By Bashir D. Gombe
In the history of Nigerian democracy, there wasn’t an epoch where an opposition party has overwhelmingly trashed a ruling party than the unprecedented defeat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 general elections. President Muhammadu Buhari’s ‘Change Hurricane’ blew and swept many seats in the nation, especially in the North where only Gombe and Taraba, of the 19 states, survived.
Though, different factors have been attributed to the defeat of APC in the two states, but the high level of alleged conspiracy and continual internal sabotage the party is battling with in Gombe State is second to none in the whole of its structures nationwide, requiring stiff action by the party’s national headquarters to prevent further damage to the party.
The recent assault on Gombe State APC Caretaker Chairman by assorted thugs allegedly at the behest of the self-imposed leader, Senator Muhammadu Danjuma Goje, has amplified the latter’s crude and desperate shenanigans aimed at sabotaging the genuine efforts at intra-party reconciliation and progress fostered by the APC national leadership.
It was due to the deepening divisions that has rocked the party as a result of the battle for control of the party machinery between the Goje led faction and other elements that are bent on resisting his quest for total domination of its state structure for selfish end, the national leadership of the party decided to appoint the caretaker committee headed by Captain Bala Jibrin, which has significantly started yielding results.
However, this dramatic turn of event seemed not to have gone down well with Goje and he did not hesitate to show his disenchantment with the setting up the caretaker committee by allegedly attacking the executives.
As the Bala Jibrin caretaker committee was holding a meeting with chairmen and councillorship candidates in the forthcoming local government elections in the state, elements opposed to peace and progress in the APC were preparing to teach them a lesson in the politics of intimidation, harassment and oppression. Suddenly, thugs and hired hoodlums appeared with dangerous weapons like knives, machetes and attacked the chairman. All hell was let loose as the embattled executives scurried for safety.
It took the quick intervention of law enforcement agents bring the ugly situation under control and arrest of the culprits. While this perilous turn of event deserves condemnation by all right-thinking segments of the society and the genuine party organs, it has to be noted that, the ugly scenario hardly surprises those that are in tune with the political evolution of Gombe state during the Goje administration.
On the return of democracy in 1999, Gombe was relatively peaceful during the 4-year administration of the first civilian governor of the state, Alhaji Abubakar Habu Hashidu, until the Goje took over the mantle of leadership on May 29, 2003. Since then, Gombites, especially political opponents and dissidents of the iron-fisted Goje, had sordid tale on being maltreatment at the hands of the Yankalare, a gang of thugs and crude enforcers.
Even though, he was a beneficiary of a constitutional democratic process, Goje seemed to have little regard for the niceties of the process that brought him to power. Thus, he wasted little time in stamping his authority on the whole gamut of governance in Gombe state while serving notice to all would-be adversaries that he would not tolerate any iota of opposition to his leadership style.
Equally, apart from running a civilian dictatorship of sorts in the Jewel of the Savannah, Goje was allegedly enamored with the concept of imposing his will, favored cronies, and acolytes at all levels of state and party leadership. Before he defected from PDP to APC in early 2014, the party in the state was under the control of leaders from the so-called legacy parties – ANC, ANPP and CPC – that merged to form APC.
However, on his coming, Goje took over the party structure from the legacy founders, using all manner of tactics – fair, foul, crude or manipulative. His alleged wilful imposition of his acolytes to fill all appointive position and the utilization of brute force and all coercive tactics to ensure that only his favored candidates were nominated to elective positions to the detriment of those he met in the party, was a key factor in the crisis that has bedeviled the Gombe State APC since he unceremoniously decamped to the fledgling party.
Consequently, the seeming disaffection by many founders of the party and Goje’s do-or-die approach to politics had been identified as the main cause of APC’s disastrous defeat by PDP in the 2015 gubernatorial elections; the bitter feelings of betrayal and oppression by party faithful led to the crushing defeat of the party.
It was after the party’s 2015 gubernatorial debacle, aggrieved party members at the state level orchestrated the expulsion of Senator Goje’s loyalists in the party, triggering an unprecedented round of expulsions and counter-expulsions that has left the Gombe State APC dispirited, weak, anarchic and anemic;
a shadow of its once vibrant self as CPC has won two seats in the House of Representative and six state House of Assembly seats even without the merger. However, those feeling that the respective gladiators may have sheathed their swords with the on-going effort at reconciliation occasioned by the APC national leadership may be in for a rude shock if the recent fracas allegedly masterminded by Goje and his henchmen are anything to go by.
Indeed, the conventional wisdom within and outside Gombe State is that Senator Goje is not prepared for peaceful parity between him and his adversaries and wants total dominion over them come rain come shine, not caring whose ox is gored in the process and it’s time for the national headquarters to use a long disciplinary stick on him for the party to prosper in Gombe.
Bashiru, an APC youth, wrote from Abuja