By Abdallah el-Kurebe

DIssent is democracy lifeblood,” so goes an adage. It is as such not surprising that the emerging opposition to a second term for Governor Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State is not from the vestiges of the opposition but from within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Governor Wamakko may have truly vanquished the opposition both at the electoral field and in the courts, having commandeered an extraordinary intervention from the Supreme Court to salvage his first

Gov. Wamakko

election. Upon that controversial intervention by the apex court the gubernatorial election for the state was rescheduled from last April to March 2012.

Reflective of the supremacy of the PDP in the state the party won all three Senatorial, eleven House of Representatives and thirty House of Assembly seats during the last elections. The party consolidated its hold on the political configuration of the state when it won all thirty-three council chairmanship positions and 243 of the 244 Councillorship positions in the recent local government elections.

Failure of the opposition from without

Many of the opposition parties are seen by political observers as ‘nominal’ in view of their relative quietness with the exception of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN and the Democratic Peoples Party, DPP being the exception.

There have been suggestions of a plan by the three parties to field a consensus candidate against the PDP’s candidate in the forthcoming election. That plan is despite the present crisis that has split the CPC in the state.

The leadership of the party in the state was sacked based on allegations of impropriety and anti-party activities. Except for the ACN, which has former Governor Attahiru Bafarawa and the DPP, which has Alhaji Ummarun Kwabo, its state Chairman DPP as financial backers, the CPC has no financially strong members ready to fund its activities. Its present mass appeal is generally believed to flow from the popularity of the party’s national leader, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

The emerging opposition from within

The absence of serious opposition has however, not given the ruling PDP any room for comfort as the party continues to grapple with issues flowing from its merger with d former All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP.

Though always waved aside by party members loyal to Governor Wamakko, the chasm between old and new PDP members continues to irritate the serenity of  the      PDP umbrella in Sokoto.

While party officials say that all issues have been sorted out and that there is no difference between old and new, however, the situation is to

Gada: Inspiring internal rebellion

the contrary if mutterings from the camp of the old PDP is anything to be believed.

They posit that the new PDP has kept the old PDP from the mainstream of the party’s policies, programmes and packages.

Connecting the dots

The controversy was further exacerbated when the Northwest Zonal Vice Chairman of the PDP Ambassador Ibrahim Musa Kazaure endorsed Governor Wamakko as the party’s candidate for the March 2012 gubernatorial election.

During his tour to Sokoto state on Thursday, September 15 2011, purportedly to sensitize members of the PDP on the revalidation of membership cards Kazaure during a visit to the Governor’s personal residence had endorsed Wamakko saying “In Sokoto state, the PDP has a sole candidate and that candidate is you (Wamakko).” Kazaure spoke in the Hausa language.

Eulogizing Governor Wamakko, the zonal vice chairman opined that the Governor has performed well to deserve another term in office.

The endorsement has, however, not gone down well with former Senator Abubakar Gada, who has himself set his eyes on contending with Wamakko for the PDP ticket.

For the former Senator, the zonal vice chairman erred when he stated that the incumbent governor remains the party’s flag bearer even without due consultation with other stakeholders of the party in the state.

Addressing a Press conference in his residence in Sokoto on Saturday, September 17 2011, Gada insisted on a primary election to the determine the PDP gubernatorial candidate.

“I am not countering the Vice-Chairman’s excesses per se but making a clarification on a statement of facts that the primary must be conducted and members will have to renew their membership cards to ensure widespread participation at the primaries,” Gada said.

He suggested that Kazaure committed an error by making such a statement without any reference to stakeholders. “With due respect to him, it is human for someone to commit error and be corrected.”

“I called Kazaure who is a very close friend and asked why he ventured into making such a statement, which was unfounded and not befitting of a person of the status of his office.”

Intention to contest

Gada, who referred to Kazaure’s statement as misinformation told Journalists that he reminded Kazaure about PDP’s position that “all states with staggered elections must conduct primaries but you were reported to have said that PDP has a sole candidate in Sokoto State” for which according to Gada, “he acknowledged the error by admitting that it was because he was not aware of mine or any other person’s intention to contest the governorship seat in Sokoto and based on which reason he made that statement.”

He further said that Kazaure should not have concluded that there would be no other aspirant that would contest the primary with Wamakko since no timetable had been drawn and no guidelines were released.

“Let me make this clear, unequivocally, without mistake and without prejudice that I intend to contest in the primaries,” Gada declared.

From the forgoing and from Gada’s declaration having encountered Kazaure, it is evident that the latter’s utterances were rent asunder as they collapsed into thin air.

Suggesting that the leadership in the state had failed the test of peoples’ expectations, he added that “We must put our house in order and do better to salvage the state. Majority of the people in the state are tired of the incumbent leadership and want a change, which they deserve.”

The former Senator assured that he was billed to transform the state’s dwindling socio-economic and political status with emphasis to redeeming its moral glory.

Gada’s aspiration it is believed in some quarters flows from his perception that Governor Wamakko supported Dr. Ibrahim Abdullahi Gobir during the PDP senate primary in which the later defeated Gada the then incumbent for Sokoto East senatorial district. His aspiration is thus seen as laced with revenge.

Gada attended the nuptial ceremony of Bafarawa’s daughter on Saturday, September 17 2011 and although some political analysts see Bafarawa/Gada union as a good strategy, they still see Gada as politically weak to withstand Wamakko at the primary.

Other observers see the union, if it really is, as a preparation for a bigger political alliance in which Bafarawa’s political machinery would be aligned to the “old PDP” in order to support Gada if he wins the primary.