Senator Aisha Ahmed (Binani) has joined governorship race in Adamawa under the All Progresives Congress (APC).
Her declaration of intent to run for the office of Governor on Tuesday March 15, turned out to be one of several political events that would characterise the past few days in Adamawa State.
House of Representatives member, Abdulrazak Namdas who has been leading the pack of governorship aspirants in terms of activities promoting his quest, was in the news almost daily.
A former Deputy Governor, Hon Sa’ad MC Tahir, got into the news within the period in view also when he formally brought into the state the recently unveiled 3rd Force Movement which adopted the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
As it would also happen, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),which produced the current Governor, also had reached the public to complain about a former member against whom it had an issue.
The March 13-19 week in Adamawa politics had started on Monday with the official unveiling of the 3rd Force Movement in the form of resuscitated NNPP in Adamawa State.
That day at the Lalewa Hotel in Jimeta, Yola, Hon Sa’ad MC Tahir, better simply known as MC Tahir, formally led some other notable politicians in Adamawa State into NNPP.
The new entrants, all from the political group initiated by former Kano State Governor, Umaru Musa Kwankwaso, gave a new life to the NNPP which was virtually nonexistent in Adamawa State before now.
In addition to MC Tahir who assumes the role of Leader of the party in the state, other notable politicians unveiled to newsmen in Yola as the interim leaders of the NNPP included Mr Phineas Pwanohoma Elisha, popularly known simply as PP Elisha and who was of the APC, functions as the state interim chairman of the NNPP.
MC Tahir, who was a member of House of Representatives and then Adamawa deputy Governor in 2015 in the brief era of Governor Bala Ngilari, served as the convener of the inaugural NNPP meeting in Yola.
MC Tahir who is a former governorship aspirant and has been member of the leading two political parties in the country: APC and PDP, said he could affirm that the two parties have no answer to the problem that Nigeria faces.
He said the NNPP is a true grassroots party with the common man in mind and will give a new narrative to the political spectrum of Adamawa State and Nigeria.
The NNPP Interim Chairman, PP Elisha, said the NNPP is waxing strong as in two days of the party’s membership drive through registration, over 54,000 people had registered as members across Adamawa State.
Politics heightened in the home town of Governor Ahmadu Fintiri, Madagali, within the week after it came into the open that a prominent ‘brother’ of Fintiri, Hon Chibado Tijjani, had joined opposition APC.
Leaders of the PDP in Madagali Local Government Area addressed the press in Yola, disowning Chibado who, to them, crossed to the APC by taking more credit from the PDP than was due to him.
Chibado is a prominent politician in Madagali, an LGA which he has preciously headed as council chairman on two ocassions.
He was not only a PDP man but was close to Governor Ahmadu Fintiri who also hails from the area, but Chibado fell out with Fintiri and the PDP which acuses him of working against the election of Fintiri as governor during the 2019 election.
Chibado had announced days previously that he had left the PDP, and did so in the usual manner that politicians boast.
The PDP in Madagali, angry about that, that, called the press briefing in Yola, denouncing him.
“We have never for one second regarded him as a member of the party, because he contributed nothing to the growth and development of the party in Madagali,” the Madagali PDP Stakeholders said at the Press Briefing addressed by Mr Abdu Umaru Jabu, Chairman of PDP in Madagali Ward where Chibado has his base.
Jabu added, “The person in question (Chibado) refused to support his brother, Rt Hon Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri during the 2019 general elections, which we regard as an act of envy.”
Jabu said Chibado had seized to be a member of PDP much earlier since 2014 and had not been participating in any activities of the party.
The representative of Madagali LGA in Fintiri’s cabinet, Hon Mohammed Umar who is the state Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, affirmed that the PDP in Madagali did not recognise Chibado as a PDP member.
In continuation of the busy week in Adamawa politics, Chibado was formally received into the APC family on Saturday, March 19, in Madagali.
He had quite a big crowd, considering a picture of it in the media, but of course, Madagali, despite being where the governor comes from, has its share of APC members.
No report of whatever Chibado might have said at the reception for him is immediately available, but from his initial reaction to PDP Madagali’s denouncement of him earlier in the week, he still holds Governor Fintiri in high esteem and prefers that his defection into the APC should be no subject for prolonged heat.
Senator Aisha Dahiru Ahmed, more famously called Binani, joined the Adamawa gubernatorial race within the week.
Binani who currently represents the Adamawa Central Senatorial Zone in the National Assembly under APC, said she came into the open after pressure became so much on her in the last couple of months.
She said in the statement, “I reflected and prayed over it and consulted widely from across all the 21 local government areas of the state and arrived at the conclusion that hundreds of calls cannot be wrong.”
She said she saw the calls of people as calls to duty, asserting, “I formally declare my intention to contest for the office of Governor of Adamawa State insha Allah.”
Binani who said Adamawa State has come of age at 31 years of creation but has a long way to go, said she was prepared to make the difference.
Recalling that she had served her state first as a House of Represenatatives member and now as Senator, Binani asserted that her capacity to serve has become well known.
According to her, what she did for her people while she was a member of House of Representatives (for Yola North/ Yola South/Girei Federal Constituency) prompted calls on her to go to the Senate.
She said what she did as a House of Representatives member: the services she provided and interventions she made in health, education, water provision, electricity, empowerment programmes, sourcing of employment opportunities and sponsorship of bills, among others, made people in local governments of the Adamawa central zone to insist on her contesting for the Senate in 2019.
She said that as Senator, she had done with equal fervour for her Senatorial Zone the stewardship she rendered as a House of Representatives member, and that as Senator, she has always asked herself what she could do to improve the living conditions of people in Adamawa Central Zone and in Adamawa State as a whole.
Now, Hon Abdulrazak Namdas, so far the most hard working governorship aspirant when it comes to efforts at interacting with the people and generally establishing campaign structures, is currently in the phase of local government tour.
He was at the weekend in the local government areas of Song, Girei and Yola North, telling the people that he planned to return abandoned skills acquisition centres established by a former governor so that youths can learn skills and be gainfully engaged.
END
Be the first to comment