The decision of Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State to build an estate tagged, 342 Housing Scheme in Wamakko Local Government Area, where his estranged godfather, Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko hails from, has reignited the rivalry between the two major political parties in the state.
In the 2019 governorship election, Tambuwal defeated Alhaji Ahmed Aliyu, his former deputy, who contested on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with only 342 votes.
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Receiving a report of the committee on the delivery of affordable houses in the state on Tuesday, Tambuwal said the housing project was tagged 342 Scheme to commemorate the victory margin at the governorship poll. He said the project was a special scheme for technocrats in the employment of the state.
“We are planning a new housing scheme in Sokoto State. In the next year’s budget we will come up with the new project, to be titled “342 Housing Scheme.
We believe that in the next stage of development in Sokoto State, people will see more housing schemes in the length and breadth of the state,’’ the governor said.
The houses, according to him, will be sited at the Sokoto new city at Kasai village. He added that so far, 1,500 houses were sold to civil servants on owner-occupier basis.
He also said the state was collaborating with the Family Homes programme of the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federal Mortgage Bank to provide affordable houses to civil servants and businessmen.
Commenting on the report submitted by the committee, the governor said the state government had given options to interested applicants, in terms of where they want their houses.
The decision to name the estate 324 Housing Scheme has become the topic of discussion in the state. Political analysts believe that the decision to cite the project in Wamakko is to spite his predecessor, Senator Wamakko.
But some analysts believe that Tambuwal has not been able to meet public expectations in his second coming as governor, as citizens in the state thought they would get more dividends of democracy, which he actually delivered in his first term.
Many people in the state say Tambuwal has every reason to immortalise the 342 votes, considering the way he narrowly won the battle to retain his seat.
It would be recalled that Tambuwal rode on the political strength of Wamakko to win the 2015 governorship election on the platform of the APC. However, following a frosty relationship with Wamakko and other factors, he returned to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where he won the 2019 election.
Pundits say Tambuwal wants to immortalise the number of the winning votes because the margin was very slim as his opponent could have won the election.
Observers noted that one of his reasons for defecting to the PDP was to liberate himself from his political godfather. They also said he defected to advance his presidential ambition come 2023. At the moment, Tambuwal chairs the PDP Governors Forum, and he is the deputy chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum.
Other analysts believe the governor wanted to establish a paradigm shift by introducing politics of the younger generation. Since the beginning of his second term, Tambuwal has assembled a cabinet dominated by young commissioners and other political office holders.
But the state chairman of the APC, Alhaji Isa Sadiq Achida, said the governor was only playing to the gallery.
“Tell me any of his projects that has been completed since his emergence as the governor of the state about six years ago, including his only secondary school in Balle, which he started at the beginning of his first tenure.
Look at the issue of fertiliser. It was the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened in the history of Sokoto State. They went to Kasarawa to flag off the distribution of something they did not have.
We learnt that even the fertilisers displayed at the venue of the event were borrowed from local marketers. And this is a government that claimed to have earmarked over N3billion for the commodity. Not a single bag of fertiliser reached the farmers throughout the rainy season,’’ he alleged
He announced their plan to institute a legal action against the governor over an alleged mismanagement of the state resources.
Responding to the allegations of the APC, the special adviser to Governor Tambuwal on media and publicity, Muhammad Bello, said they were only making unnecessary noise. This, he said, was an indication that “they are yet to recover from the shock of their embarrassing defeat in 2019.’’
He added, “If they said the governor did not do anything in his first term, they too will share in the blame because it was the APC that was in government, and they were all part of it.
They are just envious of his achievements in the past years, which only people with resounding minds can see.
But the governor would not be deterred by their antics and deceit. He will continue to deliver his promises to the people of the state.’’
