Nigerians exercised their civic rights on Saturday, the 9th of this month and elected Senators and Members of the House of Reps that will represent them at the legislative Houses. A lot of mixed feelings trailed the already emerged results of those elections. There were a lot of surprises in some areas concerning the results, likewise in some other areas it was just what people expected or thought should happen that in fact happened. In the South West, as we all expected the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) won almost all the seats in both senate and House of Reps. The only surprises there which a lot of people were not in fact actually surprised that they occurred, is the fact that some few PDP chieftains in both the Senate and House of Reps did not actually get re-elected. The notable amongst these are of course the Speaker House of Reps. Mr. Dimeji Bonkole and Senator Mrs. Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello (daughter of the former Head of State). Most of these PDP casualties came from the home state of the former president Obasanjo, and this is the more reason why a lot of people were not actually surprised that PDP encountered these set-backs in that state taking into consideration the well publicized rift between the incumbent Governor Gbenga Daniel and the former President Obasanjo.Overall, it is not at all unexpected that ACN recorded a landslide victory in the South West considering that the area has always been the hub of the party.
The results in the South East and South South are equally not surprising as PDP won almost every seat there with the exception of some few that were shared between APGA, LP and ACN. South South being the home zone of the president we can not expect anything contrary to what actually happened there.
Perhaps the biggest surprise came from the North West region. People actually expected the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), which is headed by former military Head of State Muhammadu Buhari, who is also its presidential candidate for this year's elections, to record a landslide victory in the zone. It will not be correct to assert that CPC did not perform in this zone but however to use the word "landslide" victory could be quite misleading. The party performed well in Katsina (the home state of Muhammadu Buhari) where it won all the three (3) Senatorial seats, and also in Zamfara and Kaduna as well. However, the party failed woefully to make any impact in Kano state which is the heart of this zone in terms of population. The performance of CPC in Kano and Jigawa combined is quite gloomy to say the least! So many people tried to explain why CPC failed to win even 10 House of Reps seats out of the more than 30 seats available in Kano. People have given their opinions as to why Kano which is the number one stronghold of Muhammadu Buhari was not delivered by the party. The way I see it however, is quite differently with the way most of those people see it. To me the issues are two.
Firstly, the inter-party wrangling in the CPC Kano ranging from the leadership of the party to the governorship aspirants brouhaha in the state contributed immensely to the not so impressive performance recorded by the party in the concluded elections. It is instructive to note that as between the time the party was to conduct its primaries in Kano late last year to now, the party saw three (3) different sets of leadership. And this controversy is still not put to rest as just last two or three weeks there was a judgment in which a court reinstated one of the three groups which was initially sacked by the National Head-quarters, as the valid leadership of the party. This matter is still pending in the court of Law. This is enough a distraction to the party's preparations to this elections. This problem of leadership resulted in even more grievous problem of not having a widely recognized and accepted governorship candidate among the party ranks. CPC supporters in Kano don't know exactly between Muhammad Sani Abacha and General Lawal Jafaru Isa who is actually the governorship candidate of their party. This confusion is capable of making people getting frustrated and not even voting the party at all!
The second factor is the attitude shown by most of the CPC candidates in the Senate and House of Reps elections. Because of what happened in 2003, where out of no where Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau emerged and became Governor of Kano as a result of that popular phrase uttered by Buhari at his rally in Kano just few days to elections. Buhari asked Kano people to vote ANPP "SAK", as a result people entered Buhari's ark and won the elections on a platter of gold. A lot of those CPC contestants felt that this is exactly how it was going to be this time around and they decided not make any efforts to reach to the people at the grass roots. When Buhari came to Kano for his rally he snubbed them all apparently due to the debacle as to the governorship aspirants of the party in the state. So Buhari did not mention SAK and that seriously affected their acceptability to the people.
In my constituency, I didn't know the person contesting for Senate under the plat form of CPC until a day to the canceled elections. And for the House of Reps., that I only saw his posters on the elections day at the elections venue. You can imagine this utter arrogance exhibited by these contestants to the people they were seeking to represent. The story is different in the opposition camps where every where you go the streets are awash with opposition posters and leaflets.
The bottom line is, Buhari has a serious work to do in Kano if at all he wants to take this elections to the run off in which we are hoping with all the alliances that may be formed, he stands a good chance of beating PDP. Nobody expects either CPC or ACN to win this elections in the first round. The only party capable of doing just that is PDP, and the only hope Buhari has of denying PDP that is by recording a landslide victory in Kano. Even if CPC wins Kano unless it is by a great margin, it would not make any difference. We all know that if PDP did not get the required votes to clinch victory at the first round, then there will be a run off in which PDP and any other party that comes second will slog it out for the presidency in the elections. The danger here for Buhari's CPC is, if ACN wins Lagos (as it is almost certain) being the state with a largest number of registered voters, and Buhari fails to win Kano being the second largest state with registered voters, then ACN will definitely emerge the second and then the run off will be between PDP and ACN. To avoid this scenario, Buhari and CPC should put their house in order and it has now become obligatory upon General Buhari between now and the closing of campaigns before the elections on Saturday to come back to Kano and Jigawa to organize another rally and settle differences that might exist in their party's hierarchy in these states, otherwise, it will be the same old story as PDP will win this elections on a platter of gold! A word is enough for a wise!
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