By Ali Abare
It has become necessary to draw the attention of the public, party faithful and all well-meaning stakeholders of the All Progressives Congress in Nasarawa State to a troubling pattern of conduct that is fast becoming a distraction from the serious business of party building ahead of the 2027 general elections.
What we are witnessing is a deliberate and coordinated attempt by a handful of individuals to use the media to undermine positions that the majority of the party’s stakeholders have already reached through legitimate consultations and engagements.
Let the record be clear. Governor Abdullahi Sule, as the leader of the APC in Nasarawa State, convened a high-level meeting that brought together governorship aspirants, former governors, senators and critical stakeholders of the party to chart a way forward for the 2027 governorship primary election.
That meeting was attended by Senator Abdullahi Adamu, former two-term governor of the state and former national chairman of the APC, as well as Senator Umaru Tanko Al-makura, also a former governor.
After extensive and sometimes heated deliberations, it was resolved that the 2027 governorship primary election would be decided through a direct primary election. Governor Sule, responding to the insistence of some aspirants that there was no formal zoning arrangement in the state but only a brotherly understanding to rotate the governorship seat among the three senatorial zones, accepted their position but immediately exercised his first right of refusal to ensure that the 2027 governorship ticket is rotated to Nasarawa West.
This means that while any aspirant from any part of Nasarawa State is free to contest the primary, the APC’s flagbearer for the 2027 governorship election will emerge from Nasarawa West Senatorial District.
This is the position of the Governor. It is also the position that the majority of the party’s stakeholders are aligned with. It is not an imposition. It is not a violation of any constitutional provision. It is leadership, exercised with restraint, in the interest of equity and the long-term stability of the party and the state.
That is what makes the conduct of certain individuals particularly difficult to understand and impossible to justify. Instead of engaging the process through the proper channels available within the party structure, some persons have chosen to take their grievances to the media, in apparent defiance of what was resolved through due consultation. They present themselves as champions of open democracy and free contestation. But a closer look at the specific actions of some of these individuals tells a different story.
Take the case of former deputy governor Silas Ali Agara, who is contesting for the Nasarawa North senatorial seat vacated by the late Senator Godiya Akwashiki. When stakeholders from Akwanga, Wamba and Nasarawa Eggon met under the presiding authority of Governor Sule and resolved that the APC candidate for the senatorial bye-election should come from Nasarawa Eggon, that was a decision reached through genuine consultation among the people most directly concerned.
Former deputy governor Agara was not present at that stakeholders meeting. Yet he chose to address the media afterwards, declaring that there is no zoning of any elective office in the state, not the governorship, not the senatorial seat, nothing.
He went further to suggest that the people of Nasarawa North are not interested in the deputy governorship position that was being discussed but in the governorship itself. With respect, the former deputy governor is entitled to his ambitions and his opinions. What he is not entitled to do is to misrepresent the outcome of consultations he did not attend and to use public platforms to discountenance decisions taken in his absence by people who were present.
Similarly, the position being taken publicly by former Inspector General of Police Mohammed Abubakar Adamu deserves to be addressed directly and with the same respect that his distinguished career commands.
The retired IGP is a son of Nasarawa State. He has served this nation at the highest level of law enforcement and his contributions to national security are on record. Nobody is disputing his right to contest any elective office in Nasarawa State. What must be said clearly, however, is that his insistence in a public press conference that there is nothing like zoning in Nasarawa State, and his active opposition to the consensus approach that had successfully guided the party’s congresses from ward level all the way to the national level, contributed significantly to the decision to abandon consensus in favour of direct primaries for the governorship. That is his right.
But it must also be said that when one individual’s public posturing forces a reversal of a party decision that the majority had agreed to, that individual is not serving the interest of the party. He is serving his own interest.
Let nobody be in any doubt about what the Governor’s position means in practice. Nasarawa State has an established tradition of governorship succession that has held since the return of democracy in 1999.
Senator Abdullahi Adamu, as the first civilian governor, supported the rotation of the seat to Nasarawa South when he was leaving office. Former Governor Al-makura, despite the pressures he faced from aspirants across all three zones during his tenure, ensured that the succession process ultimately produced a governor from Nasarawa North in the person of Governor Sule.
This tradition has not always been easy to maintain. In every succession cycle, there have been voices of dissent, individuals who argued that the contest should be thrown open and that the best man should win regardless of where he comes from. In each case, those voices were loud. In each case, the tradition prevailed. The 2027 cycle will be no different.
Governor Sule is not acting on personal whims. He is acting in line with the very same spirit that guided his own emergence in 2019. He understands what it means to have the support of the outgoing governor, the party structure and the majority of stakeholders. He is now in that position himself, and he is exercising that responsibility in a manner consistent with the tradition of the state.
The Governor remains committed to a free, fair and credible direct primary election. Every aspirant who meets the requirements of the party is welcome to contest. But the outcome of that primary will reflect the will of the party’s members, and the party’s members across Nasarawa State understand the tradition that has kept this state politically stable for over two decades.
Those who are banking on the noise they are currently generating to change that tradition should study the history of this state more carefully.
We call on all stakeholders, aspirants and party members to channel their energies into productive engagement within the party, to respect the consultations that have already taken place, and to avoid using the media to create unnecessary tension where the Governor has done everything possible to manage a delicate situation with maturity and statesmanship.
The APC in Nasarawa State is one family. It should conduct itself as such.
Abare is the Senior Special Assistant on Media to Governor Abdullahi Sule.