Mutawalle, Dansadau, Shinkafi, Adamu fight for guber seat
While the APC is battling with protracted crisis in courts and within its rank, the biggest opposition party in the state, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has fielded its governorship and other candidates for this year’s general elections.
Dr. Bello Muhammad Mutawalle is PDP’s gubernatorial candidate. Many people have secured the party’s ticket for both the state and National Assembly and are collectively campaigning across Zamfara State.
Dr. Mutawalle was a lawmaker who reprsented Bakura/Maradun Federal constituency. He flagged off his campaign gubernatorial campaign activities about three weeks ago amidst pomp and pageantry.
PDP was at a time the ruling government in Zamfara State; and it still commands a large number of supporters across the state.
Unlike many other smaller parties, PDP has its structures already in place in every nook and cranny of the state. While other parties may still be struggling to put up their structures in the state owing to the fact that most of them are newly formed, the PDP is almost at peace with istself.
Secondly, Dr. Mutawalle has the financial wherewithal to prosecute his campaigns and is very willing to commit resources to that effect.
His vast outreach is also working for him. H had served as commissioner during the tenure of ex Governor Ahmad Sani Yarima. There are insinuations that their relationship is still cordial.
Dr. Mutawalle later contested for the Bakura/ Maradun Federal Constituency and won on the platform of the defunct ANPP. He later defected to PDP shortly after Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi who won the governorship under the platform of ANPP defected to the PDP.
In 2015, Mutawalle was defeated when he contested for the governorship ticket and lost to Shinkafi during the primaries. Shinkafi later defected to APC but Dr. Mutawalle remained in PDP.
There are speculations that some APC bigwigs are working with him ahead of the March 2 governorship election.
“Many of them are ready to support him in the event they failed to participate in the election considering the crisis in the APC,” one of the sources said.
Senator Saidu Muhammad Dansadau is gubernatorial candidate of the National Rescue Movement (NRM).
His campaign strategy is something that can fetch him massive votes, analysts say.
He has been trying to mobilize rural communities to vote for him and one of the key issues in his campaign is eliminating armed banditry and cattle rustling.
Daily Trust reports that the menace of cattle rustling, kidnapping and armed banditry has been plaguing the rural dwellers in the state for quite a long time and anyone willing to help the communities out of these evils stand to become a friend to them.
Dansadau has been going from one community to the other campaigning on this key security issue and many observers believed that the strategy would most likely be in his favour.
Observers opined that the crises rocking the ruling APC in the state would be a wonderful opportunity for the opposition parties, but should APC be allowed to field candidate, the narrative could change because the party’s chances of wining is still high despite many difficulties and set backs it faced in recent times.
Another notable governorship Daily Trust on Sunday