Two political parties are running in Adamawa State ahead of the February 25 elections.
They are the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with soil’s son Atiku Abubakar as the candidate, and the other is the All Progressives Congress, APC, which nominated Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
The Workers’ Party, with Sir Peter Obi hoisting the presidential flag, comes next in the Adamawa people’s reckoning, with the New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) featuring Sen. Rabio Kwankwaso as leader and presidential candidate coming in a distant fourth.
Some other parties and presidential candidates are not known even in Adamawa state.
The PDP has two major advantages in Adamawa State which, given history, have to be reckoned with greatly. It is the ruling party in the state, and it is the party to which one of the state’s citizens, Atiku Abubakar, is a presidential candidate.
Governor Ahmadu Venteri has endeared himself by delivering projects in the past four years to much of the population, except for the high-status few who believe more in what is there for them personally, but are losing out on the roads and other projects that Venteri. Done.
It is widely believed that a large number of voters who value the flyovers, roads, hospitals and schools built by Venterre will not only vote for his return as governor, but will follow suit from him during the presidential election and vote for Atiku. .
Atiku himself is widely favored to win his home state. Atiku comes from Gada, a town and local government area in the southern part of the state, but his political base is Jimita, northern Yola local government area where he resides anytime he is in the state where he casts his ballot regularly.
He came into limelight politically in 1999 when he won the gubernatorial election, only to be immediately moved to the national level where he became the vice president after being nominated by President Olusegun Obasanjo.
He has since become a source of pride for many in the state, and his PDP has always won presidential elections in the state since that time, even more so in the last elections, 2019, when Atiku first raised the PDP’s presidential flag.
Therefore, beyond just feeling that Atiku is a son of the earth, some other factors are preparing him and his Progressive Democratic Party to take the lead in the presidential elections on February 25.
For the APC and its candidate Bola Tinubu, the strengths lie in some of the high-profile individuals who endorse her candidate, and in the party itself, as the main opposition force in the state.
Over many years Tinubu has rendered services to the many citizens of Adamawa who remember such services. Just last week, Senator Abdelaziz Nyako, son of former governor Murtala Nyako, spoke glowingly of Tinubu.
Abdelaziz, who is holding the Adamawa center ticket for the Senate in the Feb. 25 election, recalls how Tinubu offered his father a cap in 2014 when his father was impeached for about a year until the end of his term as governor.
Abdulaziz had described Tinubu as a good man and vowed that he would support Tinubu when the rain came to shine during the presidential election. This testimony is important in Adamawa State where the Nyaku dynasty is prominent.
Another APC man gaining some weight who has been drumming up support for Tinubu in Adamawa state is House of Representatives member Abdul Razak Namdas who gained more political weight in the countdown to the APC gubernatorial primaries last year after campaigning at the state level widely anticipated him. .
Although Namdas lost the primary, he has since been a pillar of support for the eventual winner, Senator Aishatou Benani and the presidential candidate, Tinubu.
Namdas, who serves as Secretary of the Logistics Subcommittee of the Presidential Campaign Committee of the APC, has over time donated offices and cars to the presidential campaign and is expected to win many votes for the party.
Also in Adamawa State is Tinubu’s right-hand man, former EFCC Chairman Nuhu Ribadu. Ribadu who has also benefited personally from Tinubu in the past and who was a former gubernatorial candidate then aspiring in the state is expected to influence Tinubu fortunes across the state.
There is a minus in the whole story about the Adamawa State armored personnel carriers. The party is not one. The party appears as divided as it was in the 2019 election, the split widely attributed to losing the gubernatorial election that year.
Senator Gabriela Bindu, who was the governor at the time, got the APC ticket to seek a return, but lost the election.
Nuhu Ribadu and Mahmud Halilu, who contested the APC ticket with him, publicly rejected Bindu’s victory and it is believed that the two and their supporters worked against Bindu during the 2019 general elections.
Nohu Ribadu, who returned last year for the APC ticket and lost it to Bennani, went to court to challenge Bennani’s win, and it took some time before Bennani got her ticket back at the appeals court level. Ribadeau spoke of accepting his fate, but many question the sincerity of his call to support Benani.
Bindu, who also aspired to govern, questioned that primaries, though not in court, and has since defected to the PDP to work for Venterre and Atiku.
Perhaps the most significant blow to the APC presidential election in Adamawa state is the party’s ticket with the same faith. Christians across the state were so angry at the mix-up that many spoke out loudly against it and took unexpected steps to prove their anger.
Former Secretary to the Union Government (SGF), Babsheer Lawal who was so close to President Muhammadu Buhari that his separation from him was unthinkable, found himself abandoning the APC when the card of the same creed became a reality.
Lawal, who was also very close to Tinubu, had long gone into the Labor camp and was campaigning for Peter Obi.
For Labor and Peter Opie, his chances in Adamawa state will be determined by individuals from among the electorate, as he has broad appeal among the young population.
Many young people across the state believe in Peter Opie and would likely single-handedly cast their vote for him, but outside of that, there is little to the party and candidate.
The party has no voting influencers, and existing members are not united, as evidenced by a move late last year that produced parallel executives, the only party with such a history in the state since 2019.
The man credited with reviving the party in the state, Christopher Nicholas, managed to stay on top of the presidency after the party’s national leadership insisted on dealing only with him, but the party remains deeply divided in the state.
This was shown clearly earlier this month when Peter Obi visited the state for his presidential campaign and the party’s gubernatorial candidate, Mustafa Omar, kept his distance.
Mustafa Omar and his campaign team had issued a statement on the eve of Obi’s visit that they would not be part of Obi’s campaign because the Labor Party’s Presidential Campaign Council did not extend the appropriate invitation to them.
Now, NNPP. When the National Party was revived in Adamawa state last year, the former deputy governor, Saad Taher, became its leading light and has been credited with reviving the party and its growing strength in the state.
Phineas Elisha, a former top name in APC, has been named as the state chief, and with Tahir, they have given NNPP a lot of momentum across the state.
However, the NNPP party has been silent for a long time now. Little has been heard of Tahir, who became a candidate for governor.
The party’s presidential candidate, Rabio Kwankwaso, is of course well known in the country, but mainly because of his national strength, which means he is not expected to win many votes for Adamawa.
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