What new alliances, shifting bases mean in Niger State
Can the emergence of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) greatly alter the political calculation in Niger state? Can the new alliance immensely weaken Governor Abubakar Sani Bello’s hold on the state’s political structure and dim his chances
Last week, the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) alongside 33 other political parties came together with the sole purpose of wrestling power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) includes the breakaway faction of the ruling party, Reformed-All Progressives Congress (R-APC). The parties in the coalition also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to present a common presidential candidate in the 2019 presidential election.
The birth of the new alliance has sent jitters across the spines of most APC states where cracks exist among major stakeholders. Such cracks had festered and widened overtime, resulting in parallel congresses and boycott of the exercises which led to the emergence of executives from the wards to the state level.
But in Niger, unlike elsewhere, the center had held with the national secretariat of the party patting the state on the back, while describing the exercise in the state as the most peaceful.
There were a few dissenting voices which the state chairman of the party, Engineer Mohammed Jibril Imam, acknowledged in an interview with journalists shortly after the state congress. Such voices were a few, as Imam confirmed, and certainly not loud enough to cause disquiet in the magnitude experienced elsewhere.
However, despite the accolades that trailed the rancor-free exercise in the state, the National Chairman of R-APC, Buba Galadima, listed the state among those where parallel congresses put to question the ruling party’s claim as the most “internally democratic” and clouds its “integrity” status.
The breakaway group went ahead to install a state chairman and deputy organizing secretary respectively. But the party and its teeming members and supporters seem to be unfazed by the development on the ground that characters Dr. Theo Sheshi and Samaila Yusuf Kontagora named by Galadima as executives of the R-APC, according to Imam, were neither members of the APC in the state nor produced the right political clout to give the ruling party sleepless nights.
However, two critical stakeholders of the party, Senator David Umaru representing Niger East and Abubkar Lado Suleja, the member representing Suleja/Gurara/Tafa constituency in the House of Representatives were also fingered as belonging to the split away group.
The two National Assembly members did not come out to confirm or deny their membership of the new group, days after its emergence was made public.
In an interactive session with journalists shortly after the meeting of the state executives with local government chairmen and secretaries of the party a few days later, Imam was to respond to Galadima’s claim of a parallel congress in Niger and also gave Senator David Umaru and Rep Abubakar Lado Suleja a one week ultimatum to explain how their names made the membership list of the R-APC or face sanctions.
Before the current seeming impasse involving the two stakeholders, analysts had predicted a frosty relationship between them and the party on which platform they rose to power and indeed the incumbent Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, probably based on antecedents.
Senator Umaru, analysts argue, like politics itself, hardly has any permanent political ally but interest. For such stand, he is said to be always in opposition before the alliance that swept him to the mainstream ruling party in 2015. But pundits said that it was just a matter of time before an opposition championed by the senator emerges within the ruling party in the state. They did not wait too long before the prediction came to pass.
It started with the formation of a key cabinet with the senator accusing Governor Bello of marginalizing his zone in the appointment. Since then, there has been no love lost between the two with observers arguing that the senator may not return to his current seat on the platform which brought him to power.
If his alleged membership of the breakaway group is confirmed, then such prediction must have also come to pass. However beyond this, the senator was also rumoured to have not jettisoned his earlier ambition to govern the state, an ambition he failed to realize in the last two attempts.
But whether the R-APC and by extension the new coalition would be the right platform for him to realize that dream remains to be seen. Although analysts said it was too early in the day to form such an opinion, it is however not too soon to hazard a guess that such an ambition would be a tall one.
Analysts point to the fact that the coalition is being led by the main opposition PDP to buttress the point that the senator would find it difficult to realize such ambition on its platform. They base this argument on the fact that there had existed a frosty relationship between the senator and key founders of the main opposition party in the past which the new coalition would find difficult to resolve ahead of the general elections.
Another point analysts play up in the argument is that it would be difficult for the coalition made up of “strange bed-fellows” and political parties with “conflicting ideologies” to survive for long.
Such prediction is coming to pass a few days after the coalition’s emergence with 19 political parties not only pulling out but pitching their tents with the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari and by extension, the APC.
For Rep Lado on the other hand, it was clear right from the beginning where his allegiance lies. He was said to be close to the former governor of Kano State, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and the member never made pretense about this as he was always seen donning the red cap which symbolizes the Kwankwasiyya Movement of the former governor.
But analysts say even his political godfather would have it difficult in his home base of Kano, and with the coalition seemingly in taters a few days after its formation, the former governor may for long grope in the dark until the cloud which is currently shrouding the coalition clears.
As it seems therefore, the coalition somehow compounds what is already a difficult situation for the opposition angling to wrestle power from Governor Sani Bello.
Before the coalition, observers had expressed worries over what they referred to as the absence of an “aspirant of consequence” to slug it out with the incumbent for the state’s top-most position a few weeks to the party primaries.
What is more, the existing zoning formula which allows rotation of the number one position among all the three zones that make up the state still favours Governor Bello. This is aside the incumbent factor which gives the advantage of establishing good will for eventual re-election.
So, as things stand, analysts are unanimous that barring any last minute surprises, which are no doubt becoming very difficult by the day as the clock tick towards the election year, Governor Bello still holds the aces in Niger.
Albeit, there are speculations that former military president, retired General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, might be working under ground against the incumbent governor to bring up a former deputy governor, Hon Musa Ahmed Ibeto, with the brother of his close associate, Sani Ndanusa, a former Minister of Sports, as his running mate, the snag however is that most of the former military president’s men are all grounded and entrenched in Abubakar Sani Bello’s government, so he may not have the hatchet men to carry out such an assignment, lest follies are exposed.
Findings revealed that IBB may not have anything personal against Governor Sani Bello but the factor of President Muhammmadu Buhari who remains a constant coefficient ahead of 2019 and the closeness of the governor to always work for the president in the state might inform the decision to nurse the idea of the candidature of Hon. Ibeto.
Many political pundits posit that it would be high level political suicide if Ibeto agrees to the seduction of moving back to the PDP invariably to actualize a governorship ambition considering the political good fate Governor Bello allowed him to enjoy.
Moreover, top party men of Ibeto like Abubakar Magaji, Eng MMohammed Dabban, Hon Saba Usman , Idris Azozo and many others are now entrenched in the APC political machine as well as great supporters of Abubakar Sani Bello.
Considering the variables, it would be unwise to give any chance to CUPP or any other coalition in the state, with the high promise of success of the governor considering his achievements in the state so far.