Adamawa State has been serially raped,
constantly brutalised and continually drawn back by its leaders in the past
fifteen years. The people of the state
have become so used to bad governance that the act of lightening the streets of
the state capital by erstwhile acting governor, Rt. Hon. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri
was a cause for celebration by the inhabitants of Yola, a town that has been a
state capital since 1976. The state one
may assume has been placed on the shelf labelled “potential” by a leadership
devoid of conscience, bereft of ideas and immune to the pains of its
followership. We have been taken to the
bottom of the pit by a combination of armed robbers masquerading as religious
and ethnic champions. To all intents and
purposes, Adamawa State and its citizens are still living in the dark days of
military rulership. We are yet to know,
what for a better word, one may be forced to call “democracy dividend”.
This is a state that is still grappling with
developmental and infrastructural issues like roads, water, education and
healthcare delivery in even the state capital let alone other towns and
villages. While Boni Haruna was busy
being a “big man” and others were laying the foundations of ethno-religious
divide, Murtala Nyako came with a posse of bandits bent on stealing the state
blind and sadly, they succeeded beyond their wildest imagination. They left the state in ruins reminiscent of
the wild, Wild West in 18th century United States. It was a government peopled by those whose
religion and ethnicity was lucre and not service, whose mantra for good
governance was a personalisation and outsourcing of governance to immediate family
members, to whom success is measured by the balances in their bank accounts and
the number of those who genuflect before them everyday.
Now the campaigns are here. We are presented with three leading
contenders and a coterie of pretenders to the exalted yet much abused office of
the governor. You have Mohammed Bindowo
Jibirilla of the APC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu of the PDP and Dr. Ahmed Mohammed
Modibbo of the PDM as the leading contenders.
All the three may be eminently qualified to vie and even win the contest
– but have we really interrogated ourselves on the type of leadership we want
for our state? Is it just enough that we
allow any would-be bandit access to our treasury for another four years taking
into account our past experiences?
I am a card-carrying member of the APC, lest
anyone mistake my political allegiances. Am mindful of the fact that I am first of all
and indigene of Adamawa State before being a member of the APC. I am also
burdened by the knowledge that my state is among the least developed in a
Nigeria that is bedevilled by the scourge of underdevelopment occasioned by bad
leadership. I have had occasions in the
past to take on Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and Dr. Ahmed Modibbo on the political
development and direction in Adamawa State.
I have had cause to interact with the two on different occasions and on
different issues. Bindowo appears to me
to be someone used to hanging on the coattails of others to achieve his aim.
If one may be objective in assessing the
three “frontrunners” one may be forced to be blunt – and I believe we are in a
season where the hard facts must be laid bare for the people to see them as
they are. I will start with Bindowo
Jibirilla being a fellow party man. I
cannot see any coherence or sense of purpose in the Senator or his principal lieutenants. As a matter of fact, apart from my personal
assessment of the Senator lacking the capacity to be a Chief Executive of a
state like Adamawa, the variegated crowd around him gives me the jitters. These are the same bunch that began the journey
into perdition with Nyako in 2007 but couldn’t muster the clout to save their
necks by saving his government from impeachment. The same people who have been in Nyako’s
government from genesis to exodus yet couldn’t get hold of eight legislators to
save their skins. They have been part of
the Nyako administration all through in one form or the other. Their interest was only limited by their
avarice and their disdain for the people were legendary. Anyone with a contrary opinion from theirs
was labelled an enemy. I now ask – if
they couldn’t save Nyako from impeachment because they lack the human
relations, basic empathy and even self-preservation, what are they bringing to
the table different from what they have served in the not too distant
past? I will feel guilty for the rest of
my life if I will be party of thrusting such people on the emaciated shoulders
of Adamawa citizens. The candidate, as
is usual with him, is banking on the Buhari tsunami to take him to the
government house.
On the other hand, Dr. Modibbo is someone
with a questionable public service in both the National Teachers Institute
(NTI) and the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) the two institutions
he headed. I have said this elsewhere
and I don’t believe it bears any repetition.
His style of leadership isn’t too far or different from that of Nyako as
was shown in how he ran the two institutions.
Nepotism is not a crime and arrogance is celebrated by this
candidate. The huge amounts of money he
deployed during the two primaries he contested in the PDP should be cause for
concern to anyone with a modicum of decency.
How did he make the money and how is he planning to recoup his
“investment”?
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu made his name as the
scourge of corrupt politicians while he was head of the EFCC and had to go into
forced exile when the late ‘Yar Adu’a took over and the likes of Ibori took up
residence in the Aso Villa. He jumped
into politics immediately he came back from his exile and went for the
presidency. With his naiveté, it was not unexpected that he will fail – and he
did. He joined up with progressive
elements to form the APC but later ditched the party for the PDP. Unfortunately for him, PDP is today anathema
in most parts of the country. I had
discussed his ‘jumping ship’ with him before and after the act. I gave him my piece of mind on this
particular issue both privately and in the public domain through two
articles. I likened his joining the PDP
to committing political hara-kiri.
Stoically, he took my umbrage on the chin, sought me out and calmly
explained his reasons for joining the PDP.
I respected him for that and still do.
What I keep asking myself is that – are we
really serious about changing things in the state from how they are to how they
ought to be? If that were the case, I think we have to jettison our romanticism
with political platforms and go for Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. I will rather vote for him than either a man
who perpetually wants to hitch his wagon onto another’s or someone whose very
mien exudes arrogance and profligacy.
