Lessons from Kanti Bello’s move to CPC

Kanti Bello was the senator representing Katsina North senatorial district on the platform of the PDP between 2007 – May 2011. He re-contested for the same position on the platform of the PDP during the last year general elections, but he lost to the CPC senatorial candidate, Senator Abdul Umar Yandoma, according to the result […]

Kanti Bello was the senator representing Katsina North senatorial district on the platform of the PDP between 2007 – May 2011. He re-contested for the same position on the platform of the PDP during the last year general elections, but he lost to the CPC senatorial candidate, Senator Abdul Umar Yandoma, according to the result announced by the INEC.

The petition by the legal team of Senator Kanti was based on two grounds: that the first respondent, Senator Abdul Yandoma was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast at the election; and the second ground was that Yandoma, at the time of the election, was not qualified to contest, as he was not sponsored by a political party at the election. On September 28, 2011, the National Assembly Election Tribunal sitting in Katsina, delivered its judgement and declared that as at the time of conducting the National Assembly election, Yandoma was not the senatorial candidate of the CPC, based on the subsisting Court of Appeal judgement of April 20, 2011, which held that Yandoma was not a candidate of the CPC. The tribunal, based on this reason nullified the election and ordered INEC to conduct a bye-election within 60 days.

However, Senator Yandoma appealed against the ruling at the Kaduna division of Court of Appeal. But, in a twist of events, the Appeal Court, in its judgement on November 16, overturned the decision of the election petition tribunal. The court held that the issue of qualification to contest an election was a pre-election matter and that election tribunal has no jurisdiction to delve into it.

The core of the issue at hand is that Senator Kanti Bello, having been dissatisfied with the Court of Appeal decision, and his inability to prove further in seeking judicial redress due to the fact that Court of Appeal is the highest judicial organ in matter related to National Assembly election, sought the intervention of powerful elements in Abuja, but he did not sail through.

This may not be unconnected with the impression here in Katsina that Senator Kanti Bello had not been visible in PDP’s affairs in the state. During the 2011 elections, he was neither active in the campaign for President Goodluck Jonathan nor in that of Barrister Ibrahim Shema. It is even alleged that the governor contributed to Senator Kanti Bello’s legal battle to return to the hallowed chambers in Abuja.

But his return to the CPC is an irony of a sort.  It is on record that prior to the 2007 general elections, Kanti was a senator representing Katsina North on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). It was even speculated that he did not give much support to the presidential ambition of General Muhammadu Buhari in the party.   Eventually, General Buhari had to abandon the ANPP.

This is a lesson for politicians in the category of Kanti Bello – that the table can turn at any point in time.  Those who want others to serve them must be willing to be followers of other persons whom God has placed as their leaders.  A tree does not make a forest. There is no individual that can run a show alone, thinking others do not matter. Now that he has returned to his former fold with his membership of CPC, perhaps, he would have a rethink on how he would play politics in future.

Usman Bello wrote this piece Daura, in Katsina State