2011: Goje and the Gombe Senate race

By John Bulus

IF Gombe Central Senatorial election is to determined by the people of Kashere community, the home country of the incumbent but out-going governor of Gombe State, Alhaji Mohammad Danjuma Goje, or simply put, by the members of the ruling People Democratic Party, PDP, then, not the former Senator Saa’d Mohammed of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP or Mohammed Babikir of Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, who are candidates in the elections would grab the hallowed seat. Reason: Goje’s pedigree and unprecedented feats recorded in the last 8 years he has been governor of the State.

Again, if compensation is the word, Goje would be coasting home in victory as a consensus candidate of the zone. But then, such scenario is not obtained in the Nigerian political lexicon, more so, in a democratic setting like Nigeria where the presence of many political parties at play facilitates the aspirations of many individual actors to seek elective positions.

Indeed, if Goje had had some agreement initiated in his favor for the contest, that was in December last year when so many aspirants in his PDP including the incumbent Senator Idris Abdulalhi representing the zone stepped down for him and unanimously gave him the ticket to contest for the senatorial District in Saturday election.
Interestingly, in the contest the two known forces contending with governor Goje even from his own Akko Local Government.

Senator Saa’d Mohammed, an Engineer who is the flag bearer of the ANPP in the election is not an upstart. He has been in business of politics, much more in the Senate between 2003 and 2007 when he was voted in to represent the zone. He hails from Deba town in Yemaltu Deba, one of the two Local Government Areas that make up the Gombe Central Senatorial District. He was a PDP senator and in the reckoning of pundits, knows the PDP “family business” so well to have come out to square up with an incumbent governor in the elections.

Given the added vigor and tact put in during the party’s campaigns by the ANPP governorship candidate, Alhaji Saidu Umar Kumo who incidentally hails from Akko Local Government as Goje and who was also a Senator between 1999 and 2003, one would expect a fierce battle in the zone. ANPP controlled the State between 1999 and 2003 when the PDP took over power.

Since then, the ANPP elements in the state have not been at rest. Consequently, they have come to wear the toga and composure of someone who has the temerity of grabbing power with both hands from the ruling PDP, and obviously the 2011 elections, many say, presents an opportunity.

Then enter Mohammed Babikir of the CPC. Babilkr hails from Kumo in Akko Local Government Areas as Goje. Kumo is adjudged Goje’s childhood town and that informs more reasons why the contest is a must-watch for the people. Babikir is not just making his debut in politics. He has had to contest prior to now but failed to scale through. But no one would underrate the chances of his Party to see him though especially now that there seems to be a “gang up” by the opposition parties against the ruling PDP in Gombe State.