Shettima and Borno governorship race
But the ANPP is today better re-positioned to clinch the April governorship elections at ease. This follows the recent emergence of Alhaji Kashim Shettima, the state commissioner of health, as governorship flag bearer of the ANPP. Shettima’s emergence is clearly a spanner in the works of the opposition, especially the PDP which was clouded in […]
But the ANPP is today better re-positioned to clinch the April governorship elections at ease. This follows the recent emergence of Alhaji Kashim Shettima, the state commissioner of health, as governorship flag bearer of the ANPP.
Shettima’s emergence is clearly a spanner in the works of the opposition, especially the PDP which was clouded in euphoria of presumptive victory that is now farther than before.
With the ANPP’s political machinery well as Shettima’s qualities, the ANPP is only a victorious party in waiting.
Shettima has never been known with bad habits- he has been a faithful Muslim who treats people of different faiths and ethnicity with dignity. He holds a BSc and MSc degrees in Agricultural Economics and was a banker who rose to become a General Manager of a bank in which he had headed a dozen of its branches in the North. Since 2007 he has served Commissioner in the five Ministries of Finance; Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs; Education; Agriculture and Health – where he was until he emerged the governorship candidate. Shettima, as a banker, was also reputed to have secured jobs for many, such that many Borno people in the banking industry today entered the sector through Shettima’s assistance. The PDP in Borno has always relied on perceived misfortunes to befall the ANPP, some of which appear to be man-made or even politically motivated. This has, however, failed to work since 1999.
This feat will be repeated in April, 2011. The unfortunate security setbacks in Borno today will not hinder the chances of the ANPP. The PDP in Borno is simply too elitist- take a roll call of its stakeholders- they are mostly people who speak big grammar from sunrise to sunset without helping the masses while they send their children abroad for schooling and they regularly fly their wives and rest of families to Dubai to buy as little as chewing gum. Go to their homes and see mansions springing up. One of them, is raising a gigantic castle in the highbrow GRA in Maiduguri and none of the party’s commoners can be seen around because he is rarely accessible. This is the case with most of them, including their past and serving ministers. They mostly operate from Abuja, only sneak in and out and flaunt big cars while their supporters obviously remain in destitution. The PDP men only help themselves which makes them lack the goodwill to speak to the masses.
Added to PDP’s disconnect with the grassroots is the fact that Kashim Imam, 2003 and 2007 governorship candidate of the party has shown clear signs that he is moving to the ANPP to further propel Shettima’s chances. It must be said that even though Imam never had the opportunity of defeating the ANPP in his two shots at the government house. He (Imam) remains the strongest block of the Borno PDP because of all the personalities in the party. He alone has political foot soldiers across the 27 local government areas of the state. Beside Imam, no PDP stalwart in the state can afford to spend personal wealth such that is required, to oil the party’s machinery. This is so because, most stakeholders of the party are civil servants-turned-politicians, so most find it almost impossible to open their hands to the grassroots. Perhaps, this is why the recent decision of Imam to withdraw his campaign machinery, given the way he was humiliated through a grand conspiracy that pushed him to the fourth in the primary elections while Mohammed Goni who was fast asleep when the PDP was being formed and nurtured, was brought in from his library.
Goni is a respected man but he is certainly over-aged for the vibrancy needed for Nigeria’s growth today. Take a look at some of credible old men- they often find themselves confused. For instance, look at the confusion in Adamawa State, owing to Murtala Nyako’s old age. Like Goni, Nyako is equally a good man but he has been in controversies since he was smuggled in to become a chief executive in this modern times. Perhaps, he would have done well in the 1970s when Goni served.
Things are today completely different from what they used to be in the 1970s, the challenges and socio-economic threats are more. In fact, an ‘old man’ could find himself confused with the billions that now accrue to states through federal allocations as against the few millions allocated in the 1970s and before anyone knows it, an ‘old man’ begins to make funny decisions or even allows the machinery of government become completely hijacked by some elites around him, such that is common with the Borno PDP.
Truth is, stakeholders of the PDP in Borno cannot make even the sacrifice of mobilising Goni to tour 10 out of the 27 local government areas of the state, the way a governorship candidate should, because while some of them really don’t want any other person except themselves to rise to that level, others simply know that the aspiration is a mere charade and this and more make one see the whole thing as an attempt by some Borno PDP stakeholders to humiliate the good old man.
Damasak wrote from University of Maiduguri and can be reached on [email protected] & [email protected]