Signs that politicians do not feel the pulse of the people they govern could be seen in the comments made by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, when he visited Ondo State last Sunday. His remarks were clearly insensitive to the plights of Nigerians
When he led members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC to a stakeholders' meeting in Akure, the state capital, Ganduje had declared that the ruling party would capture the entire South-western states starting with the Ondo State governorship election in November.
The former Kano State governor, however, stressed that the strategy to be deployed would be kept under wraps.
As of now, the APC is calling the shots in four of the six states constituting the South-west region, while the governors elected on the platform of PDP are controlling the remaining two - Osun and Oyo states.
Speaking at the meeting, Ganduje said the ruling party was working very hard to ensure it spreads its tentacles ahead of the 2027 general election. He noted that taking over control of these two states would boost the reelection bid of President Bola Tinubu, who is from the region, in 2027.
The last time all the governors in the South-west belonged to the same party was in 1999.
Then, all the South-west governors were elected on the platform of Alliance for Democracy (AD) and they served from 1999-2003 when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) under President Olusegun Obasanjo swept them all, except Lagos State.
It is obvious that all Ganduje is after is to capture more states for his party and not how to improve the quality of peoples' lives. Rather than working with the federal government to address the current economic hardship Nigerians are experiencing, his focus is how to win the 2027 presidential election when the present administration is barely one year in office.
All over the country there are lamentations of the level of poverty, unemployment, and insecurity in the country, particularly in the north where he hails from. These challenges do not bother Ganduje.
