The Nyako/Jonathan lovelorn By Phineas Padio Governor Murtala Nyako and President Goodluck Jonathan were before the 2011 presidential election the best of friends. But things have changed for the worse. The two leaders as of now have suddenly become strange bed fellows; and if you don’t mind, they are right at the lowest ebb of the ‘no permanent friend’ maxim characteristic of political betrayal”. Their friendship started consequent upon President Yar’adua’s death and Jonathan’s subsequent elevation to full fledge presidency. Afterward, the camaraderie blossomed and towered rapidly to enviable heights akin to longstanding acquaintances for obvious reason. The president needed big shoulders, such as Nyako’s from the North to lean on to realize his dream. However, after the president’s victory at the 2011 poll, everything came down crashing with proportionate velocity, just like the proverbial “used and dumped” adage. Like me, many political watchers couldn’t just fathom the ugly twist, seeing from all indication; the presidency appears to be scheming for Nyako’s jugular. And as a Nyako lieutenant once puts it, “Oga had to draw from his military experience to deflect arsenals targeted at him and his government”. Either by design or default, President Jonathan’s countenance towards Adamawa state and Nyako in particular has arguably dimmed with its attendant consequences. An early sign indicating the president was no longer favorably disposed to Adamawa manifested in FG’s lackluster approach to Nyako’s bid to tap electricity form Lagdo dam in Cameroon. Govenor Nyako’s drive to augment our epileptic power supply by taping 30 megawatts from Cameroon is being matched by frustrating bureaucratic bottlenecks from Abuja. Another irrefutable symptom of an unhealthy relationship between Jonathan and Nyako manifested when the latter’s ministerial nominees were turned down, making Adamawa the only state without a cabinet minister on its slot. This is because, besides her Nasarawa state originality, Zainab Maina (Women Affairs Minister) is believed to have been nominated into the federal cabinet by Dame Patience Jonathan. To further provoke Nyako, Jonathan insisted on shopping for the national chairman of the ruling PDP from among Nyako’s fierce antagonists, hence the emergence of Bamanga Tukur against all odds in that capacity. This was preceded by the appointment of a horde of Adamawa-born anti Nyako elements into key positions in the presidency. Several such presidency appointees have expectedly joint forces with the national chairman to ground their home government, solely to drag Nyako into disrepute. The import of which is playing out in the political cyclone that is currently rocking Adamawa polity and Nyako’s government. As to how and why Mr. President chose to hurriedly dump his friends and other sundry issues, remain to be discussed, but I have reserved them for the concluding part of this treatise. Nonetheless, when the going was good, the bond of friendship between Governor Nyako and President Jonathan was marked by mutual respect encapsulated in the adoption and application of reverential pet name to refer to each other. To Nyako, Jonathan was Mai Nasara, while Nyako became Jonathan’s only Honorary Presidential Adviser, as well as a 7-Star General. Mai nasara (the conqueror), alluding to how Jonathan would surely conquer his Northern challengers in the poll in view (which he did), captured Nyako’s reckoning of the man Jonathan. President Jonathan on his part, wielding the enormous powers of the Commander in Chief, requited proportionately and bestowed on a retired 3-star General, a post retirement 7-star General. Presumably, that was Jonathan’s reciprocal gesture in recognition of Governor Nyako’s goodwill and how he deployed tremendous munificence in persuading the North to shift grounds on its initial stance about rotational presidency. Indeed Governor Nyako, who commands high respect across the North, played a significant role in dousing tension across the region. And with the backing of the duo of Jigawa’s Lamido and Sokkoto’s Wamakko Jonathan got Nigeria’s first clearly decided electoral victory in about 13 years. During those days of strategizing and electioneering, even before things turned sour, presidential jets were a common sight at the Yola International Airport. It is either Governor Nyako was returning home after a late night meeting with the president or he was jetting out to traverse the length and breadth of the North to deploy his goodwill for a Jonathan 2011 project. Besides, the Dougire Government House in Yola became a Jonathan regional campaign office of some sort, hosting high level political meetings to rebrand and to fine-tune Mr. President’s acceptability across the North and it worked. First, Governor Nyako hosted his PDP colleagues from the North and later all PDP governors, including APGA’s Peter Obi for just one purpose; to sell Jonathan’s candidacy. At Adamawa state level, I remember with nostalgia, how Governor Nyako vigorously and doggedly so, toured all the 226 political wards in the state doing just one thing; canvassing votes for President Jonathan. His message was consistently simple and straight to the point as mostly conveyed in Hausa language thus, “kuriya ga Mai nasara don hadin kan kasa”, meaning a vote for Jonathan is a vote for national unity. During one of those outings, precisely in Mubi North, an angry crowd at a rally heckled the governor for chanting Jonathan’s campaign slogan. The governor chanted “Nigeria” to a defiant crowd who chorused “Sai Buhari” (Buhari is our choice) back at him. Despite that the governor deployed other diplomatic means and secured a landslide victory for the PDP in the area. This was coming against all odds, because the popular clamor in and around the North was that the PDP zoning formula, which ceded power to the region from 2007 to 2015, must be respected. However, Jonathan, supported by the Nyako/Lamido/Wamakko tripod, gave Buhari (CPC) and the duo of Shekarau (ANPP) and Ribadu (ACN), all of Northern extraction a humiliating defeat, even in the North according to the “mai nasara” mantra. Governor Nyako, alongside two of his colleagues, Sule Lamido of Jigawa and Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto, persuaded