Niger 2015: Divisive Agenda of Some PDP Governorship candidates By Surajo Mallam Erena

PDP governorship primaries is just a few days away from today. As is the norm, the political waters in every state are now stagnated. In my state, Niger, things are not different. A horde of aspirants have been cleared to gun for the ticket which has been zoned to Zone C in tandem with the party’s zoning formula. The formula, from all indications, seems to be working in spite the conspiracies allegedly plotted by the country’s foremost political schemer, Prof. Jerry Gana who hails from the state, to kill it.

Among the contenders, the odds seem to be more in favour of Umar Mohammed Nasko, the state’s former Chief of Staff and governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu’s ‘anointed candidate’, to clinch the ticket.

Right now, not only in PDP, Nasko is the most popular gubernatorial aspirant in the state; APC’s Abu Sani Bello, who has been campaigning since three years ago, is gradually getting drowned by him despite the fact that he won his party’s ticket with a wide margin on Thursday.

In PDP, Nasko has Engineer Mustapha Bello, the former boss of NIPC; Musa Ibeto, the present deputy governor; Senator Nuhu Aliyu Auna, a former senator, trailing him. As far as permutations are concerned, all other candidates are in the race for the sake of only being there or to announce their presence in the political landscape of the state.

Nasko’s popularity, some analysts believe, is because he is the state government’s candidate; however, to weigh the facts a second time, those analysts are not wholly true. First of all, youths who are the most populous in every clime are in support of him; secondly, the sort of campaigns in which his candidacy was unveiled with have won him a wide range of acceptability in every part of the state.

As politics is worldwide, even when a candidate clearly knows that permutations are not in favour of him he will clutch the thinnest branch available, even when he knows it would lead to his destruction, to win himself some reckoning. That is the case now in Niger, as many thumbs are up for Nasko to clinch the ticket.

Appraising each of the aforementioned ‘trailers’ critically; Senator Nuhu Aliyu Auna, to begin with, is one man PDP shouldn’t dare give its ticket to otherwise APC’s dream of wresting Niger would be realised with just a few punches.

In 2011, after serving three terms as a senator, in a bid to go for the fourth term he was defeated by Ibrahim Musa, who was a novice in politics by a wide margin. Since then, the former senator has been in search of relevance anywhere it could come from, hence his joining of the governorship race. PDP shouldn’t just heed to his ‘scheme’ because he does no have any electoral value in the state. The dream of every political party is to see its flagbearer winning at the general poll. In case of the former senator, he cannot doing it for Niger PDP because he is not popular in Zone A and B. However, In Zone C where he is, to some extents, Senator Musa sculpted his political funeral in 2011.

Coming to Ibeto; to me, Ibeto stopped being a politician with relevance after becoming Aliyu’s deputy. This is because, after being a deputy governor for almost eight year’s, he’s got no support base and save for former governor Abdulkadir Abdullahi Kure, he is not popular among the stakeholders. Appraising him with a frontline stakeholder a few days ago, he noted: “Ibeto’s unpopularity is due to his mean personality. If you are mean in spirit, even when you have viable policies, you won’t go well with politicians.” I do not know what he meant with ‘mean spirit’ and I didn’t ask him to elaborate.

The stakeholder it was who also hinted me of Kure’s covert ‘schemes’ for Ibeto because he wants ‘his godson’ on power to increase his influence in the state.

Kure’s body language says he is in Nasko’s camp but if truly is gunning secretly for an Ibeto ticket, he is not appreciating the fact that the state government ditched former PDP state chairman, Abdulrahaman Enagi, in order for his wife, Senator Zainab to clinch Zone A senatorial ticket for the third term. Wherever Kure’s loyalty is in this race, he ought to make it open, at least for the army of Nupe followers he has got.

Last year, because of his credentials, Mustapha Bello was my favourite candidate among the people we were hearing would contest for Niger governor. When columnist Mohammed Haruna wrote a prognosis in his much-followed Wednesday Column in Daily Trust Newspaper and pitched him ahead of others, my excitement knew no bound. However, I have now found out that he is not the sort of grassroots and pro-people politician that we need in Niger. That is because, recently, a friend who is in his camp showed me an sms he sent to him intimating of Nasko’s “fast increasing popularity”, and the engineer, from what I read in my friend’s phone, replied thus: “they are just ranting. The who is who in the state have not sat down to decide who goes. Before their decision, forget all you hear or see.”

What I depicted from that sms is that Mustapha Bello is hoping for Minna hilltop residents to help him clinch his party’s ticket and also pave ways for him to win the main election. Let’s see if that will happen.

More so, the most disturbing intent of all the PDP aspirants from Zone C, except Nasko, is the divisive government they are waiting  to run if they become governor.

I got this revelation last month from a friend who is a confidant to Saleh Sahabi Darangi, one of the fringe aspirants.

According to my friend, Sahabi was discussing with a group of his supporters from Zone C that they (all the aspirants except Nasko) met in Abuja and forged an agreement that “if any of them wins and also goes on to win the main election, they will team together take massive development to Zone C.” What about other zones?

Mallam wrote from Angwan Daji, Minna

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