On Senator Kumo’s shifty brand of politics
The first thing that came to my mind, as the news of Senator Kumo’s ill-advised exit from the PDP was broken to me last Monday, was a gigantic primary school located in Kumo, his hometown, which I was privileged to visit recently. The curriculum of the school, as I found out, places a lot of […]
The first thing that came to my mind, as the news of Senator Kumo’s ill-advised exit from the PDP was broken to me last Monday, was a gigantic primary school located in Kumo, his hometown, which I was privileged to visit recently. The curriculum of the school, as I found out, places a lot of emphasis on vocational education. As I later found out, such schools dot many parts of Gombe State.
They were built by the incumbent governor of the state, Dr. Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, and they are an integral part of the governor’s policy of catching them young; to prepare the leaders of tomorrow for the challenges of an increasingly unpredictable world, so that they could fend for themselves and play positive roles in the development of the global society.
As the leader with uncommon focus that he has since proven to be, and in his desire for a holistic Gombe, Governor Dankwambo has gone a step further to establish key tertiary institutions, with the icing on the cake being the Gombe State University of Science and Technology, also located in Senator Sa’idu’s hometown, Gombe. The Governor has initiated, constructed and completed all the structures in the university, and the national universities commission has given its approval for the ivory tower to take off. Dankwambo did this to bring education to the doorsteps of the young ones, so that they could not latch on to the excuse of distance. The university is a sight to behold, and travelers to Gombe from Yola could not mistake the institution that is primed to produce effective global leaders for tomorrow.
It is therefore not surprising that in stating his reasons for exiting PDP, Senator Kumo ensured he did not call to question the governor’s unprecedented achievements. This is a man I personally held in a high esteem, and who served as Dankwambo’s campaign coordinator for the 2015 gubernatorial election. Why then is he suddenly ditching the PDP and his erstwhile friend? I could not believe my ears when I heard the former senator saying he was leaving the PDP because the governor doesn’t like him. I listened over and over again to hear whether one of the reasons has to do with some disappointment in Dankwambo’s performance in office. But there was none of such. And the governor’s supporters have a right to feel that is an endorsement by Kumo of Dankwambo’s unprecedented achievements in office.
Without doubt, this is a scandal. To think that someone of the stature of Senator Kumo is ditching a political party because, in his words, the governor of his home state doesn’t like him is preposterous. Of course by now Nigerians are used to hearing of some politicians ditching their political parties on flimsy grounds – most often for personal aggrandizement. One recalls a commissioner in the neighboring state of Bauchi, in December 2016, also ditching the APC and his principal because he was not involved in deciding who becomes the caretaker chairman of his home local government. Such cheap politics has since become the stock in trade of some of our politicians.
But even though there are people who have always harbored doubts about Senator Kumo, arguing that he is given to crass opportunism, I couldn’t believe he would descend so lowly. This is a man I thought I was right to credit with lots of sophistication. Even with arguments that he opportunistically ditched then General Muhammadu Buhari, his then party’s presidential flag bearer to take up a small appointment with late President Yar’adu’a’s administration, I still thought Nigeria’s realistic chance for redemption lies in people like Senator Kumo. Obviously, I was overrating the man.
As a news man, I tried to find out whether truly Governor Dankwambo doesn’t like Senator Kumo, as the later claims, but as the Information Commissioner of Gombe State rightly pointed out, you cannot appoint someone to the sensitive position of your campaign coordinator unless you hold him in the highest esteem. The level of trust must also be complete.
Problem, of course arises when, after the victory, the campaign coordinator decides to take personal advantage of his position, and when he feels entitled to exert too much control over the victor. In the case of Senator Kumo, as can be easily confirmed by anyone, he obviously felt this was an opportunity for him to dictate the way Gombe should be governed. There are widespread allegations that he also did not feel the need to subject himself to minimum protocol by insisting in seeing the governor even if he was in crucial meetings. And this is the genesis of his misunderstanding with a senior aide of the governor, who hails from Kumo town, as the senator.
More often than not, friends with over-bloated ego walk away by allowing anger to overtake them. It is all about themselves first, themselves second, and themselves always. But when Dankwambo first won election to become the governor of Gombe State for the first time, Senator Kumo was in the now-defunct ANPP. He was only appointed a campaign coordinator in 2015 out of the deep respect the governor has for him. There were many more qualified persons in the PDP that wanted it. But Dankwambo insisted in Senator Kumo.
Now, what is next for Senator Kumo? According to him, he is going to take some rest before deciding his political future. Is he going to decamp to the APC, to get a better chance of succeeding Dankwambo as governor, which he is said to desperately desire? If he does, will he get the support of President Muhammadu Buhari, whose exit from the ANPP in 2010 Senator Kumo described as “a good riddance to bad rubbish?”
Whatever he ends up deciding, the fact remains the senator has really diminished himself by the way and manner he exited the PDP. His reason for doing so shows in very clear terms that he hardly reckons with the people. And the Gombe electorates can be very sophisticated. They simply cannot support someone who takes them for a ride. As a man of faith, Senator Kumo knows what the Holy Book says about patience. And the warning for people not to despair and give up. It is sad he seems to have relegated all that to the background.
Gaya, a public affairs commentator, wrote this piece from Abuja.