By Muazu Abari
Prior to his election in 2015, president Muhammadu Buhari is known to be a strict disciplinarian and upright leader who detest corruption and put high premium on equity, fairness and justice.
Most Nigerians see him as a man of proven integrity, honour, dignity and lover of the common man. These attributes endeared him to the hearts of most Nigerians who stood by him through thin and thick against former president Goodluck Jonathan leading to his victory as president in 2015.
On assumption of office, most people look forward to him and his administration with high hopes and optimism but few years into office, the admiration of him started vanishing in the hearts of most Nigerians due to his leadership style, policy direction, actions and inactions which continued to give Nigerians a cause for concern making most people to be wondering if this is the same Buhari they knew before 2015 or a different man.
Although in his 7 years as president, his administration has recorded some remarkable achievements in different sectors of our National life but the general performance of the administration left much to be desired which was further exercebated by the president penchant for silence when he supposed to provide leadership, swing into action and give guidance as well as his body language and failure to reward excellence, loyalty and sacrifices which have done more harm than good to his administration paving ways for some cabals to hijacked the administration for their selfish interest.
The recently conducted APC National convention where all manner of people some with dented image were handpicked by the president and imposed on the party against the wishes of most party stakeholders across the country in the name of consensus did not only betrayed the expectations of most Nigerians and the president promise to leave a legacy of credible election For Nigeria at the end of his tenure but also failed short of all democratic norms and values with serious implications on the chances and future of the party.
Most people expected that as a governing party, APC will set a new democratic standard in the country which will serve as a mirror for other parties to look at and measure themselves by conducting a credible, transparent and acceptable convention that can stand the test of time where all the aspirants will be allowed to test their popularity at the convention. More so that, since its formation, APC had never for once conducted a democratically inclined convention and its so-called concensus option always failed the party as all chairmen produced through this process always ended up being disgraced out of office before their time.
But unfortunately, the party failed to clearly see the handwriting on the wall and learnt from lesson of history but went ahead to cajole and force all the contestants to withdrew from the race against their wishes in favour of an imposed candidate by the presidency after allowing them to purchase nomination forms, screened and cleared them to contest and investing their time, energy and resources in mobilisation, campaigns, consultations and criss crossing, the country to mobilse support therefore,setting a dangerous precedence in Nigerian democracy.
There is nothing like consensus in the recent charade that took place in APC what transpired at that naked dance of the ruling party is purely imposition of candidates by the presidency hidden under the guise of consensus ochestrated by some cabals supported and endorsed by the president because consensus in its ideal sense entails all the aspirants themselves out of their own convictions and decisions coming together to step for one among them without being forced directly or indirectly by the presidency or any powers that be.
Prior to that charade so many political juggernauts especially from the North central which includes sen.Umaru Tanko Almakura,sen.Abdullahi Adamu,sen.mohammed sani musa,Alh.mustapha salihu,chief.George Akume among others have indicated interest to lead the party as its National chairman setting a stage for an interested political battle which would have for the first time provided the party with a golden opportunity to elect its leadership in a truly democratic manner but unfortunately the joy of that convention was killed by president Muhammadu Buhari.
There is no doubt that,all the aspirants were eminently qualified and have contributed in one way or the other to the growth and successes of the party but it is an indisputable fact that sen.Umaru Tanko Almakura stand tall among all the contenders in view of his political sagacity, leadership acumen sacrifices,commitments and contributions to the grow and successes of the party as well as his loyalty, records of performance and acceptability among most party stakeholders across the country and his ability to produced result when entrusted with responsibilities which put him far ahead of all the contender’s.
The history of the All progressive congress in Nigeria(APC)and Buhari presidency cannot be completely written
With out recourse to the name and roles played by the architect of modern Nasarawa state, Sen. Umaru Tanko Almakura (Sardaunan Kwandare) known for his humane disposition, deligence, humility, fear of God and love for the common man and whose genuine loyalty to Buhari, sacrifices, commitments and contributions to the growth and success of APC distinguished him from pretenders and late night repentants.
At a time when most late night repentants masquerading themselves today as New Buharists just to reap from where they did not sow are busy plotting Buhari political downfall Almakura who shared the same ideology, principles and vision with Buhari decided to stand by him and damned the consequences of political uncertainties by aligning himself with him against all odds.His supports to Buhari and his decision to moved to CPC in a PDP dominated state where he emerged as CPC guber candidate completely changed the political direction of Nasarawa politics as citizens abondoned PDP in their numbers in support of Almakura and buhari candidature.
A development that did not go down well with the PDP government which decided to declare a total war against Almakura leading to his arrest, detention and transfer to Abuja for political reasons. They did not stopped at that, but went further to lunched so many political witch hunting against him deploying all their coercive apparatus at him to the extend of stopping the road constructions project he initiated with his hard earned wealth to ameliorates the sufferings of the masses among other desperate measures geared towards grounding him politically and forced him to succumb and jettisoned Buhari and CPC.
