BEWILDERING ELECTIONS IN BAUCHI STATE

By Sanusi Muhammad
Bauchi state politicians must by now be shocked by the unpredictable politics their state promoted with fanfare. No, not in terms of the expensiveness of the past campaigns, which became the leitmotif of their competition for offices, or the gargantuan remunerations proposed for their elected party members in Bauchi State, but in terms of their defiance of every, known orthodoxy that has typified and ennobled global politics for decades. Bauchi politicians of all extractions had defied the odds, subverted rules, mocked conventions, and now, seem to sneer at even commonsense itself by accepting the victory of others. The just concluded governorship election in the state is in class of its own- all but indicates that while democracy is to be preferred over every other system of government, Bauchi politicians have themselves been very reluctant to let that system grow and flourish for the benefit of all because of parochial interests and imaginary regional differences that exist only in the imagination of the authors. Some of them have mustered the rigging mechanism and wobbled their way to victory.
In the last gubernatorial election, there were several glaring cases of where votes didn’t count but were allocated to the party with the highest offer, and the ad-hoc staff of the electoral umpire, were ‘forced’ to count and declare those filthy votes as genuine. The trauma of conducting true balloting knocked politicians in some of parties in that pearl of tourism and exposed the state to some sort of politically –induced autoimmune affliction. The gubernatorial election was expected to be a straight contest between the then ruling APC and the strongest opposition PDP, with the ruling APC perhaps capable of piping the main opposition party candidate at the post. Unfortunately, while the state governor and other party leaders were strategizing for victory, the imperious but evidently brittle and factionalized APC was unable to agree with the efforts of the party and some of its chieftains to navigate to safe coast as an honor at all levels. It was a clear case of lost of confidence, trust and glaring incapacitation that added value to the PDP enterprise that lacked acceptability, credibility and ability. Most of the electorates despite party differences, commended the efforts put-in-place by Dr. Musa Babayo and Babayo Garba Gamawa whose party affiliation I may not state but they did wonderful and commendable jobs to stabilize the polity, checkmated threats of violent reactions poised by miscreants, chased away merchants of votes buying and their collaborators at polling units within their reach, encouraged security and party agents to execute their official assignments smoothly without undue interference, rendered concerned support to INEC accredited Election Observer Groups as senior stakeholders in the Greater Bauchi Project and openly supported the candidature of President Muhammadu Buhari to safe coast in anticipation of a better Nigeria piloted on the tenets of transparency, probity and the rule of law and resisted all threats dished out by agents of doom strategically positioned to scuttle all efforts for Buhari’s victory.
Definitely, the displayed courage and positive actions of the duo for a stable election did not go down well with some spent horses within the polity across party divide. While Dr. Musa Babayo was busy combing every nook and corner of his senatorial zone to deliver positively to President Buhari as a bond to democracy and good governance, opposition within the APC that was jittery of the efforts displayed by Babayo could not allow positive results to surface and reach the ballot box. They murdered sleep and opted to Plan B of rolling out a vendetta strategy through a well hatched mischief to smear the reputation of Dr. Musa Babayo to deny him any possible recognition by the Buhari led-government in the NEXT LEVEL.
There were sinister and reactionary moves from the living rooms of those who took offence on why Dr. Musa Babayo was all out to deliver Bauchi North to President Buhari and not to Wazirin Adamawa their hidden candidate lacking political base and acceptability?
Babayo was neither frightened nor deterred by the reactionary moves to cripple his determination which was holistic and sincere anchored on focus. He moved ahead as a Spartan and led the team he assembled to deliver the results which were positive and without casualties at the battle field.
The battle is yet to be over since then while destructive mills of the opponents are still booming and steaming out hatred and hate speeches against their target to divert the attention of President Buhari from seeing reason on the inbuilt leadership capacity in Dr. Musa Babayo. We are keenly watching how the game is played.