Adamawa state like the rest of Nigeria is gearing towards election in 2023. Many commentators have predicted that the battle in the state will be between APC and PDP. This is not surprising considering the sitting governor charged through an APC incumbent to emerge governor in 2019. However, stories of crisis within the APC will appear to be ending their fight even before it began. Party insiders revealed that the APC is engulfed in crisis which is connected to the way and manner Senator Aisha Binani emerged as its gubernatorial candidate. It said that several high ranking members of the party are aggrieved over what they termed the sharp practices within the party that led to the emergence of Aisha Binani as the party’s flag bearer for 2023 governorship election.
Before now, many had dismissed the claims as mere rumour mongering until a chieftain of the APC came out recently to publicly appeal to the presidential flag bearer of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to wade in and resolve the infighting within the party in Adamawa state both for the sake of the party in the state and for the good of the APC’s chances come 2023.
In truth, it was a matter of time before the simmering calderon of bitter emotions raging through the APC in Adamawa following that wholesale dollarisation of the primary elections that produced Binani to morph into pungent faeces and hit the fan. I am surprised that it took this long for aggrieved victims of that sham, dollar induced (s)election to react. Perhaps, they were stunned by the audacity of the actions of fellow party men who allowed their pride to be bought by a candidate who for so many reasons, but especially her gender, was not expected to pull off such a brazen heist.
With this in-house shellacking looking like it has the potential to ground whatever fleeting chance the APC thought they had towards unseating an Ahmadu Fintiri that currently looms larger than life becomes doubly impossible. The truth is, the APC knew it was fighting a losing battle right from the off, but some of us had hoped that APC could at least make the contest a bit more interesting. Unfortunately, it will appear we will not get our wish. The battle come 2023 looks like it will be even much more easier than what we witnessed in 2019.
In fairness, Binani against Fintiri in a conservative Adamawa that has especially experienced a new lease of life under Governor Fintiri is not a fair contest. Not that I am underrating Aisha Binani, because God knows she has shown how fierce she can be as an opponent, but because she’d come at the wrong time both in terms of cultural readiness for female leadership in conservative Arewa and, the excellent showing of a governor that has changed the fortunes of Adamawa state for good, since ousting erstwhile APC incumbent governor, Bindow Jibrilla in 2019.
I know, a great deal of female groups and many others outside Adamawa and perhaps Nigeria would have been urging Senator Aisha Binani on, but I reckon her decision to abandon the Senate for this wild goose chase was foolhardy from the off. I think she can’t pretend not to be aware of the negative metrics that are stacked very high against her chances of pulling any upset.
No amount of enthusiasm and gender solidarity and emotional campaigns and amorphous media rationalisation and prayers can change the fact that Senator Binani is fighting a lost battle. As we know, facts are very stubborn, they don’t pander to emotions or outrageous hope peddling. And the fact is, she’s in over her depth and just might never recover from this fatal miscalculation.
This is even more so when one considers that the Adamawa people in their numbers will be too much and too proud to allow themselves to be railroaded twice by a cunning customer who has shown that she can be both ruthless and unscrupulous in taking advantage of Nigeria’s unfortunate money politics.
As it stands, the Adamawa gubernatorial election is PDP and Governor Fintiri’s to lose and for the life of me, I don’t ever see him losing it. Apologies to Senator Binani but I won’t join the bandwagon of those urging her on into her doom even though, as a woman, she has singlehandedly changed the face of female participation in politics and has been the face of affirmative action.
Unfortunately, her victory at the APC primaries and her participation in the 2023 election should she ride the storm within APC to end up on the ballot, will be all but academic as it will amount to nothing in the end.
Musa writes from Numan, Adamawa state
