In what appeared as his political rebirth, former Sokoto State governor, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, re-launched the Sokoto All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) recently with the aim of making it an alternative to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. Bello Gusau writes on the challenges before the former governor ahead of the 2012 gubernatorial election in the state.THE return of former Sokoto State governor, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, into the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) has changed its status from a party that is in slumber to one of the leading opposition parties in the state. Before now, the ANPP, which used to be a ruling party in the state, lost its weight after he (Bafarawa) left it to form the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP). The exit of his former deputy, Alhaji Aliyu Wamakko, the current governor of the state, from the party prior to the 2007 general election, made the Sokoto ANPP a shadow of itself.However, following his recent exit from the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), a party he joined after a failed bid to establish a mega party among himself, General Muhammadu Buhari, former vice president, Atiku Abubakar and Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu (a dream the four of them embraced when he abandoned DPP, the party he floated and on which ticket he contested but lost 2007 presidential election) Bafarawa, who found himself between the devil and deep blue sea in his effort to rewrite his political name, opted to goback to the ANPP so as to reclaim the Sokoto gubernatorial seat from Wamakko, whom he often refers to as his student in politics.At his declaration and relaunching ceremony of the ANPP at the Bafarawa filling station on Old Airport Road, Sokoto, on December 18, and which was attended by the party's national chairman, Chief Ogbonnaya Onu, Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe State, deputy governors of Borno and Zamfara states, Alhaji Zanna Yusuf and Alhaji Ibrahim Wakkala respectively, as well as the ANPP's 2011 presidential candidate and former governor of Kano State, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, the former Sokoto State governor said his sojourn after leaving the party to other parties had widened the scope of his political knowledge and had put him in a better position to reclaim the Sokoto gubernatorial seat.'I did not leave the ANPP out of my own volition. It was the circumstances in the party that forced me to abandon it for the DPP,' he said.Bafarawa said since he returned to the party, the people of the state should not be surprised if Governor Wamakko, Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, as well as all the serving senators from the state decided to return to the ANPP as, according to him, all of them were his political students.He said this was because, even as they were presently in the PDP, their agenda was that of the ANPP, being their original party. He said he would not falter in his avowed desire to recapture the state gubernatorial seat with a view to correcting all the anomalies associated with the PDP government in the state.'When my brother, Wamakko, was trying to win the gubernatorial election, he said I described Sokoto people as chickens that would run to anyone who threw grains at them, but thank God that, today, you are living witnesses to how he is throwing money at the people at wedding and naming ceremonies,' he alleged.He said the money would have otherwise been used to build schools, mosques and hospitals for the people. He said in order to achieve regime change, he was prepared to take his campaign to the doorsteps of the people of the state to seek their forgiveness over his actions and inaction while in government, and the audience started shouting 'Allahu Akbar,' meaning 'Allah is great.'On the power of incumbency of Wamakko, Bafarawa said the recent electoral developments in Oyo, Ogun and Zamfara states, where incumbent governors lost elections should be enough to establish the feasibility of his plan. In his view, one major problem with some governors was in putting away their party manifestos and embracing their personal agenda.He said the task of sourcing a politician who would religiously implement the manifesto of his party was a difficult thing to do, but that he had finally been able to find Alhaji Yusha Mohammad Ahmad, a seasoned banker and successful businessman, to do that on his behalf and that he would field him as his preferred gubernatorial aspirant of the party in the state. Asked why he would openly show support to an aspirant while there were two aspirants and whether such a preference by a leader of the party would not affect the party negatively, he said that was democracy and that he was not a card-carrying member of the party, and that he would not even be at the venue of the primaries.On the day of the primary, it was learnt that Bafarawa was in Saudi-Arabia. Even despite his absence, he was able to prove his mettle, as his preferred candidate, Yusha, defeated Alhaji Dahiru Yusuf Yabo, formerly an acclaimed gubernatorial candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the 2011 general election. In addition, he proved up to the task of putting in place a state Executive Committee (EXCO) of the ANPP comprising his political associates.The state congress produced an EXCO led by one of Bafarawa's close associates, Alhaji Ibrahim Mil-goma, while the immediate past state party chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Muhammad Danfuloti, was elected as deputy state chairman along with the rest of the executive members, all of whom were former governor's disciples, in a manner of confirmation rather than by voting, as all of them were returned unchallenged. The congress committee chairman/ chairperson, Hajiya Fatima Mohammed, presided over the exercise.After the counting, the committee chairman said there were a total of 534 delegates out of which 3 voted for Yabo, 469 voted for Yusha while 62 abstained from voting. She thus declared Yusha as the winner of the primary election and, therefore, the Sokoto ANPP standard-bearer for 2012 gubernatorial election.In his acceptance speech, Yusha said the primary was unique, as it was devoid of external or governmental influence, and that it would send signals to the PDP in the state that the people of Sokoto were yearning for a change of leadership. He said he was ready to tap the wealth of experience of his challenger at the primary in the administration of the state if elected governor. He thanked members of the gubernatorial primary election committee, delegates and his challenger for their support towards making the exercise a success.Also speaking, Yabo said although he sensed foul-play in the way and manner the primary was organised, he none-the-less accepted defeat and that he would partner with the standard-bearer for the overall success of the party.He said he was once a standard-bearer and knew that it was Allah that gave power to who he wanted at any time he wanted.Political observers said Yabo's misfortune might not be unconnected with the thinking that he was sent to destabilize the party by Wamakko as he allegedly did to CPC in its preparation for 2011general elections in the state where he claimed to have won the ticket of the party with the state party officials insisting that the ticket was won by Engineer Abubakar Aliyu Yabo. His exit from that party to ANPP was a big relief to the members of the CPC in the state.So the pundits said Yabo left the CPC because his contract there ended with the close of the 2011 general election, with the CPC no longer becoming a cause for concern for the PDP government in the state, and since it was discovered that Bafarawa who is the major threat to the Sokoto PDP was likely to move to the ANPP, he was now drafted to the party to serve as a cog in its wheel of progress so as to prevent the former governor from carrying out his wish of unseating the Wamakko led administration in the state. But with Yabo still in the Sokoto ANPP, it is feared that all is not yet uhuru for the former governor in his quest to wrestle power from the Sokoto PDP.
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