Gombe upcoming elections and matters arising

By Dahiru Hassan Kera

Though, the 2015 general elections have come and gone, but its memories resonate, reverberates, and diddle-daddle in the faculties of many political actors, leaders, and the electorate. So many lessons were learned, either from the outcomes of the elections or the manner in which the elected officials displayed their leadership. In essence, right from the occupants of the central government to the various states down to councillors, there have been eitherglorification or outright condemnation, depending on the output from such leadership on the side of the masses who had voted their leaders in anticipations of good governance and purposeful leadership.

Regrettably, victims of the APC’s political proselytism, who were knuckled down to vote for political delusions against the tested political verisimilitude, are now holding the short end of the stick. But, providentially, in Gombe State, the situation is antipodal as the electorate were in full of pep for voting Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo for the second term in 2015.
Apparently, it was displayed during the 2015 general elections that Dankwambo’s popularity and acceptability shone as brightly as the Northern Star and he went on to crush his APC’s gubernatorial opponent in the state despite the fact that, the APC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, had visited the state twice at the nick of the elections and eventually swept the state in the presidential elections a week to the gubernatorial poll. Therefore, all the talk of bandwagon effect came to naught as the ‘last man standing’ coasted to a landslide victory to the chagrin of APC leaders, notably, Senator Danjuma Goje.

Dankwambo’s electoral triumph was as a result of the overwhelming confidence, trust and loyalty that Gombe State’s citizens reposed in him on account of his superlative performance and sterling achievements in delivering democratic dividends to them in the critical sectors of health, education, road and rural infrastructure, agriculture, power, manpower development, security and youth and women empowerment, to mention but a few. Despite the fact that Gombe people voted for the APC in the presidential election, they vowed to remain with Talban Gombe and the PDP in the state and local government elections knowing that it was the only assurance of a better, progressive and more rewarding future.

Therefore, the Peoples Democratic Party in Gombe State under the dynamic leadership of the people’s governor, is set for another victory by grand slamming in the upcoming local government elections slated for February 25, 2017 in the state. History will repeat itself as PDP is ready to sweep all the 11 local government elections by thrashing the disarrayed APC in the state. Equally, the 2017 local government election is vastly different from the 2015 general elections where people were tricked by the bogus and utopian promises of the APC and gave some votes for the party in the mistaken belief that they had a lot to offer. But with the turn of events now, people know better and could discern reality from fallacy, based on the grossly incompetent, confused and myopic leadership of the APC administration examplified by the daily economic miseries as a result of the party’s failed policies. The party has become like a leper to be shunned and avoided at all cost.

The All Progressives Congress has numerous crises engulfing its state chapter in Gombe State with different factions at daggers drawn, threatening fire and brimstone. On one side, Senator Goje, the presumptive APC leader in the state, has been severally accused of a tyrannical leadership style bent on imposing his will and cronies on the party at every given opportunity. His relationship with other party bigwigs like Senator Bayero Nafada, Hon. Khamisu Mailantarki and Mallam Murtala Aliyu is clearly strained. And in this bizarre power struggle, there has been expulsions and counter-expulsions by the differing factions against each other. Goje has gone as far as accusing them of anti-party activities while they fired back by laying the blame for the APC’s loss in Gombe State on the imposition agenda of the autocratic Goje.

While all these leadership shenanigans are playing out in the divided APC, the PDP, strong, united and resolute under the stewardship of the focused Talban Gombe, is ever determined and ready to coast home to a resounding victory in the upcoming 2017 local government elections.

Therefore, while many APC governors failed to organize local government elections in their respective states for fear of losing out to PDP, Dankwambo’s decision to conduct transparent local government elections, in which an enabling playing ground is provided for all the parties to participate, speaks volumes of his leadership foresight and fortitude cum political astuteness and strength. Talban Gombe is always preaching political fairness devoid of any electoral manipulations and as far as he’s concerned, rigging or electoral wrongdoing has no place in the brand new Gombe State which he is presently fashioning. Therefore, people should better go and face the electorate and submit to their will rather than continue to cling to power like a despotic autocrat that relies only on brute force or massive electoral fraud to remain relevant in the scheme of things.

Kera wrote from Abuja.