Agitation for power shift heightens as aspirants scheme for Masari’s seat

There is a growing agitation for power shift in Katsina State ahead of the 2023 general elections as the second term of Governor Aminu Bello Masari elapses on May 29. With 14 months to the elections, governorship aspirants, especially those of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are gearing […]

There is a growing agitation for power shift in Katsina State ahead of the 2023 general elections as the second term of Governor Aminu Bello Masari elapses on May 29.

With 14 months to the elections, governorship aspirants, especially those of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are gearing up and scheming for the race.

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Though most of the aspirants have not formally declared their intention to vie for the position, their body language show that they are interested in the governorship race.

Since the creation of Katsina State in September 1987, from the old Kaduna State, the people of Daura senatorial district, where President Muhammadu Buhari hails from, are yet to produce the governor of the state.

For 16 years, 1999 to 2015, Katsina central occupied the governorship seat in the state-Umaru Musa Yar’adua and Ibrahim Shema-eight years each. It was in 2015 that the third zone, Funtua, produced Governor Bello Masari. 

A political analyst, Dini Muhammad, said that since 1992 during the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida transition to civil rule when some state governors were elected, the governor was from Katsina zone while the deputy was from Funtua, leaving Daura with the position of the speaker of the State House of Assembly.

“Since then, it has always been like that, not until 2015 when Governor Masari emerged from Funtua zone and the deputy from Katsina, still leaving Daura with the position of the speaker. So there is a strong movement towards actualising power shift to Daura. Recently, I saw some vehicles with the inscription: ‘Katsina governorship – Daura is next,’ or something like that,” he said.  

Aspirants in APC 

If the agitation by the Daura zone eventually sails through, then the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, the senator representing the zone, Babba Kaita and the managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank, Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, among others, will have to slug it out for the APC ticket. But if the contest is open to all qualified aspirants across the state as once posited by Senator Saddique Yar’adua, then the current deputy governor, Mannir Yakubu and the secretary to the state government, Mustapha Muhammad Inuwa, will also be some forces to reckon with during the party primaries.  

However, the recent party congress in the state, which saw the former APC secretary, who is from Daura, emerge as new chairman, has further complicated the political calculation in Katsina, with regards to the power rotation agitation.

When the chance is eventually given to Daura, then there must be realignment in the party leadership as done to Abdulkadir Mamman Nasir, who was the chairman when the governorship slot was given to his Funtua zone.

So far, apart from the two candidates from the major opposition party in the state, the PDP and one other person from the ruling APC, who were believed to have openly declared their intention to run for the 2023 governorship election in Katsina, all others are presumably nurturing the idea to do so when the time is ripe, as their activities remain under cover.

Others being touted to be nursing the governorship ambition in the APC are the director-general of the SMEDAN, Dikko Umar Radda; managing director, Federal Mortgage Bank, Ahmed Musa Dangiwa; the senator representing the Katsina central zone, Abdullahi Kabir Barkiya, and Abdul Azeez Musa Yar’adua.

Others are President Buhari’s cousin, Musa Haro; the managing director of the Nigerian Security Minting and Printing, Abbas Umar Masanawa, Senator Yar’adua, the state commissioner for land, Usman Nadada and a renowned businessman, Salisu Mamman Continental.

Aspirants in PDP 

The three aspirants who have indicated their interest so far are two from the PDP: Shehu Inuwa Iman and Muhammad El-Yakub (Marafan Daura), as well as Abdullahi Tata from the APC.

Other anticipated aspirants from the opposition PDP are Senator Yakubu Lado Danmarke, who was the flag-bearer of the party in the 2019 gubernatorial election in the state; the incumbent chairman of the party, Salisu Yusuf Majigiri and a former senator, Umar Ibrahim Tsauri, the immediate past national secretary of the party.

There could be others who would contest on the platform of the party in 2023, but so far, these are the four that are conspicuous.

Governor Masari recently declared that he had not endorsed any of the aspirants.