Is APC’s Defeat A Death Knell On Bindow?

Usman Abdullahi

An eerie and foreboding atmosphere of forlorn and uncertainty is currently cascading the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), in Adamawa State, following its dismal performance in the last presidential and national assembly election.

Despite being at the helm of affairs, the party was roundly defeated at the last election culminating in the defeat of  president Muhammadu Buhari, two out of the three senators and five members of the house of representatives, relegating the once promising and vibrant party to the back seat and to the realm of opposition in the popularity contest.

The fact that the party was subjected to  the bitter pills of rejection, despite the overwhelming popularity of its  presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari who is a son of the state by virtue of conjugal affiliation, in the face of the litany of developmental projects he brought, traversing all the senatorial zones of the state, is a pointer to a fundamental malaise in the party.

More troubling is the fact that both governor Bindow and his deputy, Martins Babale, lost their senatorial zones and a significant number of house of representative members to the opposition party.

The seismic and condescending fall of the behemoth, is a pointer to what awaits the party in the oncoming gubernatorial elections going by the choices and the preferences of the people in the last election.

Going by what prevailed in the presidential and national assembly election, one can be pardoned if he conjectures that APC is a kicking and dying horse because the election has exposed the phenomenal unpopularity of the governor and his deputy occasioned by their lethargic disposition towards the welfare of the people, and the negative public image especially projected by the governor who gained notoriety in deceits and subterfuge, to the extent he was nicknamed ‘’digital’’, a gloomy sobriquet he earned for his slippery and mercurial disposition.

In addition to that, the governor is also wading through a humiliating public image crisis occasioned by the allegation of certificate forgery against him, an issue that became a subject of litigation in recent times.

Like governor Bindow, his deputy who is better educated, is contending with an insurmountable opposition and rejection by his own people due to his failure to attract government patronage to them as well as his penny-wise mien, which left the people with the belief that he is there only to represent himself.

The bad blood between the deputy governor and his people reached its nadir when a socio cultural group in the deputy governor’s stronghold and homestead issued a press statement urging the governor not to pick Babale as his running mate and threatened that the governor could only ignore their demands at his peril.

The people later make good their threats when they virtually frustrated the deputy governor during his preliminary gubernatorial campaign tour of APC to his southern senatorial zone which was marred by violent disruptions.

Due to the violence and ridicule which the campaign train was subjected to, the governor has to suspend the deputy governor in other to avert further humiliation by the people.

Even at that, the governor has to deploy a number of face-saving measures including bribing communities with road contracts, dishing out eleventh hour appointments and employments and extending financial hand-outs before he was able to traverse the state during his campaign tour successfully.

Even in the face of the measures adopted by Bindow, the campaign tour was dogged by myriads of challenges and setbacks such as the rejection it suffers in many parts but noticeably in Yola South and Fufore where the people openly chastised and avoided the governor like a plague.

The APC’s travail is even worsened by the fact that apart from contending with the above and other numerous challenges, the party is not going into the gubernatorial election as one entity unlike what obtains during the presidential and national assembly elections where all stakeholders came together to give the president and overwhelming support.

A party that is on the verge of implosion at the eleventh hour of an epic and keen election, is a party that will surely fail especially putting in mind the vehement desires of the stakeholders to make sure that they either win or wreaked the ship.

Some stakeholders have been openly telling whoever cares to listen that with Bindow flying the flag of the party, its defeat was imminent as they vowed to support other parties in the state.

With these prospects and other numerous challenges facing the governor in the face, will it be preposterous to say that the governor and by extension the APC are goners? Only time will tell.