The ongoing attempt to load a sacked looter as APC 2027 gubernatorial candidate in Bauchi State by an amorphous political group, dubbed “ Political Players” that have endorsed the candidature of the sacked federal public servant, and some recruited vandals and sadistic elements on sponsorship by the desperate looter, with particular mention of hoodlums on the political turf, may soon evoke a mixed feeling of irritation and sympathy for the characters who, ostensibly are wriggling in deep pain, on one hand, for the fatal political error of judgment against credible aspirants propelled by greed, committed in the not too distant past, and on the other, for the unyielding, characteristic perfidy, the mark and style of these parasitic elements.
Ironically and typical of the antics of political jobbers and turncoats, on the declaration day of the looter for the gubernatorial aspiration, the sheepish supporters including the usual merchants masqueraded as credible politicians for trust. This should serve as food for thought for critical study by those who labored to build the party to its present stage. There are several characters loitering on the political turf that need total disconnect from the space if the system deserves sanity for progress and avoidance of hypocrisy for survival at the detriment of effective politicking.
Some of those in the race for seeking political patronage from the Bala Muhammed administration were responsible for the socio-economic stagnation and backwardness of the state in all facets of development that necessitated the aspiration of Senators Bala Muhammed and Baba Tela as a rescue team. Should same characters be recognized and possibly patronized again by government? Your guess is as good as mine.
To my thinking, Governor Bala Muhammed considers the antics of those people, with rapidly vanishing relevance, as infantile and distracting.
The exacting expectation of posterity compels this riposte. And one shall proceed to respond to issues raised while permitting the self-appointed leaders who made it a right to always survive on government patronage, to savor the momentary delusion.
The erroneous impression, mischievously and blatantly conveyed, that the slight reversal in electoral fortunes experienced during the general elections by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was attributable to the poor performance of few supposedly party chieftains, betrays a certain predilection for mendacity.
The deliberate amnesia, hypocritically displayed by peripatetic political jobbers, whose names appeared as members of the disgruntled assemblage of opportunists, concerning their consistent and obdurate opposition to virtue, exemplified by the persona of the President-In-Council exposes their mendacious avowal to any principle suspicion.
The lie, shamelessly peddled concerning the stewardship of Senator Bala as Senator (2007 – 2009) and as FCT Minister depicts them as irredeemable charlatans. If it is true that the popularity of the governor had dwindled as claimed before the 2019 elections, it will be due, largely to the incursion of characters whose presence posed a pestilential burden on the health of the polity.
Is it not funny that those who betrayed a trust and connived with other gubernatorial candidates to assuage inordinate ambition and avarice are the same persons pontificating on the best way to run a government sustained by the sweat and resources of the people while they groped in political darkness?
Any visitor to any part of Bauchi State before Sen. Bala assumed office could not but acknowledge the poor state of infrastructure, but with a determined hope of abridging the parlous deficit inherited. Developmental strides were not noticeable in all the three Senatorial Districts of the State. Comparatively, Bauchi State was amongst the first 10 States with poor Internally Generated Revenue Growth Rate in the country. The people of the State solicited for hope in the Sen. Bala Muhammed style of leadership anchored on transparency and probity. They started to feel the impact of governance; they yearned for advancement. That is the type of inclusion which the State needs at this moment and beyond, not the rapacious proclivity to dispossess the people of their commonwealth by gubernatorial aspiring kleptomaniacs with dented records in public service that necessitated their sack.
It is an incontrovertible fact that some of those who trumpeted the doctrine of APC today were sworn enemies of President Buhari in past elections in 2007, 2011 and 2015, and enemies of Tinubu in 2023. Let all modern day converts regal the unwary of their dubious exploits.
Until they explain to the gullible the real reason for their sudden affection for a man viciously vilified and lampooned for dismal performance in the first three years as president, one shall continue to view whatever histrionics put forward to convince us of their sincerity with derision. We set their devious machinations at nothing; the people of the state know their true leaders. And they are waiting for those whose reason for participating in politics is self aggrandizement.
Sen. Bala Muhammed, as governor of Bauchi State, recognizes the right of all citizens to freedom of assembly and association. His professional calling as a journalist, a seasoned civil servant and onetime member of the Federal Executive Council and former Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, imposes onerous responsibilities on him to treat all human beings justly and to defend the weak against all manner of oppressive attitudes. It is, therefore, laughable to listen to some allegations leveled against his 2027 senatorial aspiration by those in the APC who lack the capacity of loyalty and truthful to humanity.
It is an irony of circumstance that some of the beneficiaries of Sen. Bala Muhammed’s quintessential virtues are the ones who displayed crude disposition to his defection to APC bordering on ingratitude and fear. They complain of exclusion, falling short of telling the truth about their treachery. While one exercises the necessary restraint as expected of anyone with modicum of decency, one is compelled to engage those elements, frontally, henceforth.
The governor of Bauchi State regarded the challenges as a Senior Stakeholder in the Greater Nigerian Project which was inimical to the interest of then PDP, as baseless and mischievous. And to those who alleged pomposity had assumed notoriety for the same reason long before now. And since it is their pastime, it wasn’t surprising that the allegation was from them. Virtually all those christened as members of the dreaded Coalition, including those Sen. Bala Muhammed rescued from near-political oblivion, are notorious as serial traitors.
While the governor denies, categorically, any attempt by him of lopsided endorsements presently mischievously being traded against him in dark street corners, he puts those who allege to come out with strictest proof of their malicious charges. Kauran Bauchi is also not going to shy away from reiterating the fact that the experiences during the last elections were fairly predictable. Despite the deep and pervasive animosity occasioned by the insensitive allegations, a good percentage of PDP candidates won their elections, and now APM would win. And just as it sounded very unintelligent to ascribe the alleged rigging of APC in Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa and Bauchi federal constituencies in 2023 to the State PDP chieftains and the governor, it was wicked to seek to hang the blame particularly on PDP members and few local chieftains because it was them that refused to subscribe to violence and rigging as true democrats that respect human lives.
It is a mark of the usual propensity to always reap other people’s sweat that will make defectors to APC to claim to have caused the purported defeat of PDP in certain areas they claim control.
Those claimants were actually not on the same page with the governor but pretended to be his party members while busy chopping in the other parties until they were discovered and discarded which necessitated their sudden open defection to cover shame and subsequent defeat at coming gubernatorial election. It is the same attitude which guides their usual ranting. They cannot hope to drag a man resolute on making the people of Bauchi State the central focus of all his actions into their banditry.
Lest I forget, Sen. Bala Muhammed is not averse to bringing people who are genuinely committed to the progress of Bauchi State, to contribute positively to development. He has demonstrated this readiness in several instances. He will, however, resist vehemently any attempt, either surreptitious or expressed, to short change the people under his watch and no matter the threats accompanied. Politics should not be about gobbling the commonwealth of the people.
Anyone who is ready to serve Bauchi State indeed and, in truth, has a comfortable space already in the Bala model of administration. The people were subjected to several brands of cutting corners for so long. The time to bring them out of the shackles of poverty occasioned by brazen looting started on May 29, 2019 led by Kauran Bauchi.
Governor Bala Muhammed stands on that solemn mandate till the very last moment of his purposeful administration in 2027. I Predict and Believe!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