the region and secured the landslide victory at a cost though. Like the “German three musketeers”, the detribalized governors were consequently labeled by bigots as anti-Islam in supposed “denigrating” terms such as, Bishop, Reverend-father, etc., simply because in view of the prevailing circumstance, they conceded to national unity and supported a presidential candidate from the South. For Jonathan sake they were maligned, demonized and insulted. Uncouth language and text messages conveying the supposed “denigrating” Reverend-father cliché were circulated among core hardliners and chauvinists, obviously intended to embarrass and possibly to ostracize the trio. Besides, Nyako had other home grown hate campaigners to grapple with, due to his role in the PDP presidential primary where former vice president, Atiku Abubakar performed abysmally. To several such tribal and/or ethnic champions Nyako was caught in the unpardonable sin for aiding an “alien” to defeat his kinsman at the primary election. To the bigots, this “unpatriotic” action was treasonably punishable; hence the crucifixion calls in loquacious terms against him (Nyako). This also explains the reason behind the barrage of attacks against Nyako’s government despite the surpassing feat it has achieved so far in Adamawa. Much as the government of Murtala Nyako is rendered distasteful in a section of the mass media at the expense of the political elites, the reality however, is exactly the opposite on ground. This is because the teeming masses are holding the governor in high esteem, celebrating his administration as the best thing that has happened to the state. This they do, pointing to his multifaceted approach to grassroots economic empowerment. A program that is being implemented on a wide range of skill acquisition programs. They also celebrate Nyako as a grand master for bringing to the state commercial agriculture, which earned the state CBN’s award of “Commercial Agriculture State of the year”. As regards Nyako’s indispensable role in the 2011 presidential election that returned Jonathan elected, all that is now history. The president has since consolidated his hold on the reins of power and seems interested in staying beyond 2015, even as betrayed by his body language. Regrettably, scheming to that effect has occupied the better part of his presidency, with the attendant heated polity to show for it. For instance, the Nyako/Jonathan lovelorn partly accounts for the smoke-signal indicating a desire to cling onto power at the expiration of the current tenure, just as it also reveals the desperation therein, and how the focus to achieving it defines the bizarre culture of betrayal currently at play. To get a good perspective of the “things fall apart”, a peep down two years of memory lane will suffice. It would be recalled, buildup to the 2011 presidential election, Nyako was one of the leaders who initially declined support for President Jonathan’s decision to contest. Congruent to popular view, his stand was to uphold national unity, which was being threatened by the president’s brazen disregard to the zoning principle and his ambition to rule again. Therefore, as it was back then, just as it is today, the bone of contention is the vexed zoning formula. The PDP under its pioneer leader, President Olusegun Obasanjo adopted eight-year rotational presidency, along South and North divides as part of palliative measures to fostering national unity. The then Bayelsa deputy governor, Goodluck Jonathan, participated on behalf of his boss, Governor Alamesiyagha who was in the custody of British police on corruption charges but later jumped bail and fled back home. On this premise, Nyako in his consistent fidelity pegged his grip to respect the zoning arrangement, but later succumbed upon a plea to let President Jonathan complete Yar’adua’s eight-year term to allow for a fresh start of the zoning. Interestingly and disturbingly too, Mr. President having reneged on the zoning pact, put out fruitless attempts to deny it ever existed, and from all indication, the same antics still subsist. Already, political jobbers within the corridors of power in Abuja have commenced the game in their usual uncouth language with mane calling; threatening hell and brimstone against those with a contrary view on their master’s post 2015 ambition. As it is, the 2015 presidential contest is on the front burner and our president appear ready to do practically anything, including stabbing his former friends to have his way. But this to me is a bad omen for our dear country, because if those upon whose shoulders we have thrust our mandate would so cheaply give away rational thinking for the sake of power, then an austere future awaits us. Alas, prominent Adamawa elites are those in the vanguard of fanning the embers of hatred against our state. Against this backdrop it is largely believed Adamawa was smuggled into the ongoing emergency rule in three Northeastern states. As if that is not enough, a presidential directive has also been issued barring our state from embarking on federal projects, which Governor Nyako is wont to do. These measures are being tactically coordinated to deny our state the much needed democracy dividends at federal level in the face of dilapidated federal infrastructure. For instance, the Jimeta-Yola road is part of the critical federal infrastructure here in Adamawa needing urgent rehabilitation, but the governor must not go near it according to the presidential directive. The Nyako administration had rehabilitated the Yola-Numan trunk ‘A’ road, built three bridges along Fufore trunk ‘A’ road, constructed Pella/Maiha trunk ‘A’ road to ninety percent completion before it was stopped by the presidential order. For these and other projects tackled by the Nyako led government, Adamawa is being owed N90 billion by the federal government. While I’m saddened by what Adamawa masses have to go through just because our governor risked differing with the president on principles, I also salute his courage and Wish to say carry on; we the masses are behind you and together we shall conquer, Bappa!
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 13:05:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015