ADAMAWA ELECTORAL RE-RUN: AC’S ARCHAIC CAMPAIGN

 I find it nauseating to join issues with those who think with their feet rather than their heads but politicians of Action Congress leaves one little choice matter.  Worse still, is their style of campaign, which in my opinion borders on incitement of one tribe on another and one religion against the other.  It is an irony of sorts that those in the vanguard of this political blasphemy spent eight years in office, yet they could not tell the people what they achieved in the years they have been in office.  How can a people that claimed to want to win the votes of the electorates and govern the state start by discriminating one set of the people against another?  To me this is a pointer as to the way these people destroyed the state – by playing the ethnic and religious card to the gullible and undiscerning.

 Political campaigns the world over are tailored to inform the electorate what they stand to gain by voting a particularly party into office as against another.  That is why parties are compelled to write manifestoes and programmes and present same to electoral regulatory agencies for vetting and approval.  In the case of the Action Congress in Adamawa State it is a different story.  Since the bulk of the AC leadership in the state were the hierarchy of the Boni Haruna administration which wasted eight years of the peoples’ time, we expected that they should be bold and courageous enough to tell us what they achieved in those locust years.  We had expected to hear them tell us how many communities benefited from their water supply programme; how many communities benefited from their rural electrification projects; how many schools have been upgraded, equipped and/ or rehabilitated.  How many kilometres of roads, both in urban and rural areas, were constructed and/ or rehabilitated.  What condition did they leave our healthcare institutions?  Tangible things like this – things the average man on the street could point out to and derive pleasure in identifying with.

 It has been trumpeted ad nauseaum to the people of Adamawa that Boni’s achievement in the eight years he was in the saddle of governance was the completion of projects began by previous administrations – the already occupied state secretariat and the state House of Assembly complex.  Today the main issue in their campaign arsenal is that Admiral Nyako’s only achievement is the completion of projects already began by Boni.  The irony in this appears to have escaped the nitwits in charge of their propaganda machinery.  If those that started projects completed by Boni didn’t begrudge him, why is he and his cabal begrudging the Admiral, if it is true projects attributed to him were actually began by Boni?  Realising the futility of running an issue-based campaign, the AC has resorted to bigotry and outright lies to the very people they claim to want to serve.  They should be men enough to admit failure and beg the people to forgive them and say something like  “...forgive us for know not what we were doing when we were stealing your money and the future of your children...” 

 But alas, the Action Congress is going about their campaign by trying to whip up ethno-religious sentiments.  They have been busy telling people that the Nyako administration was fixated with ethno-religious cleansing.  How pathetic.  In their desperation the AC is ready to alienate two major groups in Adamawa State – the Muslims and the Fulbes.  Though I strongly believe that the people of Adamawa are much more sophisticated than this to fall for such cheap crap.  Boni Haruna and most of his former commissioners are going round the state instilling a sense of foreboding in the minds of all other tribes bar the Fulbes.  When have we gone down this low to resort to such primordial sentiments to win elections? What desperation could drive someone to stoop to this beastly level in order to win power?

 I believe such was the crude manner that they governed state thereby denying the people any meaningful development while they were busy chasing shadows.  But, crucially they don’t see the danger in what they are doing.  I was in Kaduna through all the various ethno-religious conflicts from the Kafanchan to the Kaduna 2000 riots.  I have seen people slaughtered like rams; I have seen how neighbours turned against each other; I have seen how ordinary rational human beings suddenly turn to beast.  I have seen pigs feasting on human corpses by street sides for a number of days.  All these are the results of a long standing campaign of hatred.  The same people that misruled Adamawa are trying hard to bring disharmony among its people just to hide their administrative and managerial frailties.  Boni, the arrowhead of the campaign was the governor for eight years while Bapetel, the candidate was, first, his finance commissioner and later Secretary to the State Government.

 The theme of their campaign is that the Nyako administration is out to alienate people of other faiths other than Muslims; people of other tribes apart from the fulbes.  I believe this cannot fly in the face of the discerning and rational.  After exhausting their entire negative arsenal on the poor people of Adamawa they have now resorted to desperate tactics.  I thought with Boni, Bapetel and their former executive council colleagues on the same podium, we would be entertained with comparisons between the eight years of Boni and Nyako’s eight months watching brief; we would have been glad to be told that the roads rehabilitation exercise going on and that was awarded by Admiral Nyako is just a mirage; I had listened attentively to be told by them that this much was achieved under their administration in terms of human development and capacity building.  But what did we get from them?  Ethno-religious verbiage that in no way explains their failure and thievery.

 Need some proof?  Check this out.  The gubernatorial candidate of the Action Congress, Alhaji Ibrahim Bapetel is yet to tell us categorically whether he has been cleared by the EFCC or not.  The only thing that is certain is that vehicles confiscated from his house are still packed at the State Police Command Headquarters more than two years after he was arrested from his house in handcuffs.  His then boss, Boni Haruna was on record to have said he never knew that he is working with thieves.  Now Boni is singing a different tune, campaigning for Bapetel.  We are yet to be told what changed in the past two years to warrant giving our votes to Bapetel.  Another principal campaigner to Bapetel is John Elias, Bapetel’s successor at the Finance Ministry.  Elias has recently being taken to the Court by the EFCC.  Case of “birds of the same plumage flocking together”?

 Going round the state inciting one tribe against another or religion against the other is ungodly and treasonable, at least in my book.  It would have been even better if they go round telling us ‘sorry guys, we have used your resources to build ABTI, both the empire and the schools, better luck next time’.  They should do well by telling the people that they have appropriated monies meant for water supply to drill boreholes in their houses and so on.  My heart goes out to those among them who couldn’t fall into either the “correct” tribe or religion, yet follow the destructive train to political obscurity, driven by Atiku with Boni as the conductor.  Though I know AC attracts the jetsam and flotsam of the society, they should at least learn to be civil, though again etiquette and decency may be alien to their leadership.  How sad.

 My advice to the electorate is – DON’T BUY A NEW SIM CARD, JUST GO do A WELCOME BACK.

Babayola Muhammadu Toungo

61, Dogon Dawa Close,

Unguwan Sarki – Kaduna.