Sadiq Bello Abdulkadir
The recent cabinet reshuffle by President Bola Tinubu has lent a clearer perspective for many followers of Nigeria’s politics, as it affects the national level and different parts of the country. This is so in many states of the Federation, especially where the ruling party APC is experiencing internal crises.
In Sokoto State, the section of the APC being led by the Governor of the state, Ahmed Aliyu and his mentor, Sokoto Central Senator, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko is embroiled in a tussle for the soul and control of the party with a splinter group, led by the Senator for Sokoto East, Ibrahim Lamido.
The Lamido led faction of Sokoto APC is opposing the leadership of Wamakko, particularly what they view as his godfather approach politics. After the 2023 elections, during which both men won their seats to the Senate, Lamido had flatly rejected the tradition, whereby elected and appointed political office holders of the APC are required to hand their welfare packages to their constituencies over to Wamakko for distribution to party loyalists and followers.
The Sokoto East Senator rejected the idea of allowing a middle man between him and his constituents, insisting on assuming the responsibility of directly catering for his own people. He views the practice as a strategy of centralising control and the allegiance of party members in the hands of Senator Wamakko.
During the election of the current Senate leadership, Lamido was again in opposition to Wamakko, who styles himself as the leader of APC federal lawmakers from Sokoto State. The latter supported Godswill Akpabio against Wamakko’s favoured candidate, Abdulaziz Yari, his long term ally and former Governor of Zamfara State.
Eventually, Lamido secured the backing of other federal legislators, who were long term Wamakko proteges to strengthen the opposition to Wamakko’s leadership of the Sokoto APC. These include Sani Yakubu Gudu, House of Representatives member for Gudu-Tangaza and his counterpart for Gwadabawa-Illela Federal Constituency, Bello Isah Ambarura. The three lawmakers are all from parts of the state, that are most devastated by banditry, where a District Head, late Sarkin Gobir was murdered by gunmen recently.
Concerns over insecurity are a factor for the rebellion of the lawmakers against the present leadership of the APC in the state, which reflects the general discontent with the current government in the state, particularly amongst the masses of the Eastern Zone. At a recent gathering of supporters within the zone, Sani Yakubu Gudu queried what he described as wasteful expenditure on white elephant projects concentrated in the state capital, while the people are continuously killed, displaced and terrorised by bandits, while also wallowing in abject poverty.
He referred to what he called the ostentatious spending of billions of Naira on wire fencing of streets in Sokoto metropolis, while the rural areas are in deprivation of drinking water and basic healthcare. Gudu, who tends to be the most outspoken member of the group, has repeatedly challenged the nation’s anti-graft agencies to swoop on Sokoto State to probe alleged extensive financial breaches by the government of Ahmed Aliyu.
Lamido’s group is gaining popularity within the Eastern Zone and beyond, as officials of the APC in wards and local governments resign from their positions to declare allegiance to his camp. In Goronyo, Tangaza and Illela, whole ward excos have relinquished their posts to join Lamido, while a numbers of civil servants at state and local government levels have followed suit. This in addition to the abdication of 19 rulers in Sabon Birni Local Government from their stools to pitch camp with the group.
The recent cabinet reshuffle by Tinubu has seen to the retention of Wamakko’s protege, Bello Mohammed Goronyo as Minister of State and the nomination of his political ally Maigari Dingyadi for a ministerial position. The development is however, perceived by elements closer to the Party and government in Abuja to portend far reaching implications for Sokoto APC.
They reveled that Maigari Dingyadi’s re-appointment as Minister is on personal merit and contribution to the party’s victory in 2023, when he was Police Affairs Minister. He has also led moves to broker peace between the two factions of the APC in Sokoto, during which he consulted with both camps and is thus, familiar with the issues involved in the dispute. Having been relatively overboard of the intra-partisan hostilities in the state, he is seen as a neutral option for President Tinubu and the APC in Abuja to assign the responsibility of mending the party’s fractures in the state.
He is trusted in Abuja to have the capability to address Lamido camp’s two contentions, namely Wamakko’s overbearing totalitarian leadership and the image crises of Ahmed Aliyu’s APC government. Dingyadi will therefore serve as a stabilising and sanitising factor, by providing a neutral ground and a positive alternative image of the party towards 2027.
Feelers close to the Villa also dissociate the retention of Bello Goronyo in the cabinet from any influence of his mentor. Prior to the reshuffle, there had been dissatisfaction within the administration about Goronyo’s detachment from his previous portfolio at Water Resources, which was attributed to his undue attendance to Senator Wamakko, at the expense of his statutory duties.
His redeployment to the Ministry of Works instead of his widely expected sacking is understood to be a pointer to Goronyo that the President is his actual boss, who should have his complete loyalty, rather than Wamakko, who has no power to hire or fire. This is also against the backdrop of the speculated efforts by Wamakko to be included in the new cabinet as a replacement for his protege, Goronyo.
As observers of Sokoto politics keenly watch unfolding events in the state’s APC, the change in Tinubu’s cabinet is a twist that is expected to liberalise the control of the party and by extension, politics in the state from the hands of patrons and mentors. The development is hastened by the emergence of a new breed of political actors like the Senator Lamido camp, irrespective of whether or not they triumph in the ongoing APC dispute.
Sadiq Bello Abdulkadir
Malali, Kaduna
