The polity is getting heated by all manner of players, hired urchins, pretenders and the usual merchants trading in claimed relevance within their communities. Candidates jostling for elective offices are busy with image laundering exercise for endorsement by the electorates while their campaign teams are there in the rains and scorching sun beating the sycophantic drums for the macabre dance, and show down.
We have seen and heard series of allegations against the candidature of some credible players ostensibly out of fear of their rising profiles while some are mere political bandits in contest and parasites so desperate to access power for cover and manipulation, as others attempted to be in contest to serve as an escape route from their sordid pasts.
So far in Bauchi State, there are four strong gubernatorial contestants, with M.A Abubakar of the APC extraction touted as the strongest leading contender in both strategy and general acceptance across the 20 local government areas.
He is closely followed by Yakubu Adamu of Allied People’s Movement (APM) who enjoys the power of incumbency and possibly Bauchi north zonal support base while Sen. Shehu Buba Umar occupies the third position as he wobbles his way for acceptance from the most vulnerable and greedy elders as his soft targets for bargain.
Sen. Halliru Jika of the ADC seems relaxed for the time being but renowned political juggernauts in the ADC fold, the likes of Sen. Abdul Ahmed Ningi are daily burning the midnight oil to make sure the party remains booming, relevant and acceptable for the 2027 battle.
Ningi, penultimate Saturday, embarked on a state wide tour of the 20 local governments of the state attending to problems, trumpeting hope, preaching unity, interacting with the electorates and solving issues tailored to positioning the party to victory. With the deployed new strategy introduced by Sen. Ningi, ADC may surely give surprises never expected. Ningi for now, along with few other political heavyweights in the ADC, are the backbones of the party navigating it steadily to the victory post.
The phrase Dabush Kabash may sound strange to most readers as it was never meant to be for political theory. It was a theatre, prophesy-as-performance, the language of shock and spectacle.
As Bauchi State inches towards 2027, Dabush Kabash will not just be on the playing space, it will find comfortable home in the real political tussle. It will describe the collision of ambitions, uncertainty, bravado, confusion, alliances, betrayals, and loud declarations that mean everything and nothing at the same time.
This is a season where everyone speaks and few are listening, and the ground beneath feels unsettled. A year when political actors are already campaigning without calling it campaign, negotiating without admitting it, and defecting without iota of shame. Bauchi State is once again rehearsing power play before the curtain officially rises.
As 2027 approaches, the scramble is neither subtle nor dignified. M.A Abubakar has made it clear—-again—–that he is not only in the gubernatorial race with full force and courage, but he is destined to win the race going by the level of his general acceptability across party divides. His persistence is framed by supporters as resilience and by critics as entitlement. Either way, M.A Abubakar represents continuity in Bauchi State politics: a belief that the centre must always hold him, regardless of the shifting of a minute number of the electorates’ mood.
Then there is Halliru Jika of the ADC still buoyed by the aftershocks of the 2023 gubernatorial election, where incapacitation momentarily disrupted cynicism. Whether he still has the energy that can sustain his campaign, institutionalized, or translated into broader coalitions remains an open question. It is advisable to draw the attention of Jika, Buba and any other gubernatorial contestant that charisma without structure has limits; structure without imagination falls in same category.
Yakubu Adamu, restless and calculating, watches the chessboard from the sidelines without overheating the system, but fully committed to emerging victorious at the election despite the glaring odds. He is silently reaching out to those that matter, and courting support from political heavyweights from the other divides.
Yusuf Maitama Tugga, a defeated APC gubernatorial aspirant, continues to speak behind the scene as though he is both inside and outside the contest, simultaneously insider, critic, and ideologue. There is Usman Adamu Sufee of the PDP (Wike faction), with his brand of political disciplined base and Bauchi north zonal gravitas, remains a reminder that Bauchi State gubernatorial contest is not won on social media platform alone.
Presently, in the contest for various elective offices, there are new brides—–fresh contestants, technocrats flirting with politics, and business elites suddenly discovering patriotism. There are old grooms—veterans who have contested so often that ambition has become muscle memory. Everyone is at the gate. No one wants to wait for the next turn.
If Bauchi State’s politics needs a parable, Benue, Kano, Kaduna, Gombe or Kebbi State has provided one. The public rift between Hyacinth Alia and George Akume, Abba Kabiru versus Rabi’u Kwankwaso, Nasiru El-Rufa’i and Uba Sani, Inuwa Yahaya and Danjuma Goje or between Abubakar Malami and Nasiru Idris are less about governance and more about control —–who anoints, who obeys and who inherits the political machinery.
