Gombe, 2019 and Buhari’s planned cabinet reshuffle

As 2019 inches nearer for another round of elections, MUSA INUWA GALA looks at the challenges ahead of President Muhammadu Buhari vis-a-vis his planned cabinet reshuffle and how such could help the APC make a significant inroad into Gombe state.
As Alhaji Mohammed Inuwa Yahaya, the All Progressives Congress candidate in the 2015 gubernatorial election in Gombe led hundreds of thousands of people to special prayers for the recovery of President Muhammadu Buhari from the ailment that kept him in hospital bed for a prolonged period, one thing that was not missed by political observers was his large-heartedness, deep sense of patriotism and unmistakable love for the President.

Those deserving ministerial appointments
When the APC won the presidential election but lost the governorship in Gombe in 2015, the general feeling was that Yahaya would automatically bag a ministerial job, as usually the case for politicians who have proved their mettle. Yes, there is an avalanche of competent persons, but the temptation to appoint unpopular people under the guise of technocrats, carries along with it tales of woes in most instances.
But what makes very strategic and desirable the appointment of candidates that lost governorship as ministers, is that the candidate, especially one that is seen as being rigged or schemed out, will be able to truthfully represent his people at the federal executive level, and keep the winners on their toes, for the good of the people. It also enhances and even ensures in most cases, that the party bounces back to power at the next election.
The feeling became even more accentuated when Hajia Aisha Jummai Alhassan, whose loyalty was openly known to be with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, was picked from neighbouring Taraba State and made a minister. She also lost the governorship of her state. In the entire northern part of the country, the APC won in all states, except Gombe and Taraba.

Integrity counts
Yahaya was a core Buharist of the CPC extraction, and he was, even from the account of the opposition, seen as a man of impeccable integrity. Shockingly, like President Buhari, his role model, some political leaders were afraid to have Yahaya as Gombe governor because they felt he was too decent a man to allow the shenanigans that have held the state backward to continue if he is at the helm. Most of them prefer a governor who is in power just for the heck of it; who they could control, not for the good of the people, but to advance their pecuniary interests.

Gombe APC loss
And so it was that even though the 2015 gubernatorial election in Gombe suffered from substantial non compliance with the Electoral Act, those who should have provided the evidence to get the court nullify the election or even out rightly declare him winner, chose to dine and wine with the declared winners for some selfish reasons.
Almost three years down the line, and with general elections barely a year away, many of those who betrayed that mandate are regretting what they did. But it was akin to crying over spilt milk, as the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has by hook and crook, become even stronger in the state. And unless the Buhari Administration takes deliberate steps to save the people by strengthening the APC in Gombe, the PDP is likely to deploy its incumbency to railroad its way to the Government House again in 2019, and make things pretty difficult for the APC to win the state in the forthcoming presidential and National Assembly elections.

Picking it right in Gombe
As the President gets set to re-jig his cabinet and bring in fresh brains, it is only logical that the people of Gombe are yearning for the one and only candidate of the party that was overlooked in 2015. Over the last few months, many respected leaders of the APC, the latest being Colonel Hamid Ali, have been pointing out that those who worked their hearts out for the party, and who have been left out, should be reintegrated back to the fold, to ensure Nigerians continue to enjoy good governance provided by the party under Muhammadu Buhari.
The talk everywhere is that one of the key reasons the President’s great vision for a totally transformed Nigeria has been derailed or slowed down on many fronts is the appointment of people who do not share in the nobility of his vision and ideals. With a few months remaining to the election, what is urgently needed is the infusion of people of integrity, who have been with the President through thick and thin, especially those of them that were with him in the CPC.
The Buhari vision for Nigeria is not an ordinary one. For the reason that it is not about lining pockets of private citizens in positions of power, it requires only the most diligent loyalists to help the president get things right on all fronts, as he desperately desires. The administration can simply not continue to have in its ranks, people with divided loyalty, or whose interests are themselves, not the ordinary Nigerians that defied rain and sunshine to ensure Muhammadu Buhari is our President today.

Keeping hope alive
In the case of Gombe, one of the key reasons the APC has remained hopeful in the state is the leadership role being provided by Yahaya, in concert with Senator Danjuma Goje and a few others. These are leaders who have continued to remind the people that, as far as Gombe State is concerned, there will be light at the end of the persistent dark tunnel, and that the only way they could get the Nigeria of their dreams is by relentless support for Mr. President.
President Buhari has done very well by giving his ministers enough leverage to prove themselves. Sadly, many of them have betrayed the Nigeria and the administration by performing woefully, and there is no more room for error, especially in a state like Gombe where the PDP has effectively used its incumbency to sow a seed a ruination that the APC can only uproot when true leaders of the people are assigned responsibility at the highest levels. It is going to be a battle of the titans that requires all pretenders to quickly give way for the truly tested.

If APC must win Gombe
There is everything right in strengthening the APC to win back such influential states as Gombe, as the party is the vehicle that takes contenders to positions that can be used to change the society for the better. But in politics across the world, even in such bastions of democracy as the United States whose system of government Nigeria copies, strategic positions are allocated to capable party men, whose loyalty and patriotism are beyond reproach.
It is rather simplistic to point at Yahaya as the most suitable; most deserving person to be appointed minister from Gombe when Mr. President re-jigs his cabinet. But then in politics, as it is becoming clearer by the day, part of the responsibility of the people is to point at the right way for the leaders, who are usually too busy with other matters of state, or when some enemies of progress use their access to power to influence the appointment of wrong persons.
The cabinet reshuffle that Buhari is going to effect is certainly not just about winning the next election, but also about utilising the opportunity of the remainder of this first term to deliver more goodies for the people, and ensure that the dividends of democracy continue to flow to people of Gombe and indeed all Nigerians beyond 2019.
For millions of Nigerians, President Buhari has been their last hope to get the country of their dream. As a person, the president represents hope in all of its true colours. With the booby traps set by the PDP for the president when they held sway, it is all too clear that not all the solid promises could be fulfilled within this first term.
States like Gombe are too strategic for the APC to lose again. There is no way this could happen if the people’s clarion call for the right person to be appointed as minister is heeded to. Saving Gombe from further ruination and getting it back to the mainstream of Nigerian politics is the responsibility of President Buhari and all people of goodwill. The time to act is now, not later.

Gala, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Abuja.

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