Abdullahi Adamu: Old War Horse in New Battle to Save a ‘Sinking Ship’ By Lawan Bukar Maigana
He, perhaps, never had it as his burning political ambition ever since the race for 2023 begun in earnest.
Up till February this year, he was content with being described as a three-term member of the National Assembly (NASS).
Still representing the ‘industrious’ and ‘good people’ of Nasarawa West Senatorial District, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, could have had the thought of, once again, returning to the Red Chamber, dashing across his mind.
But providence was apparently not envisioning his return to the Senate, by next year. It had something great and lofty in stock for him, rather.
It was that, Adamu, who is the ‘Turakin Keffi’, instead will be the one to captain the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) ship into the 2023 general elections…. As nothing else, but the party’s National Chairman.
There is every cause to label his glorious elevation from the hallowed Red Chamber to President Muhammadu Buhari House (the APC National Secretariat) as a divine ordainment.
Otherwise, how does one explain the event that catapulted a party’s ‘Chief Reconciliator’ to the exalted seat of Mr. Chairman?
How could a party chieftain, who initially did not throw his hat into the ring for the seat of the APC National Chairman, while other bigwigs did, surprisingly become APC helmsman, at the national level?
But since the way of God is totally different from man’s way, Sen. Adamu, against all permutations, intrigues and in a manner that was even mystifying, emerged as Mr. President’s anointed candidate for the plum job in their ruling party, ahead of the March 26 convention.
This came several months, if not almost a year, after political gladiators like Sen. Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, another former Nasarawa Governor; Abdulaziz Yari, immediate-past Governor of Zamfara State; Sen. George Akume, a two-time Governor of Benue State; and Sen. Ali Modu Sherriff, a former Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of Borno State, among other notable APC politicians, had declared their interests for the Chairmanship seat, in the just-concluded convention of the party.
To many, the news of Buhari settling for Sen. Adamu, also a former Governor of the ‘Home of Solid Minerals’, as APC’s new national Chairman, sometime in February this year, is one that did not rattle them.
The 76-year-old illustrious Nasarawa politician is a fearless, albeit patriotic democrat, who has indeed paid his dues. Adamu, also has impeccably proved his mettle in Nigeria’s shark-infested politics.
Born on July 23, 1946, in Keffi town, Sen. Adamu joined politics in 1977, when he was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly, which drafted the 1979 Constitution.
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He thereafter became a founding member of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), an offshoot of the political association, the National Movement. That was when Nasarawa was still part of the old Plateau state.
His outstanding leadership skills at that time led to his election as Secretary of the NPN in Plateau state, and later its chairman.
At a time the new APC helmsman assumed office after taking over from Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe, who was the immediate-past Caretaker Chairman of the ruling party, many Nigerians are discontended with the abysmal performance of his party, especially at the federal level.
Separately, not a few APC members are still boiling over the ‘dictatorial’, ‘oppressive’ and ‘vindictive’ style the affairs of their party is being run, especially by President Buhari, State Governors, and influential party leaders, in cahoot with overbearing godfathers.
Since Adamu himself, and many other members of the newly-inaugurated National Working Committee, NWC, of the APC are by-products of an electoral process with trappings of an ‘imposition’, it is safe to conclude that they won’t mind going the whole hog to the biddings of their paymasters.
But doing so, has dire consequences which a methodical Adamu, and his team are certainly not oblivious of.
Nobody knows that the die has since been cast, better than him. Therefore, as the new Sheriff of APC, Adamu must do everything possible to clean the party’s Augean Stable, warts and all.
As Head of the ruling party’s Reconciliation Committee before his emergence as Mr. Chairman, Sen. Adamu will have to redouble efforts, aimed at forging cohesion and peace in the party.
To justify Buhari and the APC Governors’ confidence on him, he must swiftly embark on mending fences, healing fractures and infectious wounds in the party.
Adamu must see it an obligation to extend olive branches to aggrieved party members not only at the national level, but across the states.
The onerous task he must strive to accomplish now is to make the ruling APC, whose image has been terribly sullied as a result of bad governance in the last seven years, the toast of many disenchanted, albeit apolitical citizens.
He has a lot to do in convincing the Nigerian electorate to renew his party’s mandate at the federal and state levels, in next year’s poll.
In the interim, Sen. Adamu, whose wealth of experience as a tested politician, seasoned lawmaker, and brilliant administrator is absolutely vast, should as a matter-of-fact deploy his ample energy, resources, and wisdom to rescuing the derailing and fast-sinking APC vessel.
Time has already started ticking for the Turakin Keffi, an old war horse, who has been thrusted with the responsibility of ‘surgically operating’ a ruling party (that was once the ‘beautiful bride’ of many citizens), to deliver.
Sen. Adamu, truly, cannot afford to flunk if he desires to bequeath enduring legacies after his tenure as APC Chairman.
