Nasarawa: Has Doma-Adamu meeting defined 2011?

In what analysts are already inferring high takes horse-trading on the political scene ahead of 2011 elections, Governor Aliyu Akwe Doma and his predecessor, Abdullahi Adamu, met penultimate week in the governor’s native home of Doma, south of the state. Although, the guest – Adamu – said the visit which he took with him, his political associates including the Works, Housing and Urban Development Minister, Dr. Hassan Mohammed Lawal, a former deputy governor of the old Plateau State, Halilu Bala Usman, and a former commissioner in the state, Mohammed Kabir Abubakar, was merely to pay homage as demands the tradition during Eid-el-Kabir, speeches made at the event confirm what analysts are saying.

And to say the meeting brought enormous relief on the hitherto tension-soackied political scene is to state and repeat the obvious. The two leaders, it was rumoured, found themselves in a strained relationship, signaling the beginning of a high-level face-off shortly after Doma was sworn in as governor. Adamu had received Doma into the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from the opposition All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP) where the incumbent governor – a former deputy governor in the Second Republic Plateau State, had twice contested for the seat without a success. Doma’s walk into the PDP underbelly gave the ruling party an added advantage against the ANPP whose candidate – Barrister Solomon Ewuga, a former Minister of State for FCT, left to rejoin the PDP shortly after the historic Doma/Adamu meeting in Doma.

The meeting, if it is not one of those mere public shows by political leaders, has also brought to an end, the feeling that the PDP may suffer some blows in the 2011 elections, particularly the governorship polls. It was widely feared that likely to play a role in the 2011 politics of the state is what many speculated as the opposition within the PDP.  Reports had named Nasarawa as one of the states the PDP will likely lose in 2011. The reports said due largely to what is referred to as deep-seated disagreement between incumbents and past governors of seven states, the party may lose those states to other parties. The meeting, however, might have already solved this.

High profile individuals including the party’s North-Central chairman, Alhaji Yusuf Ayitogo, had denied reports which suggested that Senator Ike Nwachukwu was leading a team to Nasarawa State to reconcile the two camps said to have emerged because of the rumoured face-off between the governor and his predecessor. Ayitogo who hails from Nasarawa State, was categorical, insisting there is no disagreement between the two leaders. Therefore, he said there was no such a thing as the existence of camps within the party in the state.

Added to these are the series of decampings which coincided with the meeting of the two leaders. Senator Patricia Akwashiki (Nasarawa North), decamped in the early days of November to the PDP due to what she referred to as selfishness and nepotism in her former party – the ANPP.

As the governor was receiving Adamu, his arch political rival and ANPP candidate in the 2007 election, Solomon Ewuga was handing out his old party’s flag to rejoin the PDP in his Aluchi native home in the western senatorial zone. 

The former ANPP stalwart was said to have been romancing PDP bigwigs in the state for some time now. Media reports had quoted Ewuga as saying he would not rule out the possibility of returning to the PDP. He also did not dispel speculations that he had already joined the party as at that time. Like Akwashiki who sprung up with reasons for her action only weeks after she decamped, Ewuga had told Daily Weekly on phone that he would talk at a latter time about his reasons.

Ewuga joined the ANPP after he lost the bid to contest the governorship under the platform of the PDP during the primaries in 2007.

With the two most important opposition politicians now in the underbelly of the ruling PDP, it is obvious their supporters will soon be crossing over to join them, courtesy of what speculations traced to Governor Doma’s manipulations to give the PDP every seat in the coming election. This is just as it is being widely speculated that the governor and his crew of covetous men are currently working on the only remaining opposition politician in the National Assembly, Rep Usman Ambaka (Akwanga/Wamba/Nasarawa-Eggon ANPP). The federal lawmaker could not be reached for comments, however.

With the season of decamping into Doma’s PDP in the state, coupled with the expression of renewed determination and commitment from Governor Doma and his predecessor, Adamu – who is also PDP’s Board of Trustees Secretary, to “work together”, 2011 seems to have already been defined in Nasarawa State. The opposition, then, needs to do more than it did during last election, to get a council ward in the state.

The expression of commitment by the very leaders who were widely thought to be working against each other’s 2011 ambition, to work together for their “renewed brotherhood” (as they called it), will no doubt benefit the state aside of the obvious political outcome. This, the two leaders demonstrated instantly with a visit to the Lafia-Doma-Abuja road which has continued to worsen with every season while the Federal Government looks the other way as if it is not capable of being bothered by the people’s untold hardship.

The visit which was led by the Works Minister, Dr. Lawal Hassan, a close associate and supporter of Adamu who was also on the Adamu-led entourage, created an opportunity for the deplorable road to be put on the national budget in 2010. The Minister, who expressed Federal Government’s commitment to fix the road, was briefed by Doma on how the state government has made several efforts to get the attention of the federal Government, without success. Doma said a design of the road with a bridge at Amba, had already been made and taken to the ministry without a feedback. Doma particularly briefed his guests about the devastations of flooded waters caused by the culvert which has come to be known as Amba Bridge, constructed as a makeshift arrangement several decades ago.

The Minister assured Doma of his commitment to the road, explaining that he was returning to Abuja to look at the design. He promised to study and divide work in three stages – Amba Bridge, Lafia-Doma and Doma-Abuja construction, respectively. The promise attracted appreciation from the governor and his predecessor, both of whom reiterated the need to work together for the common good of the state which they said has no much of federal presence.

While at the governor’s residence for the meeting which progressed into the informal visit to the worsening federal road, Doma had expressed delight with the visit, saying it provided a unique opportunity for the elder statesmen to work together and further champion the cause of building a united and prosperous state. He called on politicians, irrespective of platform, to emulate the gesture of his predecessor, Adamu, as well as see the historic visit as a call for them to shun rumour mongering and all instruments of disunity.

He sought the people to put the interest of the state first, by turning away from those he described as “enemies of the state”, who have always used dangerous rumours such as the perceived face-off between him and his predecessor, to distract the people. He said the meeting has reaffirmed renewed commitment, support and cooperation with his administration’s dogged commitment to transform the state, advising the visitors to make themselves part of his administration through advise and encouragement. 

Adamu and the Minister had announced that the visit was symbolic since it was essentially to register their solidarity, support and brotherhood. The former governor particularly said as stakeholders in the Nasarawa Project, the visit was important since they owed their governor the duty to support his administration to success.

The development only confirmed Senator Suleiman Adokwe’s earlier prediction: He had dispelled fears of the party heading for doom in 2011 on the strength of the rumoured face-off, saying even if there were disputes; efforts were being intensified to reconcile the parties involved.

What the “renewed brotherhood”, the stream of decamping, and the backslapping from members of the brotherhood which now include Ewuga and Akwashiki – with a covetous eye on Rep Usman Ambaka; intend to achieve in 2011 is what is not immediately clear. Doma has not urttered a word in spite of the numerous endorsements he has gotten from the body of Nasarawa’s powerful traditional rulers. Adamu is equally tight-lipped and has remained silent in the face of the season of endorsements for him to take Senator Abubakar Sodangi’s Nasarawa-West seat following what streams of supporters say, will give the senatorial zone a presence on the table of national politics. Ewuga said he will speak only at a later time, but his prolonged suspense has only kept Nasarawa people gazing. Senator Akwashiki is widely believed to have accepted to truncate her steady rise in politics by taking Deputy Governor John Michael Abdul’s job if Doma clinches the party ticket at the countdown to 2011, although she claimed her decamping was triggered by irregularities in the ANPP. The stone silence from these leaders will continue to fuel rumours and speculations, no doubt.