Elections in Nigeria were once about popularity, the will of the people and the aspiring politicians’ persuasion skills.
Now they are as much about ingratiating yourself into the election management system.
They are about getting the endorsement of powerful politicians in the corridors of power at the local, state and national levels.
They are also about finding your way in a judicial maze that is increasingly proving costly for the uninitiated in legal jargons.
There is also the aspect of managing security, the intimidation and desperation of both rivals and supporters.
All of these are evident in the number and calibre of people vying for the governorship ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nasarawa and the endorsement of Governor Abdullahi Sule of a preferred aspirant.
Some aspirants have accepted that right of the governor to back a preferred contestant.
But a handful of those determined to fight for the APC ticket include a former Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu and, an academic and former executive chairman of the National Agency of Science and Engineering Infrastructure, Mohammed Haruna.
Rising to become Inspector General of Police in Nigeria is no small feat.
That in itself is an achievement no one can deny.
The former head of NASENI has also been talking up the huge contribution he has made to the country.
But the endorsement by Abdulllahi Sule will probably be the determining factor for emerging victorious at the governorship primary.
Expectedly, a storm has followed Governor Sule’s endorsement of Senator Ahmed Wadada and his subsequent presentation to President Bola Tinubu earlier in April.
Still, without taking the support of the governor and president for granted, or the strength of Adamu and Haruna for that matter, Ahmed Wadada is a politician that can stand on his own.
He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2003, serving two terms.
Since then and every election cycle, his path has consistently crossed with former Nasarawa governor, Abdullahi Adamu, who is arguably the most powerful and influential politician the state has produced over the last 40 years.
It wasn’t until 2023 that Wadada would finally get a win over Senator Abdullahi Adamu who at that time was national chairman of the APC.
He was elected to fill Adamu’s vacant seat.
Since then, Wadada worked to build bridges in a party he wasn’t part of, with the state governor and in the Senate.
But it is no surprise that the biggest opposition to the endorsement by Governor Sule is coming from a former governor and not from fellow contestants and aspiring governors.
That former governor is surprisingly also not Abdulllahi Adamu.
It is from Umaru Tanko Al- Makura, an established business executive.
But unlike other aspirants who have chosen to take the fight for the APC ticket to the wire, Al-Makura appears to be sulking.
Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa knows best how he came to office relatively out of nowhere.
That is, he wasn’t active in politics but for some reason, good fortune follows the governor wherever he goes.
It was an influential intelligence operative that pulled him away from his life and career in the United States of America.
He ended up as an executive in Dangote Industry.
It’s no secret that he was handpicked to fly the APC flag back in 2019 by his predecessor in Government House, Lafia.
He became governor in 2011 on the back of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
In that sense, Al-Makura had no godfather to answer to.
He was however the only governorship candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) that won during the 2011 general elections.
It is a period that many analysts believe the CPC mismanaged and as a result, frittered away the opportunity to claim more governorship seats.
The party was failed to plan for all contingencies and the aftermath of the 2011 presidential elections.
It was an election Buhari and the CPC lost.
It was also followed by political violence across many states in the north.
The consequence was a political party, a presidential candidate and a support base that lost interest in the governorship election that took place two weeks after the April 16 presidential election.
Nobody doubts the party would have won more states had it stayed focused and on message.
Four years later, after merging with the Action Congress of Nigeria, and rebranding to form the All Progressive Congress, the party came out stronger, claiming the presidency and 20 governorship seats.
Circumstances are not always the same, neither are the political challenges, the prevailing mood and strengths of aspiring politicians.
The Nasarawa governor and his associates are going out of their way to explain how he arrived at the choice of Wadada.
Part of their claims is that they consulted stakeholders.
If they did, it made no difference, or the governor is ineffective in getting his own messages across because Al-Makura’s major grievance is that he wasn’t consulted.
If as he claims, he was unaware that Governor Sule was about to present Wadada to Tinubu and possibly adopt the senator as the party’s consensus candidate, then his protest could be justified.
But it is difficult to decipher who Al-Makura’s anger is really directed at.
Sule or Wadada?
The extent the former governor is willing to go in expressing the annoyance however suggests that he also has someone in mind to succeed Sule.
And of the choices available; a security expert, an academic, an unknown preference of a business executive; Abdullahi Sule settled for the career politician.
Yet the governor is only asking for the same courtesy that was extended to Al-Makura and countless other governors in letting them name a successor to carry the party flag to face the opposition.
But then the APC primary and the 2027: governorship election is not just about Abdullahi Sule and Tanko Al-Makura sitting down to decide the fate of Nasarawa.
This is also about the man Ahmed Wadada who put himself in prime position to be as easy pick for the governor, an acceptable choice for the president and the most logical option for the leadership of the party at the state level.
In certain ways, Wadada played the right cards and the right politics right from the very moment he got elected into the Senate in 2023 under the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
He was one of the few lawmakers that won and has ever won an election outside of the main political parties.
And in the Senate, he was a minority within the minority.
Yet he got appointed chairman of the Senate Public Accounts Committee, a position set aside for the opposition.
It could be argued that he had to betray public trust by aligning himself with the ruling party and the Godswill Akpabio leadership in the Senate to head the committee.
But it isn’t just Governor Sule that has thrown his weight Wadada.
The state party chairman, Aliyu Bello, in recent days has been speaking about his consistency in backing Wadada over the years.
The chairman is just one person among hundreds of party officials in every ward and local government of the state.
Peeling away that layer of support will be difficult for aspirants coming from the outside and not that well established in state’s politics.
The political connections Wadada has developed since 2003, the grassroots support, the wins and failures in addition to the endorsements maybe his real asset heading towards the party primary.
But the other aspirants are not sitting on their hands.
Both the governor should expect their rivals to deploy every means, foul and legal to change the calculus.
The idea that contestants will agree to a consensus sounds more like wishing thinking.