Re: Sokoto PDP Flag Off: Gainers, Losers

Re: Sokoto PDP Flag Off: Gainers, Losers

I read with an article with the above caption written by one Abu Shekara, the Director General, Media and Public Affairs to Sokoto State Governor, on the recent PDP flag off campaign launched in Sokoto recently.

In the said piece, Abu Shekara opined that the campaign rally left an impression that portends a number of implications for the political landscape of the Northwestern region and the nation as a whole. According to him gainers and losers emerged in the aftermath.

Mr. Shekara attributed the major gain to the PDP, basking in the euphoria that a mammoth crowd stood at Kangiwa Square venue of the event for over six hours, wanting to catch a glimpse of the event. This in all ramifications is more or less a blatant lie. I was in Sokoto when the flag off campaign was held and didn’t notice any of such crowd. In fact, I didn’t even know there was an event of sort going on in the state until a friend of mine informed me that Atiku Abubakar was holding a campaign rally at Kangiwa Square. I quickly rushed to the said venue to see things for myself and to my dismay, all I saw were thugs carrying all sorts of weapons and destroying people’s vehicles who they perceived to be opposition members while others were busy selling hard drugs at the main entrance of the square. I had to park my car at a nearby building belonging to FOMWAN for fear of being attacked and trekked several metres to the venue. And alas, I saw an empty field with half-filled canopies and some jobless youths roaming about while others were busy playing football. If what I saw was what Abu Shekara meant by “an unprecedented crowd”, then I am sorry.

Mr. Shekara always cited Governor Tambuwal as an individual who stood to gain more from the gathering but unknown to him, Tambuwal only succeeded in blowing away his last remaining political goodwill by hosting Atiku Abubakar in a state that’s yet to heal from the scores of perpetual corruption inflicted upon it in the last three to four years due to gross maladministration. The event also highlighted Tambuwal’s imminent political demise as he failed to galvanise support for his “commodity.”
Over the last three years since Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal became governor, not much can be said about his achievements as governor of the state. For the most part, until people began to complain, the governor was always out of the state. The local governments today has been made moribund, and we haven’t seen or heard anything interesting going on in Sokoto State.

Another personality who Abu Shekara claimed to have gained more from the jamboree was Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, the former state governor who currently cannot deliver even his own local government. One would be left in doubt if Bafarawa received a rousing welcome at the occasion. This is someone with little or no electoral value, a man who in 2007 was overwhelmingly defeated despite the power of incumbency and a man whose greed made him to field his son as the PDP standard bearer for Isa/Sabon-Birni federal constituency in 2015 but was unable to secure the seat for him. If not for Abu Shekara’s lack of imagination, how do you expect an expired politician who failed to impose his son on only two local governments to deliver 23 LGAs for the PDP?

To Abu Shekara, APC is the main loser considering the fact that the Sokoto flag off was an exhibition of the kind of support and popularity the PDP is currently enjoying in the state which according to him can be measured with the mammoth crowd that greeted the occasion. I still wonder if Mr. Shekara really understands the meaning of ‘mammoth crowd’. However, the PDP outing can only be compared to the reception given to Sowore in Kano, as far as crowds go.

Abu Shekara ended his piece with the usual attack on the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, insisting that Nigerian masses are without argument, worse off in the last three years than they can ever recall. It’s baffling or sometimes laughable to see Governor Tambuwal or any of his foot soldiers accusing the Buhari government of underperformance. It’s hypocritical and absolutely deceitful for any Tambuwal supporter to accuse someone of underperformance. This is a government that claimed to have spent over N400billion in the last three years without a single visible project to show on ground, a government that cannot pay tuition fees for students not to mention of any infrastructural development. No wonder, they called Tambuwal a ‘silent achiever’, a leader whose achievements cannot speak for themselves must be named a silent achiever.

Just like Abu Shekara said: “There is a limit to how far a people can be taken for granted.” We the people of Sokoto State will not allow any unproductive politician to toy with our future again, we are patiently waiting for Tambuwal at the polls to hand him the greatest surprise of his life.

Usama Dandare, Sokoto

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