It’s nearly two years since the Inuwa Yahaya administration took over the mantle of leadership in Gombe state on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) when the party overwhelmed the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The PDP had governed the state for 16 consecutive years. The first PDP governor, Danjuma Gojo, enjoyed two terms from 2003 to 2011. His successor, Ibrahim Dankwambo, also exhausted his two consecutive terms till 2019 when the PDP hit the rock for obvious reasons.
Clearly, the PDP’s 2019 ill-fated journey began at the time the party conspicuously failed to adopt a workable internal crisis management mechanism to have managed effective the post primary election crisis that rocked the party. Secondly, the choice of the party’s candidates at various levels across the state and the manner in which the party had reluctantly carried out its campaign, has contributed greatly to its political summersault where it lost vurtually all the contested positions apart from only four out of the 24 state house of assembly seats.
In the array of the political bigwigs that contested the PDP ticket during the dramatic party’s primary election, Senator Bayero Nafada, who had eventually decamped to the party in the late 2018, precisely three months to the primaries, subsequently hand-picked the ticket based on the common conception not the part’s popular choice.
To one side of his coming late into the party, he was commonly blamed for not having congenial relationship with the people of the state. Worse still, his Gombe North constituents, whom he was representing at the red chambers of the National Assembly, in a spate of fortune and misadventure, Nafada neither visited the state nor shared the grief or happiness with the people as the case may be.
In fact, those who rejected outrightly him and joined the APC would not have left if a better person was chosen by the PDP. To be sure, Ahmed Abubakar Walama, Jamil Isyaku Gwamna, Bala Bello Tinka, Abdulkadir Hammasaleh, Hassan Muhammadu are a set of prominent aspirants with political war chest; any of them would have sailed the PDP to victory and the humbling defeat the party suffered would have been averted.
Prior to the primary election, if the PDP had listened to the singing from the middle-of-the-road, Dr Jamil Gwamna, who apart of having the financial muscles to scurry the support of the majority of the voting population, should have been the party’s flag bearer; the rest would have been history as APC’s Inuwa Yahaya can never match him in any respect.Now, the PDP has clearly seen the negative consequences of losing an election, especially woefully, coupled with the bad leadership of the present administration in the state with even those who have helped the government to emerge now silently expressing passionate grief over the undesirable state of affairs in the state.
To many of us, the situation is seemingly a replication of late Abubakar Habu Hashidu’s All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) government which was short-lived and deposed by the PDP’s Danjuma Goje in 2003. From all indications and insinuations making the rounds, people like Jamil Gwamna, Muhammed Jibrin Barde, Senator Idris Umar, Barrister Joshua Lidani, and a host of others, may rejoin PDP before the 2023 general election, and this will definitely tear APC to pieces and set the stage for PDP.
But the herculean task for PDP and its leadership ahead of the 2023 election, is to put its house in order by mending broken fences, extending an olive branch to its aggrieved members who have left the party after the 2018 primary election, especially Jamil Gwamna, who many believe is the best man for the job, as he can easily defeat anyone he confronts in the secondary election. Primaries are usually a charade and manipulated by the party leadership but in general elections, the voice of the majority always prevails over any other interest.
So, PDP must make sure that it provides an enabling playing field for any person who wants to aspire under the party’s platform and provide viable internal party democracy devoid of imposition of candidates, manipulation of party processes and violating set guidelines in favour of a particular person of interest by the power that be who decides who gets what and how.
The proclamation by the people of Gombe state, whenever they meet to discuss issues affecting their lives, that Jamil Gwamna is the only candidate to beat in 2023 despite his being silent on taking any political decision, it’s apparent that if PDP can take the advantage to woo him back to its fold and allow transparent process, the party will hit the jackpot in 2023. We are keenly watching and praying for a rescue of our dear and the only state will call our own.Mathew writes from Gombe
