APC, LP watch as PDP’s Pwajok tackles Plateau’s zoning quagmire
Senator Gyang Pwajok who got the Plateau State governorship ticket of the PDP three weeks ago despite intra-party opposition over zoning, is pushing campaign efforts as candidates of other parties lie back in apparent nonchalance Residents woke Tuesday morning to behold human mascots, two each in strategic road junctions around Plateau State capital, Jos.
Each set of the mascots, two boys in long green skirts with rest of the body done up in white chalk, had GNS Pwajok and Goodluck Jonathan inscribed across their respective chests, suggesting that this would be the latest trick of the handlers of Gyang Pwajok to direct public attention to him and his governorship candidacy.
The pairing of Pwajok with President Goodluck Jonathan in the mascot strategy is symbolic of the speculated closeness of Pwajok’s godfather, Governor Jonah Jang to Goodluck Jonathan, although one of Pwajok’s co-governorship aspirants, Fidelis Tap-gun, had earlier played the Jonathan card when he stood out in the countdown to the December 8 governorship primary of the PDP in the state as the only one of the 16 aspirants to produce posters in which his and Goodluck Jonathan’s pictures featured together.
Gyang Pwajok, senator currently representing Plateau North Senatorial Zone in the National Assembly (NASS), became the governorship candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on December 8, 2014 following the primary election in which 15 other governorship aspirants competed. Pwajok got his victory even as he had to ride on the back of what was considered a troublesome boat named zoning, which nearly all his fellow aspirants and a huge chunk of Plateau people hoped would go south.
Pwajok got that boat to coast him to a massive victory that had 12 of his co-aspirants running to Abuja with a petition and crying to the press two days later that the primary election was a fraud and should therefore not stand.
Significantly, the anti-Pwajok voices have little more against him than his geographical bearing: his lineage as a Berom-speaking northern Plateau man. This would be why Pwajok looks set to at least go far in the general election scheduled for February.
SIMON LALONG
The emergence of former Speaker of Plateau State House of Assembly, Barrister Simon Lalong as APC’s flag bearer at a time when issues of zoning the governorship seat to the southern senatorial zone had engulfed the state’s polity, was seen as a plus for the party.
The APC had zoned the governorship seat to southern Plateau in anticipation that it would get rebellious votes from aggrieved PDP members should the PDP present Senator Gyang Pwajok, who is from the same ethnic and senatorial district as Governor Jang, as the flag bearer.
But the APC in the state has been silent since its state governorship primaries on December 4th. Lalong, a barrister-turned politician, stakeholders say, seems to be taking a lot for granted; campaigning less and relying more on votes of revolt from ruling PDP and possibly a favourable bandwagon effect should APC’s presidential flagbearer, Muhammadu Buhari win the presidential election.
Lalong would not reach out to the media. He, in fact, does everything to brush off newsmen who approach him for any press interview. Such nonchalance puzzles many and strengthens a growing public impression that he and his APC are only busy praying that a raging battle over zoning would shatter PDP into pieces for APC to harvest.
An official of the party however expresses a different idea. “Our campaign is issue-based and we are strategising and reaching out in effective ways.” State secretary of the party, Bashir Musa Sati, who boasted that APC had no need for much campaign, said that if PDP appears to be doing more campaign than APC in Plateau State, it is because PDP has damage control to do. “PDP is making noise because the government has done nothing worth selling to the electorate; they are only doing damage control.”
Many around the state say that for the governorship election, the real political battle will be fought in the central zone where both the APC and PDP have picked their deputies. While PDP’s Gyang Pwajok picked his running mate from the Ngas ethnic group, Lalong picked Professor Sonnie Tyoden, one of the aggrieved governorship aspirants of the PDP and former Vice Chancellor of University of Jos, as his running mate. Tyoden is said to be the choice of the people of Mangu LGA to help check the PDP’s influence in the central zone.
BAGUDU HIRSE
Late entrant and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bagudu Hirse is however believed capable of changing the political equation of the APC in the central zone. Coming from the same ethnic group as Tyoden, Hirse, once a governorship aspirant under the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) and now the flag bearer of Labour Party (LP), may end up splitting the Mangu votes, if a rumour that he is under pressure by stakeholders to step down does not become the reality.
Ambassador Bagudu Hirse who recently decamped from the PDP to join LP believes that his name alone can secure him the number one seat in the state, describing the name ‘Hirse’ as a household name in Plateau.
Hirse in a recent interview described the PDP in Plateau State as a sinking boat that will soon capsize and become history.
The LP became the major opposition party in 2011 when it fielded former deputy governor Pauline Tallen as its governorship flag bearer. But the party has since lost its appeal within the state, which is expected to affect Hirse’s chances.
Ambassador Hirse, analysts say feels aggrieved that the PDP at the state level had not adequately compensated him since he was removed as Minister of Foreign Affairs 11 and replaced by the current Minister of Water Resources, Sarah Ochekpe. Hirse had stepped down to pave way for governor Jang’s candidacy in 2007 while he was compensated with a ministerial appointment. Jang had proposed Ochekpe as a ministerial nominee from the state in his second term, leaving Hirse to his own devices.
He recently said the PDP will continue to lose its ground and relevance following ‘lack of internal democracy, unilateral imposition and dictatorial tendencies’ which he said had become the order of the day in the party.
PWAJOK IN FACE OF ZONING
Senator Gyang Pwajok emerged governorship candidate of PDP in Plateau State amidst protests over zoning, but he got the ticket and now, individuals and organisations are rising daily, swelling the camp of supporters who may yet get him the governorship seat in 2015.
Pwajok became the big issue across Plateau in October when his political godfather, Governor Jonah Jang announced at a caucus meeting that he was supporting Pwajok for the position of governor.
Pwajok was Jang’s chief of staff until 2012 when he, reportedly on Jang’s prompting, resigned to vie for the position of senator after the death Senator Gyang Dantong. Pwajok went into the October 2012 Plateau North Senatorial by-election and won it amidst talk that Jang wished to head for the Senate in 2015 and that Jang would be doing so by supporting Pwajok to become governor while he takes Pwajok’s place at the Senate.
So, Jang holding the Plateau North senatorial ticket and Pwajok holding the Plateau State governorship ticket today is a story long foretold, but a story that has intensified a bitter political acrimony between those pushing Pwajok’s candidacy and the pro-zoning campaigners who are insisting that Pwajok and Jang who both hail from northern Plateau, speak the same Berom language and are allegedly blood relations, cannot swap positions at the Plateau Government House and expecting the no less than 50 other tribes to sit and watch idly.
The pro-zoning campaigners who mostly prefer Jang’s successor to come from southern Plateau after central Plateau produced the governor from 1999 to 2007 and after northern Plateau would have completed their own tenure through Jang by 2015, are still so bitter about the possibility of Pwajok becoming governor in 2015 that they have sworn to make victory impossible for him.
Still, of the three candidates with some claim to strength, PDP’s Pwajok appears the most likely to be elected governor. Pwajok, a University of Jos lecturer before he joined the Jonah Jang government first as the Director of Research and then as Chief of Staff before arriving the Senate two years ago, is only suffering the consequence of coming from a Plateau North not widely favoured right now to produce the next governor. He, as a person is loved by many; and that personal likable trait, plus a strong financial muscle that he appears willing to flex, plus a campaign outreach not matched by any other candidate, may well get him into Government House next year.