allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Battling for Power Shift (Page 1 of 2)

By 2011, Bauchi Central will have held onto the governorship of the state for 12 uninterrupted years and based on this sentiment, political forces in both Bauchi North and Central are mobilising for the defeat of Governor Isa Yuguda in an election that will hold in about three year's time.

Although the battle royale is three years away, the race for the Bauchi state Government House has already begun as entrenched forces and political foes are engaging Governor Isa Yuguda in a game of wits in a bid to recapture the soul of the state from him.

The shape, texture and colours of forces that wrested power from former Governor Adamu Mu'azu are largely the same with those who now want to put an end to Yuguda's reign in 2011. Mu'azu himself has, according to reports, solidly pitched his tent with the opposition forces against Yuguda.

In fact, the calculations are that by 2011, Yuguda would have spent only four years in office and that would not have been long enough for him to have built a solid political network with which he could consolidate his hold on power.

Feelers from the State are that even if Yuguda builds a solid structure, it may not help see him scale the re-election hurdle. The argument is that in 2011, Yuguda should pave way for someone from either Bauchi North or Bauchi Central Senatorial district to step in the saddle. By so doing, according to the opposition, there will be equity and fairness in political power sharing in the state. Bauchi South, they argue, has had more that a fair share of the governorship, having produced Mu'azu and Yuguda. Opposition elements and analysts argue that to allow Yuguda to be governor in 2011 is to allow Bauchi South district to enjoy the governorship for sixteen uninterrupted years.

The campaign for equity and the push for Yuguda's ouster would not have assumed the current frenzy if governance has been popular, participatory and accommodating of the opposition. Presently, this administration is seen as Machiavellian in disposition. The governor, according to reports, has shown his intolerance to opposition elements all in a bid to hold on to power beyond 2011. On the eve of election, he caused the disqualification of about ninety-five per cent of PDP and AC candidates during the just-concluded local government elections. From the beginning, the integrity of the electoral process had been compromised.

Opposition elements see this as Yuguda's first mistake. They also speak of his government's non-performance compared with the Mu'azu administration. However, Muazu frustrated internal democracy in the PDP, thus forcing many politicians out of the party. These elements found accommodation in All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Action Congress (AC). According to reports, these decampees are planning to return to the PDP ahead of the 2011 governorship race in a concerted battle to wrest power from Yuguda.

Although Yuguda has not begun to talk of re-election yet, his body language and the discernible consequences of his current moves and/or actions point to a second term agenda. However, Yuguda's publicists dismiss the report of a second term agenda at this point in time, as diversionary. In an interview, Malam Ibrahim Baba, the Special Assistant to the governor on Youth Development had said that his boss is more concerned about how to deliver on his current mandate. According to him, "what we are talking of now is how to serve our people and this is what is going on. Take, for instance, the education sector. His Excellency was able to, within a short period of time, rehabilitate so many secondary schools, award so many contracts for the renovation, reconstruction and actual construction of so many primary schools in the state; and the sinking of boreholes and provision of pipe-borne water. He further said that "the renovation and rehabilitation of secondary schools are on-going and most of them have been completed."

Feelers from Bauchi State say that the battle ahead is not about achievements. Rather, it is going to be about the determination of the entire Bauchi North Senatorial district (Katagum zone) to grab what it feels rightly belongs to it in 2011. The area believes that Yuguda is utilizing its slot as governor.

Indeed, Yuguda had emerged as governor in a compromise arrangement by the opposition elements in order to thwart Mu'azu's attempt to use PDP machinery to impose a successor on the people. This bid was scuttled through the collective and passionate determination of the people of the State to vote and police their votes and to ensure that they were counted and the results announced. This time around, political forces in Bauchi North are back into the trenches in what promises to be an acrimonious battle for the soul of the state.

Reports from the State say that the current Minister of Defence, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed and serving Senator Suleiman Nazif are the drum majors of the zone's battle to take what they think rightly belongs to it in 2011.

Significantly, Bauchi Central also wants one of its own in Government House in about three year's time. However, political realignments, according to analysts, may in the long run swing it in favour of the North because it has been more vocal and more cor-ordinated in the campaign for equity in power sharing in the State.There is the possibility that Mu'azu, Ahmed and Nazif, with their wide political structures, may strike an accord that would conduce to the defeat of Yuguda in 2011.

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