have to go out and vote. When you vote, do not leave. PDP people are magicians, because if you go, two thousand would become two million. You know I was in PDP, so I know this. Stay there and vote. When they announce the results, you can go home.”
According to him, next month’s general election would be an avenue for the “Nigerian people to carry out a referendum between the forces of darkness and those of light which President Buhari represents”.
Conveying President Muhammadu Buhari’s message to the rally, secretary to the government of the federation, Boss Mustapha said the current administration was ready to sustain the peace and development in Adamawa and the region as a whole, adding that serious plans were underway to open the state up for industrial activities by deploying critical infrastructure necessary for growth.
The SGF tasked the people to support governor Bindow, adding that the election in Adamawa has strategic implications for the party.
APC national vice chairman, Northeast, Comrade Mustapha Salihu who is also from Adamawa state said the people of the zone are ready to reciprocate what the APC administration has done for them.
When asked about the chances of President Buhari against Alh Atiku in the zone, he said: “The people of the Northeast are aware of the efforts of this government. You are aware that Sambisa forest is twice the size of Belgium. The Kala Balge-Gwoza axis is like Togo and Gambia put together. This administration has assisted in recovering all those areas. Gone are the days when our soldiers were reported to be shying away from Boko Haram. So, for those of us in the North east, we know who to vote for”.
The man at the centre of the event, governor Bindow while receiving the party’s flag, hailed President Buhari for keeping the Northeast and Adamawa State from being completely taken over by Boko Haram insurgents in 2015, adding that if not for the intervention of the President, the insurgents were on the verge of completely annihilating the entire region.
According to him, “the PDP regime then had all it takes to contain the advancing insurgents, but out of lack of political will and selfish reasons, that administration abandoned the people of the region”.
He therefore called on the people to ignore all the advances of the PDP which he said remained a harbinger of evil. He said President Buhari had won in the Northeast in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015, saying, the situation was not about to change in 2019 with his level of performance in the last three and a half years.
For instance, he said the road leading from Yola to Jada where Atiku hails from had been abandoned for over 23 years, not until Buhari assumed the reins of governance was it constructed. Bindow charged his supporters to embark on issue-based campaigns and avoid the temptation of being dragged so low as to match the PDP insults for insults.
The governor said, “when they go low, we go high. We are not here to insult or denigrate anybody. We are not here to reply insults. We are here to tell you what we have done in the last three and a half years and we let you in as to what we have planned to do going forward”.
The climax of the occasion was the endorsement by some of the parties whose candidates signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to publicly step down for Bindow.
Candidates from KOWA, Young Peoples Party (YPP), Mega Party, Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), Zenith Labour Party, Accord among others, led by the governorship candidate of Alliance National Party (ANP), Alhaji Umar Jada said their decision to defect to APC was based on the masses-oriented policies of the APC administration in the state.
Jada said the MoU has been signed by the candidates to collapse their structures into the Bindow Campaign Organization ahead of the general elections in February and March.
He said; “Adamawa State had never witnessed developmental strides among its diverse peoples like in the time of APC, especially in the areas of health, education and human capital development. We have committed our total loyalty to governor Bindow’s re-election and handed our structures to APC at all levels. In the state”.
Abdullahi Usman of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Bappari Umaru of KOWA Party, Elizabeth Isah of Change Advocacy Party (CAP) and Lami Musa of Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN) were among the 11 whose names were announced as having stepped down for the governor.
Others were Badau Isaac Sa’adu of the Justice Must Prevail Party (JMPP), Bulame Naame of Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA), Frank Usman Koshihula of MEGA Party and Sa’ad Maiyaki of Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).
To this, an elated APC national chairman, Comrade Oshiomhole summed up saying, “If this group was 100 megawatts before, with the coming together of these additional reinforcements, it has become 8, 000 megawatts and we can now say, it is finished”.
