Governors’ defections and the myth of state control
Senate President Godswill Akpabio was upbeat the other day about how certain governors from the opposition parties were about defecting to the APC.
The way he went about it, you’d be forgiven to assume that all that matters for a party to win majority votes in a state is to have the governor identify with that particular party.
If the Senate President had bothered to check, he would realise that that is not the case as many governors do not have that grip on their states and that the current set of governors are even battling to win either win second terms, or, for those in their second terms, ensuring their parties retain their states.
Yes, in the past, some governors were the all and all in their respective states. They were charismatic, popular and in firm control and could point the political direction for majority of the people of the state to follow.
But even then, there were exceptions. As charismatic as Abubakar Rimi was in the 2nd Republic, he couldn’t win Kano when he defected to another party in 1983 because the image of Malam Aminu Kano on whose back he rode to power in 1979 was bigger than him.
It is even worse these days, due mainly to how most of the current governors were nominated to contest the elections.
They’re not like governors of yore who won on account of their popularity, track records and achievements.
Most of the current set of governors except for a few were hardly known before they were handpicked by a godfather and foisted on the populace.
Unfortunately even after assuming office , some still continued behaving like employees of their backers, not making any impact on their own with the godfather’s hands seen in every move or action they take.
Those of them that dare rebel to claim their independence have ruefully lost out in the tussle and have been compelled to fall into line with the masses even blaming them for fighting those that made it possible for them to be governors.
Nigeria used to have powerful governors who can boast of mass appeal and endorsement hence can determine the swing at any election in their domain.
Good examples that come to mind are Solomon Lar of the old Plateau state; Sam Mbakwe of the old Imo State, and latter day governors like Bola Tinubu of Lagos, Jonah Jang of Plateau; George Akume of Benue; Ahmed Sani of Zamfara and later, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of Kano.
The story of Lar and Mbakwe and how they fought the ruling parties in their time needs narrating here to emphasizes the point.
Lar and Mbakwe were of the NPP, which meant that they were not in the same party with party in control of the center. Lar was almost boxed into a corner when President Sheu Shagari appointed John Kadiya as the FCT minister in one of the early cases where ministers are empowered to wrest power from the opposition parties in their states.
But Lar, despite the onslaught and heavy machinery deployed against him, was able to retain power.
Same thing with Mbakwe, who demonstrated a stay power even when Anambra his next door neighbour fell to the NPN.
But in the current dispensation, one can mention those that can brag about understanding the power dynamics in their states to the extent that they can be relied upon to point the direction for the masses in their states.
To some degree but not in any way comparable to the hold past governors have in their states, one can say that the governors of Zamfara, Dauda Lawal, that of Kaduna, Uba Sani, that of Enugu, Peter Mbah and that of Niger, Mohammed Umar Bago have started on good footings towards attaining that hold.
Lawal is able to lay that foundation because it is believed he funded his own election and did not rely on any godfather, while Sani is able to find his way because he parted ways with his godfather and identified where his predecessor was high handed and reversed such policies with those that are human-faced.
In Benue, though the reverend father governor is trying to do what Sani has done in Kaduna, he has not yet attained that rank as the image of his erstwhile godfather, who is holding a prominent position in Abuja still hovers around the political stratosphere.
Again, some of the governors that are defecting are not doing so to place the ruling party at an advantage but for their own political survival as they see it as the only way they can remain relevant in the scheme of things
That is why the news hardly carries any weight when a governor is said to have moved to another party. It surely doesn’t carry that image of someone moving with the majority of the voters in his state .
In the recent case of Akwa Ibom even some of his commissioners rebelled and refused to move with him .
In the present circumstance, when a governor defects to the ruling party, it at best only means the state’s resources and the instrument of coercion would be made available in favour of the party but the remarkable dissonance between the governors and the masses is such that the news no longer excites or suggests that he has taken the state with him.
Many governors have lost their seats and have failed to have their candidates succeed them. This shows they’re not that powerful.
@AgbeseAndrew writes from Abuja
