Against all odds, the ‘Prince of the Niger’ wins APC governorship ticket and sets to prove that Kogi remains his vote garden, reports JACOB OKPANACHI
 |
| Prince Abubakar Audu |
The emergence of former Governor of Kogi State, Abubakar Audu, as candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state governorship election slated for Nov. 21 has raised issues about the man’s enduring political power.
The ‘Prince of the Niger’ as Audu is popularly called, is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations that he misappropriated N11 billion of the state’s funds while he was governor between 1999 and 2003. Despite this huge political albatross, his political fortunes in the confluence state remains as bright as ever.
At the Lokoja Township stadium where the APC primaries held with Gov. Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State Chairman of the Electoral Panel, he polled 1, 109 votes to beat his closest rival, Yahaya Bello, who scored 703 votes. Former Senator, Nurudeen Abatemi, scored 400 votes to place third.
How Audu will fare against the incumbent governor, Captain Idris Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party, is not clear. However, if he wins the governorship again on November 21, 2015, it will be his third time, having first emerged in 1991 under the defunct National Republican Convention, and in 1999 under the All Nigerian Peoples Party. The Prince who hails from Ofu Local Government of the state, has always insisted that Kogi is his vote garden and the previous governorship election in which he was defeated by ex-Governor Ibrahim Idris was a sham.
In what is seen as a move to curry support of the top party hierarchy, especially the former Lagos governor and APC godfather Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Audu picked a member of the House of Representatives, Abiodun Falake, as his running mate. Fadeke, a close ally of Tinubu, represents Lagos state in the lower federal house.
Also, the old warhorse has made power shift his election mantra, pledging that if voted into power, he will implement the 1991 Kogi Tripartite Agreement for the rotation of power among the Igala, Ebira and Okun ethnic groups in Kogi East, Central and West zones, respectively.
The issue of power rotation indeed resonates positively across the West and Central zones which have never tasted the state governorship since the state’s creation, and it is likely to swing general support to Audu. Already he boasts “I am the only Igala man that can stand in Idah, Anyigba, Ankpa and tell our people enough is enough and reciprocate the cooperative gesture of the Igbira and Okun people by 2019”.
The power rotation agreement was signed shortly after the creation of the state to ensure representation of the three major ethnicities which had lived together peacefully under the defunct Kabba province for more than 70 years.
The projections against Audu hardly revealed he would emerge victorious at the last APC primaries, as most of the political leaders in his native Igala land of Kogi East preferred he remains behind and play the kingmaker and elder statesman. The likes of Dr. Alex Kadri, Yahaya Ugbane and James Ocholi (SAN), had waged a relentless media war against him in order to dissuade the delegates from voting for him. It turned out a counter-productive effort as many did not buy into it.
When added to the campaign of the Unity Forum, a coalition of prominent politicians from Kogi West and Central, to wrest the governorship from the Kogi East neighbours, the difficult task Audu faced is better imagined. Politicians from the two regions that were yet to produce a governor since the state was created and who agreed to work for a consensus candidate to wrestle power from the Igala Eastern zone that has dominated the political firmament of the state since its birth, were sworn to defeat Audu. However, as history has shown over the years, the ideals of the Unity Forum could not be sustained because beyond their rhetoric, there was little conviction in their resolve. Many of them were busy campaigning at nights to be picked as Deputy Governorship candidates to Audu.
With time it became obvious that their campaign would be dead on arrival: the promoters of the Forum engaged in sabotaging each other and creating bad blood between the two federating zones. The issue of single candidature was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. While Audu lined up his supporters across the state behind him, none of the 14 aspirants from the Kogi West and Central zones was willing to step down for each other as proposed by the coalition, and they all filed to the Lokoja Township Stadium venue of the primary election to be slaughtered, electorally, like sheep.
The likes of Alex Kadiri, Nicholas Ugbane and Atawodi who were opposed to Audu on the basis of his age, were roundly defeated. Their antagonism against Audu was ineffectual mainly because their arguments were perceived to be baseless and self-serving. One of the state’s political leaders, Usman Umaru, decried a situation where politicians will gang-up against another simply on the basis of his age. “The gang-up against the Audu candidacy was that he is too old and as such should take the back seat…none of them made a case that he was corrupt or unable to effectively govern”.
Audu himself proudly proclaims that his tenure in the past, remained the state’s best. “I can say with certainty that my era as the governor of the state was a bumper harvest of projects. At my age, I am as at alert mentally as I was when I was in my twenties. I have the magic wand to fix the state, even with the so called dwindling federation account," he said assuredly.
The worst losers in the contest were the Okuns of Kogi West. While Ebiras of Kogi Central gave maximum votes to their sons--Senator Nurudeen Abatemi, Sanusi Abubakar and Bello---who gave good accounts of themselves by coming second, third and fourth in the election, the Okuns were busy positioning to be offered the post of Deputy governor. A report in one of the national dailies described their action as ‘merchandising their delegates for the highest bidders as all the eight aspirants from the zone were unable to score up to 100 out of the accredited 3044 delegates’.
Audu’s major rival, Kogi State Governor, Idris Wada, has said he would not be intimidated by his emergence as the governorship candidate of the APC. The governor’s whose performance in the past four years has been dismal, was unable to sustain the tempo of development initiated by his predecessors.
An indigene of the state, Jerry Otaru, wonders how the governor, who cannot account for any major project or programme in the past four years, can square up with Audu who is credited with several development projects in the state in his previous tenures as governor.
As a sitting governor, Wada led the PDP to a disastrous outing in the last general elections, which many now use as a yardstick to say Audu’s victory is all but certain. The APC won in the three senatorial districts of the state in the March 28 National Assembly election with the PDP having a slight edge in state assembly elections.
Aware that many people in the state view him as visionless, Wada insists that the November election is not about him as a person. He told journalists in Lokoja that the election will not be between Wada and Audu. “It will be a competition between parties, not individuals” He has also approached his campaign from a negative angle of attacking Audu’s personality and suggesting he is a violent man.
He also offered excuses for his inability to improve the state capital, adding that he was hindered by the people’s culture of being sentimentally attached to their father’s property “so, we can’t just go and knock them out and start building modern buildings”. Mr. Wada said his administration had built five zonal hospitals and currently building a university teaching hospital and a tertiary institution.
He also said his government has commenced the erection of an 11-storey building in Abuja to be known as Kogi House while also converting the state liaison office in Lagos to a more modern and useful property that would generate income for the state.
On the current demand for power rotation among the three senatorial zones in the state, Mr. Wada, who is Igala of the eastern senatorial district, said he was not opposed to the demand but, unlike Audu, he was timid and non-committal. “In regards to power shift, I believe in power shift. But for me it’s not an issue for which one man can drive. I can show leadership by expressing my view, and making all endeavours towards actualizing it, but it requires continues engagement of our stakeholders, our political leaders. Our youths, women in the three senatorial zones must discuss about it. What are the modalities? Is it clock wise or anti clock wise, who should come first”.
The election may be weeks away, but pundits have predicted that it will create a major upset with the defeat of the sitting PDP state governor.
0 comments:
Post a Comment