2023 Presidency: Is Badaru the Game Changer in 2023? By Hashim Suleiman
May i quickly walk you down the memory lane a bit as a reminder of my November , 2021 article titled ‘Underrate Atiku at your Peril’ which can still be referred in this link? https://politicsdigest.ng/underrate-atiku-your-peril/
Therein the article, i sought the APC’s attention of the potential threats that Atiku’s imminent emergence under the PDP portends in the party (APC’s) ambition to remain in power beyond 2023 after the expiration of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. I enjoined them to be deliberately leery by being politically tactical and prudent in ensuring ensuring they are at par with the PDP’s strategy for strategy.
Well, this advice seems to have been heeded by the ruling APC, with a particular reference to the party’s National Chairman, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu’s last week while interview, where he clearly stated the party’s position regarding zone, assuring that the issue of zoning had not been decided on yet. This declaration alone by the party’s head of NWC sent surprises as well as shocks down the spines of most Nigerians, especially those who were hitherto of the belief that the zoning of the party’s presidential ticket is a foregone issue,while also leaving the tongues of several others wagging to the extent that the real stories had started unfolding in a quick succession.
Party leaders and opinion shapers alike within the rank of the APC who all spoke on condition of anonymity, rightly confided that for the sake of strategy, as well as the ambition of the party (APC) to hold on firmly to the grip of power beyond 2023 at all cost, that ceding the presidency to the North would be a strategic masterstroke, since the main opposition party, the PDP would imminently in what looks like a tactical jigsaw be zoning its presidential ticket to the region (north).
The news got so frenetic and frenzied with a lot of hysteria that Ondo State Governor, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu had to come out gun-blazing, stoking fire from the mouth by threatening the APC of the debilitating effect such action of the APC zoning its Presidential ticket to the North would herald, leaving one to be seriously bewildered when politics has suddenly become maligning to the extent that it is becoming threatening, rather than building the necessary bridge of acceptance that would bring forth goodwill, which would swing votes in favour of the party, especially in the north that boast of block votes in terms numerical strength and advantage; something that no other region can boast of and I’m sure Governor Akeredolu himself knows this.
Consequently, names have started flying up, down, left, right and centre since last week with the Senate Predent Ahmad Lawan’s name widely hinted, which in all honesty, but with due respect, I think would be very herculean would to fly because his status of not being a governor, twinned with his relatively unknown and lilliputian tribe that is outside the trio of the power brokers of Hausa, Fulani or Kanuri tribes, who history favour to be controlling the north, and don’t easily give up that stronghold of the power in the region. Have for once pondered why no one outside the Kanuri tribe ever steers the affairs of the duo of Yobe and Borno states respectively as a governor? It’s deliberate and not accidental political arrangement, it’s a dynastical thing of sort,which can’t be easily beaten and that informs the reason why no one has ever thought of the possibility of the likelihood of Ahmed Lawan becoming a governor in Yobe State. He became Senate President out of APC’s arrangement to right the party’s wrong of 2015 and the rest is history as people would always say.
Finally, just yesterday, what appears to be the real game changer’s name popped up, which is Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, the current governor of Jigawa State. The man is an unassuming and taciturn strategists who politically have a lot up his sleeves, but vastly underrated by all as an underdog, despite always coming out on top of many contests, and how he does it always remain something one should gaze the crystal ball to discern because it’s beyond normal human logic honestly.
He has been able to silently proved to keen observers to be the strongest governor in this dispensation. He has taken the party by the jugular, and lay a claim to the stronghold, that just when things were about to go out of hand, he redirected the party and conducted a Congress that produced the current party (APC) executives, devoid of rancor, that saw all the party’s executive positions filled on amiable consensus basis. This feat alone is a manifestation of political wizardry to achieve; an acerbity free convention.
While Badaru had silently displayed this rarefied political triumph, it’s only natural in life that things don’t go unnoticed, and when the chips are down, reality comes to the fore; tossing up the dice of the most sellable of the options available, which would mend the hitherto cracked political fences, protecting sundry interests and keep the big family united as one.
Badaru has exhibited his aura and capacity to protect interests, and sufficing this was the competence he demonstrated last month during the APC convention by spearheading the emergence of party’s current exco in a tension dousing manner, allaying the fears of possible political brawls among the party members. His footprint as unrivalled unifier owing to how he awesomely kept his state off the quagmires of insecurity, chaos, political rascality or untold poverty and squalor is there for all to see, in fact even the vision people of the who couldn’t see can feel lifetime impact of his government in the state. He is a proponent and enabler of an all inclusive government to the extent that today in Jigawa State, it what’s he says or nothing, that’s Leadership!
This piece may not afford me the enough time to delve properly into his developmental strides in the state because the major crux of the article is mostly about party politics, even though the peculiar attributes and peculiarities that stands him apart and tall have been skeletally highlighted above. In fact they are overboard, they remain the most cherished the most needed qualities and attributes Nigeria’s next president should poses at the moment.
In the event that he emerges the flag-bearer, we shall beam our flashlights into his developmental strides, especially in the areas of agriculture, education and economy so that Nigerians should understand what to expect from this political cerebral and enigma.
Interesting times are ahead.
Hashim Suleiman
