By:
Olayitan Adebayo
Working hand-in-hand with opposition elements outside the APC in Sokoto State, a band of fifth columnists have been pushing for a destabilization agenda ahead of the forthcoming primaries.
The satanic plot is, however, dead on arrival because Sokoto State has a more sufficiently-enlightened and no non-sense population of voters. The electorate of Sokoto State today can easily identify a political conspiracy, because of years of political education spearheaded by Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko – the unbeatable godfather of modern Sokoto politics.
Desperados in the party have since been losing sleep over the candidature of Ahmed Aliyu, the hottest 2023 cake in town as far as Sokoto State electorate is concerned.
They have a multi-million naira media budget, anchored on cheap lies and political falsehood, designed to persuade the electorate not to go with the most popular candidate. And while they are at it, it is fresh in the memory of Sokoto voters, that Aliyu, apart from a solid civil service career has an unbeatable goodwill in the recent political history of the State. He was a formidable deputy to incumbent Governor Aminu Tambuwal. Indeed, when he decided to run for governorship in 2019, the incumbent Tambuwal managed to escape with questionable 342 votes against Aliyu, to return for a second term. It still beats my imagination how someone who was running for governorship had to be rigged out by an incumbent who had all the war chest, the relevant institutions under his watch.
Now that history is beckoning on Aliyu and being the aspirant in the good books of Sokoto political godfather, feathers have continued to ruffle. The opposition PDP, which seems clueless as to how to stop Aliyu from running as APC’s hottest candidate, must have decided to hire insiders. The fifth columnists have started the cries of blue political murder of imposition, on behalf of the opposition camp.
What is the untold truth about the fear of actors in this gang-up and their cry of imposition by the political foot soldiers of the opposition, working in cahoots with the opposition millionaires? Why would they all be so restless about only one candidate in a race involving many others. Let us reflect on who Aliyu is, politically-speaking and in the context of the prevailing dynamics of Sokoto politics.
It is on record, that he was Tambuwal’s deputy for three(3) years and resigned for the 2019 race, in which he demystified the incumbency factor – to the extent that people are doubting the legitimacy of Tambuwal’s return to power in 2019.The circumstances of APC’s loss in that election have remained mysterious to discerning observers.
It logically follows that if he could successfully overstretch an incumbent to narrowly escape with a meagre 342 margin of votes, contesting against any other person is certainly a walk-over
The question that resonates within Sokoto’s political firmament is: As a former Deputy Governor is there any qualified candidate of equal political standing in the APC like him?
Let us look back a little more to his foundation of political activities against the cheap media campaign of calumny. He was a commissioner for 8 years, Deputy governor for 3 years. What other political qualification does he need to be the best among the other aspirants?
It is obvious that those who sponsored that weak piece of noise on him have their project dead before even its arrival.
On the allegation that he did not resign before the expiration of the electoral law deadline, when did other aspirants resign? Didn’t all those mentioned resign on the same day Ahmed Aliyu resigned? One resigned as an ambassador while the other resigned as head of NAFDAC.
The lily-livered sponsors are so desperate that they did not do their homework well, by alleging that His Excellency Ahmed Aliyu has cases with the EFCC and ICPC. For the records, he has never been invited or questioned by any anti graft agency, nor tried for such acts by any court of competent jurisdiction.
They merely wanted to use that as part of their pull-him- down gimmickery, but have goofed.
Ahmed Aliyu is the best candidate the APC has and even Tambuwal can attest to this when he goes through the 2019 guber elections records.
For a candidate who scored over 500,000 votes out of a little over one million, only a party without focus and blueprint will think of replacing him.
As human, he might not be perfect but even imperfection makes people wiser when they have a second chance. Those alleging that the people of Sokoto do not like him, where were they in 2019 when he caused a major upset which shook governor Tambuwal to his marrow?
The 2019 election records are there for his opponents to browse, how many of them can achieve that feat?
No wise man or serious association will dream of changing a winning team unless they are too blind to forsee how fast they would be heading for doom.
On the whole, the gang-up against Aliyu has failed because public rating of the man among Sokoto State voters is comparatively multiple times higher.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
Barrister Adebayo wrote from Abuja
