Sarah Jubril’s last song?

At the recent Peoples Democratic Party Convention held in Abuja, Sarah Jubril came face to face with the two political gladiators, former vice president Atiku Abubakar and incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan. The two powerful men campaigned brutally and they would have intimidated any other opponent but not Sarah. They had political machineries at their disposal […]

At the recent Peoples Democratic Party Convention held in Abuja, Sarah Jubril came face to face with the two political gladiators, former vice president Atiku Abubakar and incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan.

The two powerful men campaigned brutally and they would have intimidated any other opponent but not Sarah. They had political machineries at their disposal that she could only dream of and worse, in the cash and carry politics that reigns supreme, she was no match for the men with deep pockets.

“That I don’t have money does not make me less a person in this quest.  I have character, I have integrity, I have education, I am a mother and have God-given wisdom. I think big,” she had said in an earlier interview with the Vanguard Newspaper.

Her drive for contesting the primaries is based on a desire to have “ethical leadership and good governance” as her campaign slogan proclaimed. At the convention, she sang and entreated the delegates to vote for ethics and change.

“The president that Nigeria needs very urgently is the one who can roll up his or her sleeves to teach good character or ethics in the pursuit of excellence in every area of our quest, goals, and vision,”  she had said in a separate interview.

Big thinking indeed but the delegates simply wouldn’t buy into it.

Where delegates at the convention reportedly received “incentives” of about $7, 000, from some of the aspirants, Sarah stood no chance. Of the total valid votes of 3, 542, the woman who dreamed of becoming “Mama President” scored only one.

Breaking the ice

Her first shot at the presidency was in 1991 when she threw her headgear in the arena to contest for the presidency. It was an unprecedented move as no woman before her had ever made the attempt.

There is no doubt she broke the barrier regarding how high Nigerian women could aim politically. In the Social Democratic Party (SDP) she was certainly the underdog but did ruffle some feathers when she emerged fourth in the party primaries. Chief MKO Abiola won the race and is believed to have won the 1993 elections which were later annulled.

Since then, Mrs Jubril who hails from Pategi, Kwara State has made four more attempts at the presidency, coming closest in 2003. But if her last attempt is anything to go by, the perennial aspirant may just take a bow hence forth.

The highest political office she has held was that of commissioner for social development, youths and sport in her native Kwara State. Before then she had been a teacher at Advanced Teachers College, Kano and a former assistant athletics coach at the Kaduna State Sports Council. She trained people to run and she has been running since.

When the 1993 elections were annulled and the whiff of democracy returned in 1998, Sarah Jubril started running again. Her ambitious aim for the presidency yet again fell short at the PDP convention in Jos where she lost to Olusegun Obasanjo, the man who eventually became the president.

In 2003, after Obasanjo had served his first term in office, Sarah Jubril graduated from being an aspirant to become the first female candidate for the office of the president when she left the ruling PDP for a lesser known Progressive Action Congress (PAC) and was made the party’s flag bearer for that year’s general election.

It was the closest she would come to fulfilling her dream of becoming Nigeria’s first female president. She joined the army of 20 candidates and finished in 6th place just behind Gani Fawehimi and ahead of Balarabe Musa and Chris Okotie. For all her efforts, Mrs Jubril scored 157, 560 votes (0.40 % of the total votes cast). The flawed elections were won by the incumbent Obasanjo, who reportedly scored 61% of the total votes cast.

Four years later, she returned again. With Obasanjo vacating the presidential villa, Mrs Jubril, having returned to the PDP, challenged Obasanjo’s anointed successor, the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and 11 others for the party’s mandate. Yar’Adua triumphed with 3, 024 votes. Sarah Jubril got only four.

Perennial fighter

Sarah Jubril has the fighting spirit but apparently not the political structure to make any meaningful impact in the polity. When she declared her interest in running for president a fifth time last August, at the height of the zoning controversy, few people gave her any chance.

For one so determined, Mrs Jubril fizzles out of reckoning after every failed attempt. She hardly contributes to national debates for four years and then pops up suddenly to declare for president. In the two decades of her political adventures, she has not built up any grassroots following – not even among the estimated 70 million Nigerian women. She hardly carries any political weight in Kwara State and has always remained a political small fry.

Perhaps this explains why she was not even considered by the Adamu Ciroma led Northern Political Leaders Forum, which settled for Atiku Abubakar as its northern consensus candidate to challenge President Jonathan for the PDP ticket.

The neglect greatly annoyed Mrs Jubril, who had earlier presented herself alongside her campaign posters and fliers to be considered alongside Ibrahim Babangida, Aliyu Gusau, Bukola Saraki as well as Atiku for the committee’s endorsement.

She went to court demanding Atiku be barred from the presidential race because the  Ciroma committee overlooked her. The court too disappointed her, leaving her bitter.

“Nigerians should change their mentality. But I am not contesting on their zoning anyway. I am contesting on the true zoning of God. He created two zones of men and women. It is from men and women that zoning should emerge,” she said thereafter.

Perhaps she considers herself an Abraham Lincoln of sorts – the former American president had lost elections at all levels except at the highest. She too was willing to weather the storm.

“As long as these corrupt people continue to rule over this country, I will not give up. By the way, Abraham Lincoln, how many times did he contest? I am not discouraged. I am not afraid. I will follow this aspiration to the end,” she said.

That was before the crushing blow at Eagle Square, January 13. Now Sarah Jubril must consider if there is more fight left in her. But at her age, it is hard to see her making any more impact than she already has. Her Facebook page for instance has only 63 endorsements, compared to President Jonathan’s 423,691.

With age not in her favour, perhaps Nigeria’s perennial presidential aspirant has had her last shot at the office or perhaps she will try again to sing her way into the hearts of Nigerians. Whatever the case, her place in Nigeria’s political history is sealed.