Kenny Ashaka
Some symptoms indeed signaled the impending downfall of Alhaji Umoru Bindow Jubrilla, the Adamawa State governor. With his challenger, former Speaker of the Adamawa State House of Assembly and one-time acting governor, Alhaji Ahmadu Umoru Fintiri leading with a vote margin of 32,476 after polling 367,471 votes ahead of Jubrilla’s 334,995 votes in the March 9 poll and the battle for the 40,998 votes in the make-up election of last Thursday, it would have been a supernatural act of God for Jubrilla to survive the great force and power of those who offered opposition to his candidacy.
Fintiri’s path to gaining superiority in the contest was, therefore, cut short by the March 9 election, when the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared the election inconclusive in the state. Indeed, it was a victory that was foretold when Fintiri and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, won all 44 units in the 14 Local councils during the make-up poll.
When, therefore, his defeat was announced by the state’s Returning Officer, Prof Andrew Haruna it was a classic anti-climax to the years of hostile attitude to him and his cabinet by people he once trusted. To top politicians of the APC in Adamawa State, it was goodbye to a governor whose gentle outward look was masked in a deadly cunning instinct for survival, as well as a mind which readily conceived of schemes to liquidate potential successors. For Bindow, his descent into a state of being forgotten as a political figure that commands respect was a gradual process. It was a product of political miscalculation that pare-off that distinctive, but intangible quality that now surrounds him. The battle for supremacy between Jubrilla and Fintiri did not start with the March 9 governorship poll. It started in 2014 when Fintiri led a state assembly that sacked the then Governor Murtala Nyako. A bye-election was ordered by INEC and Jubrilla and Fintiri became the contestants. The contest ended in a puff of smoke as it never held due to an Abuja Federal High Court judgment, which ordered Bala James Ngilari to take over as the state’s chief executive.
Fintiri is well known in Adamawa State as one of the frontline politicians, who as the acting governor of the state paid civil servants backlog of salaries, allowances and leave grants, including pension and gratuity of retired civil servants in just two and half months of his reign. The actions earned him the sobriquet of “ATM Alert”. A successful businessman who was elected to represent Madagali Constituency in 2007 and re-elected in 2011, Fintiri rose to become the Speaker of the Adamawa State House of Assembly. He held that position up till 2015 when he twice became the acting governor of the state, after leading the impeachment move that saw to the removal of Governor Murtala Nyako and his deputy, Bala James Ngilari. A historian of the University of Maiduguri stock, Fintiri’s slogan of “the happy days are here again” worked for his election.
While Fintiri was a state lawmaker, Jubrilla was a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria representing Adamawa North Senatorial District, where he was Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Defence. As a Senator, Jubrilla kept faith with his people and delivered dividends of democracy to the extent he was tagged “digital” in Adamawa State. As a governor he has reasonable influence. But this influence has been overwhelmed by the array of intra-party squabbles since he assumed office as the state’s chief executive. Unfortunately, he was in the race with strong contenders like former acting governor and candidate of the PDP, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, Senator Abdulazeez Murtala Nyako of the ADC and Emmanuel Bello of the SDP
In 2015, Jubrilla, a man described as lacking the line of descent of a purebred politician and structures picked the All Progressives Congress, APC, ticket using former Governor Murtala Nyako’s political structure. Jubrilla’s style of governance eventually led to a sharp division within the APC fold. There is the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, David Lawan Babachir-led faction supported by the wife of the president, Aisha Buhari which preferred Dr Halilu Modibbo, her younger brother who went to court to demand cancellation of the APC primary, alleging glaring irregularities. Former Governor Murtala Nyako-led faction known as “Black Cap” which produced former EFCC Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu was another force against the Jubrilla faction.
While matters got to a head the stakeholders saw the governor as a contentious leader, a brawler who quarrels about small matters. It turned to a rumpus with the governor’s men accusing the stakeholders of a gang-up because of the governor’s refusal to keep from falling what they described as the long standing tradition of sharing state resources to individuals and groups. The governor’s men also accused the stakeholders of petty jealousy and envy of the rising profile of the governor.
The just concluded presidential and national assembly polls during which the APC lost Jubrilla’s senatorial district and the southern zone with large voting population provided the spark that led to series of unexpected and unpleasant occurrences with the stakeholders accusing the governor of being responsible for the party’s failure. The APC did not only lost Adamawa North and South senatorial seats with 14 out of the 21 local councils in the state, but also lost four House of Representatives seats of Numan/Demsa/Lamurde, Guyuk/Shelleng, Michika/Madagali and Fufore/Song, all of which were held by the PDP. As the crisis deepened, the stakeholders became more decided and chose to work against the governor. For example, the Nuhu Ribadu supporters lined up behind Abdulazeez Nyako of the ADC.
Former Governor Murtala Nyako once accused the governor of insincerity, poor leadership abilities, betrayal of trust and concluded that the governor’s incompetence subjugated the people of the state to untold hardship in addition to mortgaging the future of the state with loans running into N80 billion in less than four years despite the “huge” allocations that accrued to the state from the federation account.
In February, candidates of 10 political parties that entered a pact with Governor Jubrilla withdrew their support. The parties, under the aegis of New Generation Governorship Forum led by the gubernatorial candidate of the YPP, Dr Simon Bawa, said they decided to commence their respective campaigns as governorship candidates to fully participate in the March 9 election because of the governor’s failure to work with their advice for good governance.
Before this withdrawal, Jubrilla’s re-election bid to Dougerei House, Yola was fraught with jolts and rough rides. He had been involved in a battle of wits with political friends-turned enemies, beneficiaries and benefactors. By extension, it was a battle between a rebellious political godson and two godfathers. Jubrilla became a political gambler who thought he understood his people and their politics. He thus took his biggest gamble when he decided to seek re-election. The election, therefore, provided an opportunity for the politicians to vent their pent up frustrations to a regime they said had been insensitive to their needs and lost touch with the people.
In 2015, he got the ticket largely because of Atiku. He defeated Atiku and Murtala Nyako’s candidates. However, Atiku forgave him and literally bankrolled his campaign. Atiku had expected him to return the gesture by following him to the PDP. Alas, Jubrilla thought he had cut his political teeth. The decision to remain in the APC was said to have hurt the feelings of Atiku as it amounted to a disposition to annoy his benefactor. Eventually, Atiku felt a disposition to behave in a way that would remind the governor of his disloyalty by encouraging Ahmadu Fintiri, the former acting governor of the state to run against him.
In the build up to the election, no support came from his party even as he faces the Atiku factor. He merely ran on the momentum set by the February 23 presidential and national assembly polls because Buhari is a phenomenon in Adamawa State. But the person of Atiku has stopped all that with his victory over Buhari in the state. As it was, Jubrilla has frittered away the goodwill that brought him to power. He was a child of circumstance brought about by the various contending forces in the state that converged to bring him in. Placing the Buhari and Atiku factors on a scale and concluding then that the Buhari factor will always go the extra mile for him was the bane of his ambition.
Jubrilla’s luck as a governor which saw him survive four years of governance in the state has seen him leaving behind a polarized party with top members throwing in the towel not for any other cause than that their elastic limits have been stretched more than they can bear.