After the long wait, the All Progressives Congress (APC) finally fixed February 26, 2022, for its long-awaited elective convention. Every doubt was also finally laid to rest, recently, when the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee wrote to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to notify it of the convention date.
Expectedly, all eyes are now trained on the jostlers for the position of the National Chairman of the party. Being the ruling party, this has continued to generate wide interest, not only among the party’s chieftains and faithful but also among Nigerians in general. Both the print and electronic media have equally continued to serve reports, analyses, permutations, and the horse-trading on the chairmanship race hot on their menu, separating the contenders from the pretenders.
If these reports and analyses are anything to go by, the former governor of Nasarawa State, Senator Umaru Tanko Al-Makura blazes the trail, as he appears to be in the good books of the critical interests and tendencies within the party.
Among the major contenders, Al-Makura appears to be the only aspirant that enjoys the explicit endorsement and support of his state governor. He is also the only aspirant that has been endorsed by his state’s APC stakeholders and delegates. This was done in an elaborate ceremony in Nasarawa last month. It is recalled that he was also turbaned Sarduanan Gwandara by his people last year in an event attended by Governor Sule and all the who-is-who in Nasarawa State and beyond.
The tradition is that for obvious reasons, most governors are not at ease having someone from their state at the helms of their party’s affairs. But while the open or cold wars between some chairmanship aspirants and their governors have in some cases manifested in parallel congresses, the ward, local government, and state congresses in Nasarawa came without any issues. Going by the common saying that charity begins at home or by the Latin saying, Nemo dat quod non-habet (no one can give what they do not have), many believe that any aspirant, who promises to reign in the many crises bedeviling the APC should first showcase his home front as an example.
Governor Abdullahi Sule’s endorsement and open campaign for Al-Makura is also considered not only good for national optics but also strategic in wooing other critical interests. In particular, it is a major ticket into the heart of the Progressives Governors Forum, which is a very major tendency in the emergence of new party leadership. It is considered that this, coupled with the fact that Al-Makura was once a member of the Forum, gives him a head start. Whereas some contenders from North Central where the party appears to be unofficially headed to in search of a new National Chairman were once governors, they were governors under the PDP or before the formation of the APC and may not enjoy the same camaraderie as Al-Makura. With the esprit de corps, he is likely to enjoy more of their solidarity, seen as one of their own and easier to relate with.
Another major tendency within the party is the National Assembly members, who are also delegates to the convention. As a serving senator, he is already a member of this large constituency as one of them and will be in a good position to manage the relationship between the party and its National Assembly constituency. Besides, the democratic and republican values imbued by the parliament would also naturally temper domineering propensities usually associated with the executive powers of a governor or president. While a governor’s word is a command, even as a presiding officer, is only a first among equals as decisions are reached through debate, dialogue, concession, and votes.
It is also believed that he is more likely to command the votes of the youth, women, and people living with disability, who would see him as more disposed to them. It could be recalled that as governor in 2013, Al-Makura appointed the first female Secretary to the State Government (SSG) in Nasawara, if not the entire North in the person of Hajia Zainab Abdulmumini. In yet another statement-making step in 2019, he appointed five women as commissioners in a 17-member cabinet in one fell swoop: Hajiya Halima Jabiru, Dr. Roseline Kera, Mary Enwongulu, Hajiya Jamila Sarki, and Hajiya Sa’adatu Yahaya.
By antecedents, Al-Makura is known to be well-disposed to people living with disabilities. In a recent interview he granted, the Senator said: “On a lighter mood, I am a person living with a disability. I have a hearing impairment and I believe the constituency of people living with disability will find in me someone that is part and parcel of them and someone that knows about how they feel, how they want things to be done and I believe I will attract a tremendous amount of confidence from them”.
As governor, Al-Makura built the Comprehensive Special School, Lafia. Out of office, he was at the school in November 2021 to celebrate his birthday and donated equipment such as wheelchairs to the school. It is further recalled that in celebrating his 66th birthday with the children in 2018, Al-Makura said he always loved to be with such category of people in order to build their confidence, hope, and inspire them to fulfill their dreams and great destinies, noting that if he could rise to become a governor, despite his challenges, they could even do more.
His success in managing a highly multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-religious state like Nasarawa State for eight years is also seen as a plus for him managing the diversities and different tendencies of a national party like the APC with over 40 million registered members. Although the second least populous state going by the projected populations published by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics in 2016, what Nasarawa lacks in landmass and population, it has in abundance in diversity. The state consists of many ethnic groups like Aguta, Alago, Basa, Ebira, Eggon, Gbagyi, Gwandara, Megili, Fulani, Hausa, Kanuri and Tiv, Eloyi, Nungu, among others, although there are at least 29 languages, including Agatu, Basa, Eggon, Gbagyi, Gade, Goemai, Gwandara, Ham, Kofyar, Lijili, etc. These are apart from Nigerians from every ethnic group such as the Igbo and Yoruba living and plying their trades in the State. For this reason, Nasarawa is often described as a mini Nigeria. Al-Makura’s management of his success as governor is considered by many as the icing on the cake of his diversity management capacity, as he showed that the state belongs to all, including the ethnic minorities.
He equally showcased his adept skills in conflict resolution as the chairman of the panel that reconciled members of the party in the North East. He is reputed to have handled the assignment so well that the panel was able to traverse the states, identifying all areas of conflicts arising from the last primary elections, identifying aggrieved groups and persons, and proffer political solutions acceptable by most members and leaders in the affected states. The Al-Makura panel was able to restore confidence and renew commitment and trust among party members and groups by assuaging their feelings.
He has equally chaired the governorship primary election in Ekiti State in 2018. The primary, which eventually produced Governor Kayode Fayemi as APC’s standard-bearer, was rated as one of the party’s best. Such feats have been attributed to his sense of justice and non-aligned nature whereby he hardly panders strongly to any tendencies within the party. More like President Muhammadu Buhari, who in his inaugural speech, said he was for everybody and was for nobody.
Furthermore, Al-Makura is believed to be experienced in party administration. He was the Youth Leader of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) in the old Plateau State in the Second Republic. Decades later, the Senator served as the Secretary of the National Republican Convention in the Third Republic (NRC) in the old Plateau State from 1990 to 1992.
But perhaps even more important is that he was among the founding fathers, who sat around the table to midwife the APC. Besides the fact that as the only governor elected on the platform of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) founded by Buhari, and therefore the party’s sole ticket to the merger, he was said to have played a major role in the negotiations that culminated in the merger.
“Another thing is the pride of place that I was opportune by providence to be among the few governors that worked with our leaders to ensure that the merger succeeded. I believe with my experience in 2013 in that merger exercise, I will be able to know who and who played a major role or who and who made a lot of major sacrifices and be able to appreciate the efforts and contributions of everyone right from the time the party started from the scratch to this point in time. If you look at the long period that I have been with the party, it allowed me to know across the board, the contributions, the sacrifices and the efforts that have been made from every part of this country, from the beginning of the merger to this point in time. There may not be one with such exhaustive pedigree with regards to party development as I have. With due respect, I don’t want to be immodest and I do not want to say what qualifies me more than others, but I think these are some of the issues if you want this party to operate seamlessly”, he stated.
Many believe that being a part of that history stands him out among other contenders. Also, as the convention draws closer, as the politicking and horse-trading over who becomes the next National Chairman of the APC intensifies, analysts believe that this and the other factors if considered, will no doubt brighten Al-Makura’s chances of clinching the highly coveted seat.
