Adjust ? or lose
Nyako must adjust
his policies if he wants to win next year’s election. One of his
greatest undoings is his refusal to pay NECO (National Examinations
Council) and WAEC (West Africa Examination Council) fees, which the
government hitherto was paying. In this state, the majority of the
people are peasant farmers. So, what his predecessors did in office was
to simply alleviate the burden of these people by helping to pay the
NECO and WAEC fees which helped encouraged many of them to go to
school. But Nyako came and squashed it.
The Nyako
administration’s turnaround and promise to pay the WAEC and NECO fees
is just because of the elections. The people are wise. If he was
sincere, he couldn’t have made that mistake ab initio. So, our people
know that it is another attempt to get their votes. If the
gubernatorial elections were to have been held in April, definitely
Nyako would have lost. But there’s a likelihood of him winning next
year’s poll if he readjusts a lot of his plans and policies ahead of
the elections. He might be able to get sympathy in some quarters, but
not in every quarter. People have already made up their minds because
some of his policies were very harsh against the poor majority in the
state.
The strength of the opposition in the state
If there’s any
party to beat in Adamawa, it is the ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria).
The party is still formidable, despite winning only four state
legislative seats. Since the feud between Obasanjo and Atiku, which led
Atiku to move to the ACN, the party has continued to grow from strength
to strength. It benefited from that feud because Atiku grew the party
in the state. In Adamawa State, it is the only opposition party with
grassroots appeal. It is also remarkable that the party’s recourse to
the tenet of internal democracy has helped it produce a very credible
gubernatorial candidate in the person of Markus Gundiri. In every
village and ward where he has gone to seek the people’s support in his
campaigns to be the governor, he has been very welcomed as the
“saviour”. And this is based on his track record. The Adamawa people
are interested in his candidacy and hopefully he will be the next
governor of the state.
Obasanjo, a man of foresight
Despite the former
president Olusegun Obasanjo’s shortcomings, he still remains one of the
few politicians in the country with foresight. You cannot rule out the
role he has played in the history and politics of this country. He has
done very well for this country and for democracy. Obasanjo, despite
being a military man, is an astute politician. I consider him an elder
statesman who sees the future more than many of our politicians. He
still remains a name in Nigerian politics. His emergence on the
country’s horizon of democracy has helped stabilise the country’s
nascent democracy. Kudos should be given to him that despite being a
military man he still remains a very, very good politician.
