Adamawa APC still in a shambles after primaries

It’S not Uhuru yet for embattled Adamawa State Governor Alhaji Mohammed Jibrilla Bindow, as fresh crisis has engulfed his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as carryover from the disputed primary elections of October.

The Governor, in a desperate fight to retain his ticket has incurred petitions and court case from aggrieved aspirants. He has now relocated to Abuja, permanently abandoning his Yola official office. The Government House has been deserted staff have abandoned the place due to the Governor’s prolonged absence.

The aggrieved aspirants Alhaji Mahmood Halilu Ahmed younger brother to president Muhammadu Buhari’s wife and former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Nuhu Ribadu, with their supporters have resolved to further deplete Bindow’s waning popularity. 

Ahmed, Ribadu and other top APC stakeholders headed by former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Mr. David Lawal Babachir, who are yet to recover from the disputed primaries are plotting to capture the state.

In different conversations on condition of anonymity, some said they would remain in the party to ensure that the Governor does not return. They accused the governor of betrayal and vowed that they must stay back to pay him back in his coin.

According to some of them the Governor pushed them into primaries, which he knew would not take place and connived with the national leadership of the party to ‘steal ‘ aspirants’ money after they purchased forms and incurred campaign expenses.

“For some of us that they conveniently robbed in Adamawa State APC primaries, our tears have dried up, but for Bindow his tears after next year’s governorship election will not dry for a day, because he will continue weeping from one political sin he committed to another; and there will be none to console him, because he planted tears in many families in Adamawa State,” an aspirant said. 

Babachir had on different occasions insisted that Bindow’s days in Adamawa Government House are numbered and that there is no political magic that can change the minds of the people to re-elect him. Babachir said the Governor planted a political time bomb long before the congresses and the last month’s primaries

He said, “the issue of fractionalization of APC in Adamawa State did not start with the congress, it started before the congresses. It was during the launch of President Buhari’s re-election project, where the Governor and his group boycotted and organized a parallel meeting on the same day of the event. The meeting of the Governor in government House was not a stakeholders’ meeting, but a briefing by the him to his commissioners and other political appointees.” 

“The Adamawa APC crisis started when this government came into office, when majority of the legacy party members in APC did not get reasonable appointments. The appointments made by this government then and even now, majority of them are of nPDP, where the Governor came from. That is what culminated and matured into two different groups at the congresses.” 

Chief Felix Tangwami, the Director-General of Bindow campaign organization, who also contested and lost the APC southern zone senatorial ticket promised that the crisis will soon be over.

“The main problem in Adamawa APC is that primaries were conducted and governor Bindow’s team won landslide and others lost. I want to tell you that if the governorship primary is conducted 20 times the Governor will win 20 times, because he has political structures more than those that contested against him, “ he sad.

He said those complaining are the same people that rejected indirect primaries and insisted on direct primaries, but wonders why they are still complaining.

Tangwami said that the party and Bindow campaign organization has begun holding meetings with aggrieved aspirants to resolve their grievances and face the election as one strong family.

He appealed to members to return, noting that leaving the party or working against it will be counter-productive for the state. “ If you abandon the party today because you lost primaries, what happens when you win next time and other people too abandon the party for you? So people should think properly before taking some decisions, because it is not only the stakeholders that have a role to play during general elections, the electorate has the major role to decide the fate of the candidates.”

While aggrieved members continue to plot to pull down the governorship candidate of the party, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is building an iron cast coalition to sack the Adamawa governor.

The PDP governorship aspirants that participated in the primaries have all declared support for Alhaji Ahmad Umaru Fintri, who won in a contest adjudged to be the most transparent in recent times.

The chances of Fintri received a huge boost as Alhaji Aliyu Ahmed, who also contested in the primary promised to support the winner.

Alhaji Abubakar Jameel, another governorship aspirant also promised to support Fintri.

With the crisis in Adamawa APC and recent court case instituted at Federal High Court, Abuja, to challenge his secondary school certificate, there are strong signals that Bindow’s leadership is threatened.

There are signals of imminent mass exodus of key stakeholders of APC to the PDP and the Action Democratic Congress (ADC), a party owned by the family of former governor Murtala Nyako and headed by his first son senator Abdullaziz Nyako, who is also the governorship candidate of. 

Former nPDP members that joined APC are now returning to PDP, including Bindow’s three serving commissioners, House of Assembly members and other top political office holders. Nyako’s PDP faction that joined APC is returning to ADC, including House of Assembly members and other key stakeholders in Adamawa APC.

Without recruiting the services of a soothsayer, it is an open secret in Adamawa that the Governor is on his way out.