Kano: PDP’s Newest Plot

By

Umaru Habibu Dambatta

samatos2@yahoo.com

With the flagging off of the INEC registration exercise, nation wide, there is no doubt that we are back on track to a season of election. As a matter of tradition, election time in Nigeria represents big business in so many ways, mostly because it yields itself, often times, to the character and composition of the dominant value system of the Nigerian society. Unfortunately, this dominant value system in Nigeria today cannot be said to be positive.

Against this background, the new election period has thrown up so soon, signals of what to expect in some unfortunate states, like Kano State where the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP) is not power. Evidence in such states already of which Kano State enjoys a pilot status is an uncanny desperation and insistence by the powers that be in Abuja to take power by all means.

This desperation is understandably, to the extent that both the ANPP and the PDP in Kano state are bitter rivals and had pass through what can be described as a tensed and titanic battle in the wrestle for power in the year 2003. Political scientists and historians of power struggle are unanimous that the contest between Malam Ibrahim Shekarau and the governor Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwakwaso, both of the ANPP and the PDP had the stamp of the most fiercely contested struggle of all time in the State. What Dr. Kwakwaso and by extensions, his party, the PDP had to the advantage, was by every estimation in excess of what was posted by Malam Ibrahim Shekarau prior to the elections. For example, Dr. Kwakwaso had the incumbency factor to his side, and with these, he had the money, the media, the elites, the elders and to some extent a class of the traditional institution driving his aspiration to retain power and achieve his mission. He had everything that could have turned a stone into bread.

Nevertheless, he lacked the most important ingredients that determine the direction of political fortune in a democratic enterprise. He lacked the power of the people, the ordinary voters of the ordinary Kano people. And this was made manifest, not just at the primary elections of the PDP itself, which he refused, out of obvious cowardice, to allow to be determined by the inter-play of democratic engagement, but also at the secondary election. This lack of the support of the people at the secondary elections created the platform and prompted the massive and comprehensive defeat of the PDP in Kano State, despite the manifest intervention by the federal paratroopers who were ready to swing the type of success to his side by foul means.

All this is now history. Yet, this history is relevant to the understanding of the present atmosphere heralding the 2007 elections. Since coming into power, it is a common secret that the present regime has been committed to playing the game according to the rules. Malam Ibrahim Shekarau has been severally noted for his principled position that Allah is the source of power; he alone and singularly determines who he gives power to and under what circumstance. In this belief therefore, he is the last person to stimulate reality to his own favour, neither will he conspire, for whatever benefits and motivations, to rig, to alter or to falsify the outcome of a democratic elections, knowing that the act itself is a crime against Allah, a crime against the people and a crime against the state.

In the last three and half years, Malam Ibrahim has resorted to be seen on the sight of Allah and on the side of the people by canvassing and practicalizing the dictum that true leadership is a summation of what the people wanted at every given time. Rather than follow the dysfunctional approach to leadership perpetrated by his predecessors, he has relied completely on the voice of Allah as a voice of his direction. For this, he has promoted the principle of the Shariah code in the face of his administration. In return, the people of Kano have been gearing up to re-elect a regime that has brought so much succor, peace and prosperity to them. The popularity of the ANPP in Kano today has swollen and has soured to an all time height. Every other day, new members from other political parties and institutions including the PDP have been defecting to the ANPP. Not a single week in the last five months has escaped a welcome ceremony, to welcome and embrace from the PDP who are running away from the reality that the acclaimed world’s most famous party has been so destabilized to the extent that it can give nothing and unfortunately too, promises nothing.

But, the PDP themselves, are not smiling about this. They are sad as a man who has lost his most treasured asset. In fact, if there is anything to go by, the PDP are working on a multiple plan agenda to wrestle power by all means in Kano State. They are desperate and are banking on the support of their godfathers in Abuja who have assured them that they will rig the process.

Some members of the PDP are currently believed to have resolved that come rain, come sun shine, the party must come back to power and for this reason, they are ready to apply a measure of foul and fair means to realize their goal. As at last weekend, it is becoming obvious that their party intends to manipulate the on-going voters registration exercise to their favour. In fact, in Kano State, it is held that no fewer than 80% of those recruited by INEC in the state for the registration job are believed to be people who are sympathetic to the PDP and their course. In fact, some of them are known in their local communities to be carrying the cards of the PDP.

Only 1% of the recruitment of such staff was given to the local government chairmen to recruit. By implication, the new procedure is out produce a background of errors and faulty outcome, which is not in agreement with what it was in the past. It has the capacity to tamper with the outcome of not just the voter’s registration, but the eventual outcome of the elections of candidate several months from now. It is like the foundation of a house, a spring point from where the design and other architectural essentials of the house would derive its strength.

From the recent past, it has been exemplified that those who secure the voters cards, through fraudulent registration like this one, could simply profit form it on election day. For instance, in one of the recent by-elections to the State House of Assembly, the PDP made capital of this kind of condition and almost equal the ANPP in the election. Hence, the gains that this newfound occupational dispensation by the PDP, is to be put to, are not in doubt.

But the implication of their action is obviously a matter grave concern to not just the people of Kano State, who have been helplessly notified of this agenda, not just the ANPP who have resolved not to match evil for evil, but to the world at large, a world that has made personal sacrifices for the restoration of democracy and due process in Nigeria.

The dangers are ominous in every nature. If the PDP were allowed to succeed in this enterprise, then the mandate of the people would have been sacrificed by the desperation of a small class of the little minded people who think that they were born to rule and to rule forever. The fact is that by the end of the day, they may have their way. But Kano itself will be dragged several years backward by evil men who think less of the beauty of democracy, of the dividend of democracy to the people but worry about their pockets and their immediate families. 

Ends