For the third time in as many encounters, the Governor of Sokoto state, Right Honourable Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Tuesday, October 2, 2019, dealt yet a devastating blow that sent his rival in the governorship contest reeling and wreathing on the canvass. Delivered via the verdict of the Governorship Election Tribunal, the APC flag bearer, Alhaji Ahmed Aliyu, was told in no uncertain terms that, indeed, he was properly and resoundingly defeated by his PDP rival.
Before the much anticipated historic judgement, Aliyu and his APC had challenged the first encounter, the March 9 rerun election during which Tambuwal was declared winner with a huge vote margin. In their second encounter, the reelection of March 23, Aliyu was again floored with a cumulative narrower margin of 342 votes. Dazed but not willing to let go, the APC cried blue murder by alleging irregularities which they said favoured the opponent in the rerun election. Pronto, the battle was shifted by the APC’s flag bearer to the election tribunal as a window of opportunity or a ray of hope.
The judgment day was particularly awaited with much anxiety because, like a drowning man holding onto a straw, the APC, its candidate and chieftains had invested so much hope in the tribunal as a lifeline. So huge was their confidence that, musicians were reportedly engaged to compose special victory songs with matching celebratory attires shared among members. The state was also pervaded with rumours of loyalists that would be rewarded with positions of secretary to the Ssate government, commissioners, special advisers and heads of “lucrative” departments and agencies. Some prominent royals and civil servants were, on the other hand, said to have been penciled down for various punitive measures such as depositions, demotions, transfers, retirement and dismissal.
The atmosphere was further charged when, for reasons of security, the tribunal announced the shifting of delivery of its judgment from Sokoto to Abuja. The opposition APC interpreted the move as pointer to its impending victory on the logic that the judges were wary of a backlash from supporters of the incumbent government. The belief that Tambuwal would be ousted by the tribunal was also reinforced by the purported words from the APC leader in the state that Abuja was resolute that Tambuwal must be removed. If dreams were horses, the saying goes, beggars will ride. Alas! Alas!! Alas!!!
To call a spade, a spade, the crux of the matter is that the political acrimony in Sokoto state would not have come this far and as acrimonious but for the singular factor of Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko. He is the APC leader and self-appointed godfather of politics in the state who singlehandedly anointed and forced Ahmed Aliyu as the party’s flag bearer, against protests and opinions that the candidate was a neophyte that is not politically a marketable commodity especially, in the face of an opponent as strong as Tambuwal. The senator is, understandably, not comfortable with the predicted electoral calamity. He cannot climb down from his high horse to bite the humble pie which Tambuwal’s victory implies. He is finding it hard to admit before his followers as well as peers and mentors in Abuja and far away Lagos, that he has indeed failed to deliver Sokoto.
But, Wamakko should, ideally, not be at such pains coming to terms with his present fate, as unpalatable, painful and humbling as it is, if he will flash back to a similar scenario in his favour almost a decade ago. In the build up to the 2007 governorship election, then candidate Wamakko, paradoxically of the PDP, was regarded as an underdog in his encounter with Muhammed Maigari Dingyadi of the DPP, who was a protégé of the incumbent governor, Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa. With all the awesome funds and other arsenal of political warfare of DPP’s Dingyadi, he was beaten at the polls by the PDP.
Like Magatakarda is today fretting over Tambuwal’s defeat of his candidate, Bafarawa was shell shocked and in disbelief. From the election tribunal where he lost, Bafarawa’s DPP proceeded to the Appeal Court which gave a verdict of nullification and ordered a rerun election. After losing the rerun election, Bafarawa again led DPP to the Supreme Court which finally sealed his dream by swinging the pendulum of victory the way of Wamakko. Sad, like the Wamakko-Bafarawa imbroglio of 2007/2008, we may not have heard the last word as latest report on the Aliyu Ahmed-Aminu Waziri Tambuwal struggle for the soul of Sokoto is headed to the Appeal Court?
It is rather ironical and a bewildering puzzle that, Wamakko should be the one at the head of the ongoing unnecessary political tragic drama. For one, as a Muslim with a personal testimony to affirm that power comes from Allah SWT and He, in His Infinite Wisdom, gives it to whoever He wants, why, many are asking, is Wamakko finding it difficult to accept the reality that for now in Sokoto state, Allah SWT has willed power to Tambuwal and, there can be no any human machinations or contrivances that can change that fact? To play God is to incur the wrath of God.
Moreover, on the lips of majority of people in Sokoto state today is the question: “What really does Wamakko want?” In other words, how much more does he want from Allah and the people before he is satiated and thankful for what many regard as his extraordinary good fortunes? This is against the backdrop of the fact that, starting off as a two-term Deputy Governor, a two term governor and now a second term senator, Wamakko has been recurring decimal on state’s political landscape since the last two decades! Not a few believe that he has just been exceptionally lucky individual knowing that, before Bafarawa dragged him into political limelight in 1998, Aliyu Magatakarda was a simple civil servant at the point of retirement.
History is replete with stories of great kings and leaders who, due to insane, voracious and insatiable craving for more power and glory ended up in miserable and ignominious conditions. The one common causative factor responsible for such disastrous ending is that they were not wise enough to take their exit while the ovation was still high. Very near home to Wamakko is perhaps the experience of Bafarawa, his onetime mentor and principal.
The leadership of the APC in Sokoto state, particularly, Wamakko knows it for a fact that the so-called struggle to retrieve, “our stolen mandate” is nothing but an exercise in futility, a chase after a mirage. Their gullible, innocent followers are fed with such pedestrian, Maraban Jos, Tasha-Illela or Shagamu stuffs and tales of the “Federal might” committed to the “Tambuwal must go” project, but the party leadership and their lawyers know it deep down their hearts that, the 2019 governorship contest in Sokoto state, has long been won and, lost.
Or else,what does one make of the final address of the APC lead Counsel before the tribunal? According to the learned gentleman, “the paltry figure of 342” as the margin of votes between PDP’s Tambuwal and APC’s Ahmed Aliyu, formed the thrust of APC’s grouse and claims against the victory of the PDP. He went on to say that APC might have conceded defeat if, “the margin was a landslide in the region of ten thousand votes”. Really? But are the constitution and the Electoral Act not explicit that, a win is a win no matter how paltry the margin between the victor and the defeated?
Oladele, PhD writes from Zaria, Kaduna state