But Almakura refused to bend let alone break in his determination to turned Nasarawa state to a CPC state where he succeeded to defeated the PDP led administration of ex-Gov.Doma of blessed memory to emerged as the third executive governor of the state under CPC and also delivered 4 Assembly seats ,4.out of 5 reps seats and one senatorial seats to CPC in Nasarawa which marked the beginning of his political travails in Nasarawa politics as the PDP who controlled majority of seats in the state House of Assembly decided to capitalised on their numerical strength to frustrated his administration and make the state ungovernable for him.
Almakura saw hell and baptism of fire in the hands of PDP lawmakers from left,right and centre all in a bid to grounded his administration and stopped him from fulfilling his promises to the people of the state and paid him back for sending the party to dustbin of history but Almakura who came fully prepared with a defined mission,strong political skills and determination to make a different and create a new history in the politics and governance of the state but Almakura never allowed their political vandetta and short sightness to distracted him from accomplishing his vision for the people of Nasarawa state.
That was why he never allowed any dull moment through out his administration. from the beginning to the end of his visionary and focus leadership leadership ,it has always been work,more work and extreme work as he continued to impressed and endeared himself to the hearts of the ordinary people of Nasarawa state with his superlative performance and succeeded to completely changed the development narrative of the state.within in few years he has been able to redefined and raised the bar of governance and turned Nasarawa into a model of good governance and infrastructural development in Nigeria with his footprints scattered across all sectors of the state.
His unprecedented performance, popularity and acceptability among the electorates had became a serious threat to PDP who saw him as a dream killer that must be removed if their hopes of returning back to power must be guaranteed hence their decision to served him with impeachment notice unknown to them the ordinary people of the state are solidly behind him and decided to raised in his defence which completely grounded the state and forced the lawmakers to run out of the state for fear of being lynched by the masses.
With God, clear conscience and support of the masses despite federal might the impeachment panel constituted against him as directed by the lawmakers exonerated him of all the allegations levelled against him by the PDP lawmakers for political reason. Speaking during his impeachment travails Almakura said, “if the impeachment is to force me to defect to PDP and abandon Buhari and CPC then it has failed in its mission, I will rather sacrifice my seat than to betrayed Buhari, my party and the people of Nasarawa state who voted me into office.
Almakura victory as the only CPC governor in Nigeria at a time when even Buhari own state of katsina, his adopted state of kaduna and most Northern states seen as his stronghold rejected him and his then party (CPC) was what Buhari and CPC took to negotiation table that qualified the party to go into merger talks with other opposition parties in the country which gave birth to APC and subsequently led to Buhari’s emergence as president in 2015 just as it is also on records that he participated actively and played a key roles in all the processes that led to the formation of the party.
Taal as Almakura is fondly called did not only attracted so many people and prominent PDP politicians in the state into APC but also succeeded to win his re-election with wide margin and completed the dymystification of PDP in Nasarawa state which make it possible for APC to take over the controll of the state Assembly by winning 19 assembly seats, most senate and reps seats in the state even President muhammadu Buhari himself in so many fora described Nasarawa state under Almakura as his political laboratory.
Despite the politics of succession that polarised the party over the choice of his successor and his subsequent decision to back Engr. A.A Sule which did not go down well with other aspirants and some party stakeholders in the state Almakura succeeded to hold the party together and delivered Nasarawa to APC in 2019 even after leaving office as governor where he is now a senator representing the good people of Nasarawa south Almakura continued to keep faith with the party and president Muhammadu Buhari and his administration supporting the president and the party with everything at his disposal.
As a senator, Almakura did not disappoint the people of Nasarawa south but continued with his good work of serving humanity and the people of Nasarawa south with the same speed,zeal , commitments and passion the way he did as governor by giving his people effective,responsible and peoples centred representation that make him indeed the best option not only for Nasarawa south as his senatorial campaign slogan implies but also the best among all the senators representing the state in the National Assembly today.
In the last 3 years of his stewardship in the Senate, the people of Nasarawa south have felt the impact of his representation especially in the areas of brilliant contributions to National debates, bringing his people challenges to National attention, lobbying for federal projects to his constituency,sponsoring of bills and motions some of these bills include Fulafia teaching hospital establishment bill which have already been passed into law, bil for the control of firearms in Nigeria,mining sector reforms bill among many others which were at various legislative stages.
Other achievements include constructions of roads in some communities of his constituency, construction and rehabilitation of class rooms, portable drinking water,.provision of health facilities, distributions of teaching aides and other facilities to Nasarawa state special schools for disabled, distribution of food items and COVID-19 palliatives to all categories of people in his constituency.
Even as he also carried out several empowerment programmes in his senatorial district leading to distribution of grinding machines, sewing machines, generating sets and other empowerment tools to women and youths as well as distributions of generating sets to second and third class traditional rulers and community leaders to carry out sensitization and enlightenment campaigns on the effect of COVID-19 pandemic among many other intervations and humanitarian gestures.
It is therefore, not surprising that Taal became the most popular and the most acceptable choice of most APC stakeholders across the country and who would have been APC National chairman by now but unfortunately his hopes of leading the party was truncated by no other person than president Muhammadu Buhari himself who he almakura have sacrificed so much for and always supported to the extend of almost loosing his seat as Governor seen in many quarters as a betrayal of trust and a further proved that all that glitters are not gold.
Abari, a Yola based journalist writes from Jimeta.
