It was a spokesman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, whose name I can’t cite here, that accused an opposition element of still smarting from the agonising emotions of losing an election. What this rather cheeky spokesperson didn’t reveal is that the agony is even more severe when an incumbent governor loses his re-election bid. The case of the APC in Zamfara state and its 2023 governorship standard bearer in the last election amounts to a chronic Post Election Loss Disorder (PELD).
The symptoms of post election loss disorder include incoherent political ramblings passed off as active opposition and the peddling of lies as currency and wishful thinking as reality. Institutions and individuals struggling with post election loss disorder are always on the prowl or lurking in the dark alley of their imaginations to concoct vicious falsehoods and attempt to brazenly pass them off as facts. They understand the reverse psychology of standing facts on their heads in desperate bids to unseat the real facts, even those that are already public knowledge. Thankfully, the people of Zamfara state who saw through the veil of deception and castle of lies that’s the APC before and during the election have refused to let their guards down. The people of Zamfara state understand that with APC, it’s like keeping a lion as a pet. It’s always a matter of time before you become its meal. No wonder, Matawalle and APC were humiliated and defeated in 2023.
And this is quite sad, considering the fact that the people of Zamfara state have been very generous to APC, despite their long years of glaring failure, until the party hit the self destruct button by fronting Matawalle who, even by APC’s standards, appears to be the very worst of them all. Although, in truth, the gap between bad and worst for the APC is like the choice of the devil and the raging blue sea; still, it beats the imagination that such a person who governed mostly by buck shifting and blame peddling and inertia which turned Zamfara state into the nest of banditry will ever be considered to continue in that role of ignominy and still have the temerity to keep pontificating about his chosen replacement, Dauda Lawal Dare, hired by the good people of Zamfara state to lead them towards democracy and good governance.
Unfortunately, every time Governor Dauda makes a right move, the APC will dust its drum of failure and start playing their customary discordant tones – one badly intentioned and bizarrely conceptualised press release after another. Such has been the extent of their folly and fear. For this, I only feel pity for them. I mean, except for the extremely patriotic, it is akin to driving a hot iron through one’s heart to see others succeeding where they failed so fantastically.
I believe this to be the only logical explanation why the APC and its failed governorship candidate in the last election continue to obsess over a role they had for such a long time but did nothing with it, or more correctly, didn’t know what to do with it.
Therefore, it didn’t come as a surprise to many when the APC in Zamfara state took out its slate recently to write what will go down as a desperate attempt to unseat the truth about the alleged indiscretions of erstwhile Governor Bello Matawalle with respect to the phantom Gusau Cargo Airport; facts which are public knowledge.
In that badly and perhaps hurriedly authored rebuttal, the APC claimed the audio Gusau Cargo Airport contract was financed using contract financing, a term not known to project financing. Perhaps, as suggested in the return fire by Dauda Lawal Dare’s spokesperson, Matawalle may well have meant Contract Financing Facility (CFF). If this be the case, then the explanation that it is known as the ‘Contract Financing Facility which happens between banks and contractors and does not involve the government at all raises more questions about just how the entire deal was executed.
As Fela Anikulapo Kuti of blessed memory once declared, “…make you carry me go any court, I go open book for am”. Indeed, APC and Matawalle dragged Governor Lawal Dare to the court of public opinion and he has opened the books on them and how! Clearly, the APC in Zamfara state does not seem to know that the new sheriff in town does not consider every silence to be golden. And with trigger happy peddlers of obnoxious lies prowling the streets and misusing their media privileges, it is my guarded view that returning their tepid and spent up fire with a superior barrage of facts is the way to go.
As it happened, Governor Lawal Dauda Dare is an accomplished banker who knows every technicality within the system. The APC should have considered this one fact before firing that shot in the dark. If ever APC and Matawalle can learn, the imperviousness of Dauda Lawal to their churlish shenanigans should be enough to push them towards an epiphany. Whatever they end up doing, APC and Matawalle must desist from attempting to muddle facts with fiction. The people of Zamfara have seen through this camouflage. So, no one is interested in their desperate macabre dance.
It’s on record that the duo of Matawalle and his predecessor, Senator Abdulaziz Yari, ruled the state for 12 years, cumulatively. Sadly, they did not do anything to either tame insecurity or improve the state’s economy. At a time the former was in the PDP, he accused the latter of financial recklessness and complexity in the management of the state’s security. It’s, therefore, laughable and hypocritical for any of them, their cronies and media attack dogs to criticise Governor Dauda for not doing in five months what they couldn’t do in 12 years.
Kabiru, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja.
