Kogi 2012: Will history repeat itself?

When the military finally got their acts together and declared another electoral timetable, Audu again threw his hat in the ring and again against the settled predictions of his assured defeat, overran the candidate of the popular party then, which was the PDP. The candidate this time was Dr Stephen Olorunfemi. There is no evidence […]

When the military finally got their acts together and declared another electoral timetable, Audu again threw his hat in the ring and again against the settled predictions of his assured defeat, overran the candidate of the popular party then, which was the PDP. The candidate this time was Dr Stephen Olorunfemi.

There is no evidence to indicate that once a fellow goes by the name of Stephen, then he automatically becomes mincemeat for Audu in an election, but the records remain constant that the two Stephens that confronted this man, notwithstanding the overwhelming advantage in their favor, were given a bloody nose in the fray with Audu. However, when an unassuming Abuja businessman, by the name Ibrahim Idris picked up the gauntlet despite obvious handicaps against him, including Audu’s menacing incumbency advantage, the winning streak of the “prince” was promptly tested and challenged.

But before then, Audu had been genuinely amused deriding the PDP, in a David and Goliath manner of sarcasm for insulting him by presenting what he then dismissed as a mere carpenter. The outcome of that contest is again now history. But more than that the mere carpenter has humbled the loud-talking prince, having drubbed him and his party in three gubernatorial contests and three other major elections, two council polls and the last General Elections that held without governorship. Now by another happenstance of name an Idris Wada is taking the baton of electoral battle over from Ibrahim Idris.

Recently Audu told a newspaper that his serial losing streaks had been as a result of what he called the PDP rigging machine. But with his new party affiliation, he declared that the days of victory for PDP in Kogi State is over because according to him the ACN has proven to have a panacea to the PDP ‘dubious’ victories as has been demonstrated in several south western states and the mid-western state of Edo.

It is tempting to just wait and see how the match plays out since the election is just about seven weeks away, but to do that would amount to ignoring the ominous signs of the direction of the pendulum that stares all discerning observers of the politics of Kogi in the face.

To outrightly predict that just because another Idris is leading the charge, Audu is condemned to suffer another defeat would amount to stretching superstition to a new level of absurdity, for identical as the name of his earlier electoral prey may be, the fall of Audu in the political battlefield has more to do with intervening circumstances of those contests.

In 1991 it was victory made simple because the candidates of SDP namely Stephen Achema, Hassan Yakubu and Silas Daniyan were engaged in an implosive post-primaries feud that endured until 72 hours to the elections with the primaries repeated a record four times. Rather than campaign for votes, the SDP vented itself out with this internal wrangling so much so that Audu who has never before faced a primaries election all through his political career feasted on the spoils of this rancor to emerge governor. In 1999, the ethnic contradictions in the state gave him an opportunistic victory when the eastern senatorial district, who command about 56 percent of the voting population, rejected the imposition of Stephen Olorunfemi from the Western district.

However, ever since the PDP got it right with a relatively transparent nomination process that produced Ibrahim Idris as candidate and coming from the same majority eastern district voting bloc, Audu’s earlier victories had been made to look like flukes. Thus in 2003, 2007 and 2008 Idris consistently and effectively kept Audu out of power. Freely translated without a debilitating internal wrangling or ethnic sentiment to give Audu an opportunistic edge, his chances of beating another of his kinsmen in an entrenched party such as the PDP is farfetched.

Of course there are those who will buy the so-called PDP rigging machine claim, but as politicians will tell you, rigging is only possible where you are popular. And there’s also the expectation that the acrimony that succeeded the recent PDP primaries can again be exploited by Audu and his new found rigging antidote called ACN, but this time bitterness in the party appear to be limited to one individual who is known to lack his own structure or followership, aside the one provided by the party.

As at today, there’s no known commissioner including the ones that served in his cabinet that are with Audu right from his ANPP days till now, Infact, only one former state legislator is known to be a former elected person on board with Audu. No other former member of state or national assembly, no former council chairman, and even the two gentlemen who were his deputies are in the PDP. Thus, Audu is his own party in Kogi and the party is Audu.

During General Elections, his party’s tickets to various offices always remain unsubscribed until persons who lost out in PDP primaries decamp and are eagerly awarded the tickets. During such election periods, the PDP decampees would seem to be the politicians of worth in Audu’s party.

Right now the only ticket available is the one Audu holds and has held tenaciously for 20 years, contesting every election at the sound of the whistle. No decampee can help him recover it right now because it is a ticket that has been primed to attract another defeat for Audu, this time by another Idris.

Egwudu wrote from Adankolo, Lokoja