RE: CONFUSING SIGNALS FROM NASARAWA

Tanko Al-Makura’s record speaks with clarity, argues MUHAMMADU USMAN

There is a certain kind of article that does not so much inform as it performs. It arrives dressed as analysis, speaks in the cadence of authority, and yet collapses under the lightest scrutiny. The recent piece on Nasarawa politics, belongs squarely in that category. One reads it not for insight, but for clues about who commissioned it.

At first glance, it pretends to lament “confusing signals.” On closer inspection, it is the signal. A carefully arranged chorus of insinuations, conjectures, and half-digested talking points, all straining to achieve what facts have stubbornly refused to deliver.

·         Let us begin with the central illusion the writer labours to sustain, that Senator Tanko Al-Makura is somehow a destabilising force within the political architecture he painstakingly built. It is a curious claim, rather like accusing an architect of weakening a house simply by standing inside it. One is tempted to ask, with genuine curiosity, who exactly laid the foundation upon which the present structure rests?

·         History, inconvenient as it may be, is not so easily rewritten. Governor Abdullahi Sule did not emerge in a vacuum. His ascent was not an act of spontaneous political combustion. It was engineered, guided, and ultimately made possible by the very man the article now seeks to diminish. Against prevailing currents and competing interests, Al-Makura provided the platform, the structure, and the credibility that made Sule’s candidacy viable. That is not mythology. It is political fact.

·         Which raises an unavoidable question. Who is Sule without Al-Makura?

·         The writer, in his eagerness to impress, glosses over this inconvenient lineage. Instead, he offers a revisionist tale in which the beneficiary becomes the benefactor, and the architect is recast as an afterthought. It is a bold attempt, though not an especially convincing one. One cannot erase political parentage simply by refusing to acknowledge it.

·         We are then invited to believe that Governor Sule, in a grand gesture of magnanimity, retained his predecessor’s appointees out of a noble commitment to continuity, only for those same individuals to abandon their former benefactor. It is a charming story. It would be even more compelling if it were true.

·         What the writer carefully avoids confronting is the more plausible interpretation, that internal fractures within the state are not the product of Al-Makura’s supposed overreach, but rather the consequence of mismanaged power, insecure consolidation, and a growing disconnect between authority and loyalty. It is far easier to blame a predecessor than to account for present realities.

·         Indeed, the suggestion that Al-Makura is “misleading aspirants” or playing the “lord of the manor” reads less like analysis and more like projection. One might gently observe that those who feel threatened by influence often attempt to recast it as interference. It is a familiar tactic, though rarely an effective one.

·         More revealing still is the article’s anxious preoccupation with “cracks” within the party. Here, the writer abandons even the pretence of balance and drifts into open speculation. Internal politics, he implies, is being distorted by Al-Makura’s manoeuvres. Yet those with even a passing familiarity with the state’s political dynamics understand that the tensions in question have far more to do with current leadership choices than with any imagined rebellion from the past.

·         In truth, the entire argument rests on a delicate fiction, that Al-Makura’s stature is diminishing. One wonders on what evidence this conclusion is based. Certainly not on his continued relevance at the national level. Certainly not on his appointment as Coordinator of the Renewed Hope Ambassadors in the North Central. Certainly not on his enduring influence across political, institutional, and regional lines.

·         It takes a certain audacity to argue that a man entrusted with coordinating a critical geopolitical zone is somehow losing relevance within a single state. Audacity, or perhaps desperation.

·         The attempt to frame Al-Makura as out of step with “timing, restraint, and strategic alignment” is particularly ironic. If anything, his political career has been defined by precisely those qualities. He is widely regarded, across party lines, as a unifier, a bridge builder, and an elder statesman whose influence extends well beyond Nasarawa. That reputation was not manufactured overnight. It was earned over years of disciplined leadership and consistent engagement.

·         By contrast, what we see in the article is a rather transparent effort to elevate Governor Sule by diminishing the man who made his rise possible. It is an approach that might have succeeded had it been anchored in reality. Instead, it relies heavily on suggestion, selective memory, and the hope that repetition might pass for truth.

·         There is also the small matter of gratitude, a concept that seems to have been quietly edited out of the narrative. Political advancement, like most human endeavours, rarely occurs in isolation. It is built on networks, mentorship, and opportunity. When those who benefit from such arrangements begin to distance themselves from their origins, it often says more about their insecurities than their independence.

·         One is left to wonder why the governor, if he truly commands the weight attributed to him, appears so preoccupied with shadows. Why the anxiety? Why the constant need to redefine relationships that were once openly acknowledged? Why the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, attempts to rewrite a story that is still fresh in public memory?

·         Confidence, after all, does not require constant narration.

·         The writer’s final flourish, warning that internal discord could weaken the party and even affect national outcomes, is perhaps the most telling. It is less a prediction than a plea. A plea for alignment, for control, for the silencing of alternative centres of influence. Yet unity, as the writer himself inadvertently admits, is the party’s most valuable currency. And unity cannot be manufactured through propaganda or sustained through selective storytelling.

·         It must be built on respect, recognition, and a clear understanding of history.

·         Senator Tanko Al-Makura represents precisely that understanding. He is not engaged in petty rivalries, nor is he interested in theatrical contests of relevance. His role, increasingly, is that of a stabilising force, a statesman whose presence reassures rather than agitates. To attempt to drag him into the mud of manufactured conflict is not only misguided, it is ultimately futile.

·         For all its noise, the article achieves something quite unintended. It reminds discerning readers of the enduring weight of Al-Makura’s legacy. It highlights, by contrast, the fragility of narratives constructed in haste. And it exposes, perhaps more clearly than intended, the quiet anxiety of those who know that influence built over time cannot be easily displaced.

·         In the end, one is left with a simple observation. Political history is not rewritten by opinion pieces. It is shaped by actions, remembered by people, and preserved by outcomes. On that score, Senator Tanko Al-Makura’s record speaks with a clarity that no amount of conjecture can obscure.

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·          Usman writes from Nasarawa

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