Like exiles by the Rivers of Babylon, all the camps sing songs of loyalty and betrayal, with each involved claiming legitimacy, and each invoking the people while fighting over structures and spoils of office. It is a reminder that Nigerian politics is rarely ideological; it is intensely personal. Power is not just about winning elections, it is about owning outcomes, narratives, and successors.
The strongest opposition APC, and the growing ADC, are swelling in number. Defections are marketed as endorsements, and numerical strength is mistaken for moral authority. But Bauchi State has watched such movie severally. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) once enjoyed similar expression during the Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu and Isa Yuguda tenures, only to implode under the weight of internal contradictions, betrayal, ambition overload, and unmanaged succession.
Big tents collapse when they are not anchored by shared values. Congresses meant to unify often become theatres of exclusion. Candidate selection or election becomes war by other means. The question is not whether APC, ADC or APM is growing, but whether they can survive the internal earthquakes that primaries inevitably unleashed.
Meanwhile, other parties stand at crossroads. The reported ambitions of several aspirants to run as candidates raised deeper questions about succession, internal democracy, and the danger of mistaking momentum for performance. Movements are fragile when institutions are weak and corrupted.
Coalitions are forming quietly across the zones, religions, and old rivalries are factors. Old enemies now share tea cleverly; former allies exchange barbs. In Bauchi State, there are no permanent friends, only temporary arithmetic exists. South meets North, Central zone negotiates with margins. Everyone is counting supporters and influencers.
But alliances without memory are dangerous. Bauchi has a habit of forgetting why previous coalitions failed: unresolved grievances, unequal power-sharing and elite consensus that excludes the people. When deals are made above the heads of the governed, legitimacy becomes borrowed—-and debt always comes due.
While politicians posture, the people are trying to understand rising costs of living and insecurity, shrinking incomes, and federal authority’s policy explanations that sound more academic than humane. Economic anxiety rarely announces itself with protests at first; it shows up as withdrawal, distrust and apathy.
Every political drama in 2026 is touching the heart of contestants. Every economic policy shapes the political mood. The two cannot be separated. The tragedy is that economic suffering is often treated by Tinubu as mere background noise while his political reelection bid takes centre stage despite its unacceptability and lapses.
It is funny, because it is revealing. It captures a politics of spectacle without substance, noise without consensus, movement without direction. Everyone is declaring for elective office including crooks and rogues, while only few are sincerely determined to deliver expectations.
Yet within the chaos lies opportunity. Dabush Kabash also means collision, and collisions force choices. Bauchi will have to decide whether it wants politics as performance or politics as responsibility. Whether power remains a private prize as portrayed by PRP, or should remain a public trust.
History will not be kind to this season if it produces only loud men and empty alliances. But it may yet redeem itself if the people begin to ask harsh questions not just who wants power or deserves power, but for what and why, with whom, and at what cost? Spreading cash as bribe in disguise at political gatherings or interactive sessions is not only comical and criminal, but a sign of incapacitation not acceptable. Beyond the theatrics, other components of Nigeria are watching how Bauchi plays its politics. And this time around, the usual applause cannot be guaranteed.
On a final note, the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Bauchi State Council in collaboration with some veteran Journalists on active service should not be caught napping. They have to wade in by hosting Gubernatorial, Senatorial and House of Representatives candidates to a national televised debate centred on candidate blueprint, then, screening of their mental and intellectual capacities. That can add value to rescuing the state from fallen to hands of waiting gluttonous merchants.
Journalists played a vital role in the struggle for Nigeria’s Independence in 1960. What stops them from playing similar role to rescue Bauchi State in 2027?
Imagine a Bauchi State despite its rich political history and academic record parading a dullard as governor with dented reputation lacking common communication skill in English or a representative or senator that cannot even understand proceedings at plenary, not to talk of sponsoring bills being a mere bench warmer but pompously garbed in Bauchi State attire in the comity of intellectuals with exposure.
If carefully observed, within the ray of contestants for various elective offices, there are several misfits displaying questionable wealth as their most valued credential to get underserved favor, while some are educationally and intellectually bankrupt but miraculously ‘cleared’ by their ‘mushroom’ parties for contest to load their deficiencies on the governed, should they succeed. Should such characters with moral deficits at this stage be allowed to access power with our conscience and expect anything good for the state? YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE!
Muhammad is a commentator on national issues
