Yobe 2015: shutting out PDP again?

The overwhelming majority of the people of Nigeria today believe that any further political change must emerge from within the parameters of democratic formulae, like the conduct of periodic election leading to peaceful change or continuity of government. It is within this purview that, having almost completed his first term in office, Governor Ibrahim Gaidam […]

The overwhelming majority of the people of Nigeria today believe that any further political change must emerge from within the parameters of democratic formulae, like the conduct of periodic election leading to peaceful change or continuity of government.
It is within this purview that, having almost completed his first term in office, Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe State on Saturday 1st November, 2014 succumbed to the calls of the people to contest for another term in office to consolidate the programmes he began in the first term. The All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state thereafter unanimously gave Gaidam “a clean bill of health” to continue beyond 2015. This was indeed a positive development as the endorsement came barely a year after the merger of all opposition political parties in the country to form a strong and formidable party to sweep out the undemocratic PDP at the centre.
Observers of Yobe politics believe that Governor Gaidam has through his political astuteness made Yobe state impregnable to the PDP. The 2011 election was a clear testimony to that effect where all elective positions in the state, with the exception of one House of Representatives’ seat, were won by the ANPP, the precursor of APC. Even that one seat that was lost to the PDP had now been reclaimed when Hon. Mainasara decamped to the APC.
Since Governor Gaidam took office, the PDP in Yobe has continued to suffer major setbacks especially with mass defection of some of its leaders and followers to the ruling party. It is safe to conclude that the PDP will find it hard to make a stand in the state.
For instance, on Tuesday, May 7, 2013, many political gladiators of the PDP led by Senator Adamu Garba Talba left the part to join the old ANPP. Former Deputy Governor Aliyu Saleh Bagare, former speaker of the State House of Assembly Hon. Tijjani Zannah Zakariya also left the undemocratic PDP after a political sojourn to join the train. Others who left the sinking PDP to join the Gaidam’s moving political train were former members of the House of Representatives including Hon. Hassan Jonga, and Hon. Zakari Yau Galadima.
Yobe citizens are now politically matured, as it would no longer be possible again for any Abuja-based politician to promise the electorate the heavens only to disappear after elections.  A common description from the people of Yobe and beyond is that Gaidam has shown himself to be a principled and progressive leader who has kept faith with the people.  
Just few weeks ago, former PDP gubernatorial aspirant and former Secretary to the Military Government of the state Alhaji Hassan Saleh also joined APC, extolling Gaidam’s virtues. Most recently that left the sinking PDP and joined APC are the former national treasurer of PDP, Alhaji Bashir Machina and former Ambassador to Indonesia Sen. Ibrahim Mai Sule who officially joined the Gaidam’s moving train in the Gaidam’s 2015 declaration day. With these major decampments by all the PDP stakeholders, with each a political owner occupier in their respective political domains seems to many as the official burial of PDP as a political party in Yobe State under Gaidam’s watch.
It would be apolitical miscalculation of the highest on the part of the PDP to believe that it can unseat the present administration in Yobe State. What is familiar to most people, however, is that a handful of some political pretenders would come home and make some noises and later go back to Abuja for their usual business of seeking federal appointments.  APC leaders have vowed to sustain the momentum that Gaidam has gathered in 2015, to keep the governorship seat intact, and all Senatorial, all the House of Representatives and all the State House of Assembly seats currently held by members of the party. Indeed, the governor has already provided the political leadership which saw APC gaining strength each day which will surely culminate in a route for the opposition in state in 2015.

Abbas is of Yobe State University, Damaturu<[email protected]>;