Chief David Sabo Kente, known variously as DSK from the initials of his name and also as El Davido, along with other governorship aspirants on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC) must be feeling dazed and pole-axed at the below-the-belt punch dished out to them by their fellow aspirant Senator Emmanuel Bwacha during the controversial governorship primaries of the party.
There are conflicting signals from the APC headquarters on whether to recognise what happened at the Taraba state governorship primaries as authentic or not. But from what we know which has been corroborated by factual eyewitness accounts, the purported Taraba governorship primaries fell far short of the statutory requirements. The result sheets were confirmed to be fake. The officials from the APC headquarters who conducted the event were not transparent leaving everybody to believe without a scintilla of doubt that they had deliberately compromised their position to favour one of the aspirants for reasons best known to them.
Of course, what transpired at the purported APC primaries can be accepted as authentic only in our political clime where rules and procedures mean nothing. And very often, it is the one among the political gladiators that employs the vilest underhand tactics of skulduggery that clinches the prize. That was what transpired at the purported APC governorship primaries which have left the Taraba branch of the party reeling and which has proven to be a king-size headache for the national headquarters of the party to resolve.
For watchers of the Taraba APC ,what transpired at the party’s purported primaries was no surprise. From its antecedent, APC Taraba has always been known as a party that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Even before the latest debacle,, the APC was always on the cusp of one crisis or the other. And there were many areas within the party that such crises could erupt.
The presence of many governorship contenders within its fold was one potential source of conflict. As happened in the past it has always proven an impossible task to get the contenders within the party to agree to back one candidate among them for the governorship.
On this score, even before the coming of Senator Bwacha to the party, the potential for conflict among its political gladiators for the governorship of the state was palpable. You could predict with near certainty that all the principal political gladiators in the party, Chief David Sabo Kente, Senator Yusuf A. Yusuf, Engr. Sale Mamman, Abubakar Sani Danladi, Bobboi Kaigama,and Professor Yahaya will neither step down for anyone who emerges nor agree to work together to deliver the winner of a straw contest amongst them for the governorship. The coming of Senator Emmanuel Bwacha to the APC merely added to an existing time bomb in the APC.
And while Senator Bwacha may be guilty of overplaying his hand in the current crisis engulfing the party, the other political gladiators cannot say that they had not been forewarned that the distinguished Senator was certainly going to crash the party (no pun intended). If DSK and co, now busy bellyaching over the sleight of hand dealt them by the distinguished Senator in hijacking the APC governorship primaries, did not smell the coffee following the entry of Senator Bwacha into the APC that he was going to do all it takes fair or foul to win the primaries, then perhaps they deserved what they got with their political naivety.
Senator Bwacha’s tactics in hijacking the Taraba governorship primaries followed a similar template that was employed by one of the gladiators Abubakar Sani Danladi in ‘’winning’’ the 2019 governorship primaries of the APC. The same complain of compromising of officials, use of fake electoral papers and the announcement of controversial results that took place in 2019 also featured in the 2022 primaries that delivered Senator Bwacha.
And if experience is anything to go by, despite all the glaring shenanigans and infractions and the loud complaints by DSK and co about the conduct of the Taraba governorship primaries, the controversial outcome will still stand and the Senator will likely be retained as the APC governorship flag-bearer of Taraba state.
I say this looking at several factors.
Firstly, with the little time left for the conclusion of screening and primary elections within the political parties given by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the APC may just elect to let things go. In any case if matters were to come to the stage where the party will decide to intervene, in anticipation of that I will not put it past the politically astute Senator Bwacha to pro-actively go ahead of everyone to ensure that the headquarters of the APC returned a verdict favourable to him. Indeed from all indications for Senator Bwacha must have initially secured the backing of the APC national headquarters to do what he did in the firm and assured knowledge that come what may the party will back him.
Secondly the APC national headquarters currently have bigger headaches of its own to bother with that trumps the ‘’little’’ issue of Taraba primaries. The emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the presidential candidate of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at its recent presidential convention has greatly unsettled the APC national leadership. For months the APC has been dithering over the staging of its own convention waiting to see when that of its opponent will hold and who it will elect among its presidential aspirants.
With the emergence of Atiku Abubakar who is a formidable, well- known political gladiator the APC national leadership knows that it has a fight on its hands come the 2023 elections. With the internal shenanigans raging fiercely over how and who to choose among its own powerful cast of presidential aspirants at its scheduled presidential convention, the APC national leadership will certainly not give the Taraba APC governorship issue more time that it deserves.
Thirdly, heads or tails the Taraba APC is damaged goods already. It is not just about Senator Bwacha and his mago mago. It is in the DNA of the party to always engage in needless controversies when the best way is for them to get their acts together. When the PDP did its primaries under the stern directives of a certain supremo leaving a trail of bad blood and recriminations by its members, many thought that the APC will take a que and turn up something positively different.
But for many like me knowing the APC’s antecedents especially with its abject and abiding lack of internal cohesion, it was a forlorn thought to expect the APC to be anything but. It is a safe bet to always conjecture that Taraba APC will always prove one right that the party in Taraba will likely default at any time as it has always done.
Senator Bwacha being the smart aleck political gladiator that he is saw an opportunity to make a political killing out of a desperate, dysfunctional political outfit that does not know its right from its left. So why blame him for doing what any of the political figures in the DSK and co group would willingly do and have done in the past to advance their political interests?
Once again as many like me have predicted and anticipated, the chicken has come home to roost for the Taraba APC. Very few people have any truck for the party and its bunch of self-addled political figures.
At the national headquarters of the APC, the Taraba branch is viewed as a problem child perpetually at odds with itself. While others are organizing themselves to win and win, the Taraba APC is always happy to lose and lose. There is nothing the Buhari administration and the APC national headquarters has not done by way of encouragement for the Taraba APC to get to its feet and do the needful. The result has always been the same; failure, lamentation and ostentatious nonsense.
2023 was the year that perhaps as many thought, Taraba APC will finally get its mojo. With the abysmal performance of Governor Darius Ishaku and the ferocious internal wrangling within the ruling PDP over the issue of power rotation and related matters, the APC was presented with a gilt-edged wide open chance to capitalise and win. But as someone ruefully but brutally observed ‘’a weak PDP will always defeat a strong APC at the polls in Taraba’’.
On the strength of what is going on within the APC in Taraba this is as truer an assessment as can be made about the fortunes of the party in the 2023 elections.
