Sheriff
Borno politics is perhaps as complex as the people of the State. It is a place where bitterness and vendetta are openly expressed in the conduct of politicians. It is a State where performance in office alone cannot guarantee the renewal of mandate. At least, if it was, the first civilian governor of the State, Mohammed Goni would not have suffered the kind of defeat he suffered in 1983, when he attempted renewing his mandate.
Borno, Arewa Report’s investigations further reveal, is a place where you find members of the same family belonging to different political parties. Borno politics is so complex that even in-laws never see eye-to-eye, once the game of politics is involved.
In 1999 for instance, ex-Governor Sheriff slugged it out with the former F.C.T Minister, Architect Ibrahim Bunu for the Borno Central Senatorial seat. Incidentally, the two politicians married from the same family.
In 2003 again, Sheriff supported another candidate against Architect Bunu, for the same seat. This is however not to say that there are not a few politicians who still believe in the late Waziri Ibrahim’s philosophy of “politics without Bitterness”. If anything, Kachallah not only demonstrated it but practiced the philosophy between 1999 and 2003, where he held-sway as the governor of the State.
Interestingly too, Arewa Report gathered that incumbent Governor Kashim Shettima, appears to have imbibed the same philosophy, judging from the way he handled the political squabble between him and his boss, before the bubble burst, and the boss had to leave for the PDP, with a resolve to sack the government, from the State, come 2015. But just how far can he go in realizing the tall ambition?
The 1999 Election
Borno is one State that has remained under ANPP since 1999. Before the 1999 general elections, All Peoples Party, APP, as it was then known paraded the who is who in Borno politics. The list included Gambo Lawan, Senator Maina Ma’aji Lawan, late former Governor Mala Kachallah and the then invincible Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, immediate past governor of the State.
But when it was time to choose the governorship candidate, the big wigs in the party, lost it to Kachallah, a situation that forced Senator Lawan, Gambo Lawan and many others to move en mass with their supporters, to the PDP.
With their defection to the PDP, which equally had known names in Borno politics, many had thought the PDP was good to win the governorship, especially because the candidate, Ambassador Baba Ahmed Jidda, is a tested bureaucrat, who was just leaving government then as the SSG, Secretary to the State Government.
However, by the time the election was won and lost, the PDP was nowhere near the Government House, in spite of the fact of the fact it put up an impressive show in all the other elections, as it had upper hand in the Council polls, and for the National Assembly elections, it produced two out of the three Senators, and even had four out of the 10 members in the House of Representatives.
But because most of those who worked against the party’s candidate were rewarded with political appointments at the centre, after allegedly working tirelessly to ensure the party’s loss, the practice became a norm in the PDP, to work against each other. This, Arewa Report can authoritatively reveal, has been the bane of the party, since 1999.
The 2003 Election
In 2003, when the then incumbent, Kachallah, was dislodged, he was dislodged by another ANPP chieftain, in person of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff. Although the incumbent then had to relocate to the then Alliance for Democracy, AD, to realize his ambition of seeking a second term, he could not withstand both the financial war chest and the political fire power from Sheriff.
Since then, the PDP has remained the strongest opposition party in the State. But according to political observers, it is one party that has remained “unfocused, unorganized and disunited.” And it is unlikely, if Sheriff’s entry into their fold would change anything, especially because there a number of PDP chieftains, who actually left the then ANPP, because of Sheriff.
The elders in Borno were the ones who decided that Kachallah must be the governor, in 1999. This, Arewa Report further learnt, has always been the practice, until Sheriff broke the cycle in 2003. Apart from probably Sheriff’s father, who incidentally was part of those who installed Kachallah, in 1999, no single elder supported Sheriff’s ambition to be governor in 2003. But the youths rallied support for him, having suffered what one of them referred to as a “monumental” obliteration, under Kachallah. Because of his old age, Kachallah was surrounded by old men who lacked vigour and capacity to work.
Although, Sheriff too may not have lived up to expectation, in terms of transforming the State, he has nonetheless demonstrated that one could be something in Borno, without necessarily kowtowing before the elders, who will after installing one, hold one hostage.
The 2007 election
The only time the PDP got close to working for a common goal, was in 2007. By which time, the likes of Honourable Mohammed Umara Kumalia and Hajia Fati Ibrahim Bulama known in the local parlance as ‘Hajja Kinna,’ had all left the ANPP, for the PDP. The two former political associates of the governor alongside their armies of supporters were on hand in 2003 to sway victory in favour of SAS when he contested against the then incumbent, Alhaji Mala Kachallah (AD) and Kashim Ibrahim-Imam (PDP).
When Hajja Kinna and Kumalia along with their entire political structures moved into the traditional opposition party in the State, the PDP, many had concluded that for the PDP, it was victory and nothing else at the 2007 polls. The stake became higher when former governor, Kachallah, also moved with his entire AD structure into the PDP.
However, before the polls, Kumalia again moved from the PDP to the defunct Action Congress (AC), owing to the fact he was denied a waiver to contest the governorship primary election, even when others, like Senator Mohammed Abba Aji, who defected long after Kumalia had defected, were given waiver to contest. The action, no doubt depleted the PDP’s support base.
Although, Kumalia eventually contested the governorship on the platform of the defunct ACN, Sheriff, was later to emerge governor, in a controversial circumstance, as votes were still been counted in Maiduguri, the State capital, when Sheriff was declared the winner of the contest from Abuja. Once that was done, Arewa Report further learnt, the party met and decided to withdraw from all the other remaining elections, especially the National Assembly elections, after it established that some persons within the Presidency, actually worked to undermine the party in the State. And that was how Sheriff became the first sitting governor, to break the second term jinx, in the State.
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