When George W. Bush was campaigning to secure his first term in office as president of the United States of America, one of his recurring slogans was “I’m a uniter, not a divider”. He particularly made a huge capital out of this, buttressing it with the claim that “I refuse to play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another”. But as he neared the end of his administration, evidence showed that Bush had done the exact opposite. This, some would argue, is the lot of many politicians who are known the world over as betrayers of trust.
The tendency of some Nigerian politicians to behave in like manner by betraying the people that give them the mandate to serve, and by extension their benefactors who worked assiduously to aid their emergence, is therefore not a big surprise. This probably explains Dare Babarinsa’s argument in his book, House of War, that “Nigeria’s inability to manage her wealth is not the cause, but the consequence of her inability to manage her political fortune”. To bolster his claim, he said some of the political elite prefer to handle power as if it is an end in itself, and not a means to an end, thereby fighting dirty even when there’s absolutely no cause.
However, it is on record that the founding fathers of northern Nigeria made significant difference in their politicking in spite of their political differences. The likes of the late Sir Ahmadu Bello and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa engaged opposition elements such as J.S. Tarka, Malam Aminu Kano with regard and dignity devoid of the kind of bickering and bitter rivalry in contemporary politics in the region. This was largely so because they had and pursued a common goal: promotion of the collective interests of peoples of the North, i.e. their wishes and aspirations. Much more than them, the generations that succeeded them had tried not to betray them in their actions and pronouncements.
And thus, even where an individual is propped up to succeed a public office holder such a person keeps faith with the bond between himself and his benefactor, without necessarily kowtowing to the whims and caprices of those godfathers.
But the reverse appears to be the trend today. People who are direct beneficiaries of the magnanimity of some eminent personalities have turned shortly afterwards to stab those benefactors in the back. This emerging trend has become more prevalent since the return to democratic rule in Nigeria in 1999. For instance, observers often cite the examples of the bitter animosity between the immediate past governor of Zamfara State, Alhaji Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi and his benefactor and predecessor, Senator Ahmed Sani (Yariman Bakura).
Shinkafi was the only deputy governor to have naturally succeeded his boss after the first set of 36 governors in the country’s current democratic dispensation served out their constitutionally guaranteed two terms in office (1999-2007). And yet, not long after his emergence, Shinkafi fell out with Yarima, resulting in his pitching tent with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Another dramatic example is the no-love-lust relationship between the current vice-president, Mohammed Namadi Sambo and Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi in Kaduna State. Although the latter egged the former to succeed him as governor of the old capital of the North, it is public knowledge that the two hardly see eye to eye when Namadi held sway in Kaduna.
But while the two instances above are bad enough to attract comments by political commentators, the prevailing rancorous rivalry between immediate past Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Muhammad Adamu Aliero and his erstwhile political godson, Alhaji Saidu Usman Nasamu Dakingari in Kebbi state dwarfs both.?
Aliero, it will be recalled, favoured Dakingari to succeed him against his longtime friend and former boss in the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Alhaji Abubakar Gari Malam.
Political pundits say a similar scenario could play out in Gombe where the state’s most reknown governor since its creation in 1996, Danjuma Goje, now a senator, is allegedly not favourably dispossed to the man he ‘crowned’, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, in spite the bitter resentment of his closest allies and associates. Last month’s bitter primaries of the PDP in Bayelsa State, which was a watershed in the frosty relationship between President Goodluck Jonathan and his successor, Governor Timipre Sylva, who had sought a second term, but was edged out, is another classical case of the perfidy in our political circles.
However, the most stunning example of betrayal and perfidy in the recent political history of northern Nigeria, according to keen observers, is the one currently playing out in Nasarawa State between defeated governor of the state, Alhaji Aliyu Akwe Doma and his benefactor, renowned political tactician and strategist, Senator Abdullahi Adamu. Former Governor Doma, who was one of the few incumbents displaced in the 2011 elections, succeeded Adamu in 2007. It is public knowledge that the odds were against Doma when he ran for the exalted office. For instance, it was obvious that he lacked the financial muscle to vie for the office of governor, having been drained by his earlier bids against Abdullahi Adamu in the 1999 and 2003 general elections.
Besides, Akwe Doma’s rating had been low in view of his initial choice of the hugely unpopular All Peoples Party (APP), now All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) for his earlier contest, as against the PDP, which is Nasarawa’s most widely accepted party. Worst of all, age was not in his favour, having become a septuagenarian before that election.
Yet, perhaps considering Doma’s vast experience, first as a man who rose through the ranks in the civil service to become permanent secretary in the last days of old Benue-Plateau state, and subsequently serving as deputy governor to Chief Solomon Daushep Lar during the Second Republic in Plateau State, Adamu who currently represents Nasarawa West in the Senate supported his candidature as a possible worthy successor on PDP platform. But Doma, by all standards, turned out to be a huge disappointment for his predecessor. Worse still, the humiliated former governor has now turned the knife’s sharp end against the amiable benefactor.
To be concluded tomorrow
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