Battle of Familiar Foes
By Sam Adzegeh
Sunday, April 27, 2008
In Sokoto State, the People's Democratic Party, PDP, and Democratic People's Party, DPP, are getting set for fresh gubernatorial contest
Violent clashes between supporters of the People's Democratic Party, PDP and the Democratic People's Party, DPP in Sokoto State last week left one person dead while more than fifty sustained varying degrees of injury. Five vehicles were burnt in the fracas. The clashes occurred when Attahiru Bafarawa, former governor of the state and founder of the DPP came back to the state capital from the US to re-launch the party's campaign for the gubernatorial elections, which were ordered to be re-run by an Appeal Court sitting in Kaduna April 8. It was the latest in a series of clashes between the two parties since the gubernatorial elections last year.
No one was quite sure how the clashes started but unofficial sources told Newswatch that hundreds of Bafarawa's supporters had gone to the airport to welcome him home from the US where he is currently studying political science. Newswatch gathered that Bafarawa's supporters had, while celebrating, chosen to pass through a part of the town regarded as a stronghold of the PDP. They were said to have chanted solidarity songs taunting the PDP members, who responded in similar fashion. Before long, the two sides started exchanging missiles. This was soon followed by violent clashes. The police detail stationed in the area was helpless, as they were outnumbered. By the end of the confrontation, a lot of damage had occurred. Police in the state told Newswatch that about two hundred persons were arrested in connection with the incident, adding that investigations were still going on to unravel the remote and immediate causes of the crisis.
Ironically supporters of the DPP in the state are holding the police in the state responsible for what they describe as their constant intimidation by the PDP government in the state. Both Bafarawa and Muhammadu Maigari Dingyadi, the DPP governorship candidate in the state, specifically accused the state commissioner of Police of assisting the PDP to intimidate their members. Bafarawa recounted to Newswatch how the commissioner had personally led a squad of police officers to invade Dingyadi's residence on allegations that the latter was hiding political thugs in his house. On the latest in the series of clashes, the former governor told Newswatch that he had been aware that PDP thugs had planned to distrust his reception. He said he had written to the police in the state at least five days before his return, intimating them of the intended plan, but said the police did nothing. "The thugs were burning tyres at three places within a distance of one kilometer from where the police were stationed. They did nothing." Bafarawa said the administration of former governor, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko had within the last ten months so intimidated and harassed members of the DPP that so many of them, including himself, had to run out of the state.
Shehu El-Othman, the state police commissioner, agreed that the command had received Bafarawa's letter, but said his people were helpless given the sheer number and determination of the contending forces. He said the command even requested and got additional troops from neighbouring Zamfara State to beef up security in expectation of Bafarawa's return. "We deployed more than 800 police officers there. What else did they expect us to do?"
Dingyadi blamed the crisis on the PDP, which he said was afraid of the show of strength exhibited by the DPP on Bafarawa's arrival from the US. He said it was for this reason that PDP thugs had fomented trouble to disrupt the DPP procession. Dingyadi told Newswatch that fear had gripped the PDP in the state ahead of the pending gubernatorial elections because of the overwhelming popularity of the DPP in the state.
But even as the DPP chieftains expressed optimism ahead of the governorship election re-run which is yet to be fixed by INEC, their counterparts in the PDP appear even more confident that Wamakko would enjoy an easier victory over his DPP opponent this time around. Abbas Bello, majority leader in the state house of assembly, was of the opinion that there is no politician in the state capable of winning any election against Wamakko. Bello said the PDP was certain of another victory, because Bafarawa had lost credibility in the state. "Anyone he sponsors cannot win any election in this state, he said."
Aminu Bello Sokoto, state secretary of the PDP told Newswatch that within the last ten months, Wamakko's administration has made so much positive impact on the people of the state that the impending contest would be more or less a walk over. He listed such achievements to include the distribution of motorcycles to civil servants in the state at the rate of N40,000.00 only instead of the N80,000 .00 which the Bafarawa's administration had issued out the same bikes as well as the recall of hundreds of civil servants who had been laid off by the Bafarawa administration without any terminal benefits. The secretary said that, not only had Wamakko recalled all of the staff, he had also paid them the arrears owed them from the day they were laid off until their recall. He added that the Wamakko administration had also ensured the distribution of fertiliser to all farmers in the state at greatly subsidised rates, a development which he said had greatly endeared Wamakko to Sokoto people.
But even as preparations for the yet to be rescheduled elections reach fever pitch in all the parties, another controversy brewings is on the eligibility of both Wamakko and Muktar Shagari, his erstwhile deputy to contest the re-run elections. The DPP has consitently maintained that since the appeal court said the two men were not qualified to contest in the first place, there was no way they could qualify for the re-run. He told Newswatch that, since it was clear that the two could not contest the elections, he expects them to "do the honourable thing" by withdrawing from the race. "If they don't, then we will have to seek the court's interpretation of the judgment," he told Newswatch.
The PDP camp is equally convinced that both their candidates have been cleared by the court to re-contest the election. A.B. Mahmoud, counsel to Wamakko said that the appeal court had nullified Wamakko's election because the latter had not withdrawn from the ANPP. But it is a fact that he contested under the PDP and it is also evident that he wrote to the ANPP withdrawing his membership and candidature. The lawyer also argued that the court of appeal had made it clear that those to participate in the re-run elections were those who took par in the April 4, 2007 elections.
There had been strong rumours that some elements in the PDP were also agitating for the replacement of Wamakko as the party's candidate in the forthcoming contest. Sokoto however, strongly denied this. He told Newswatch that in the aftermath of the appeal court pronouncement, the entire hierarchy of the PDP in the state had paid a solidarity visit to the former governor during which the entire party leadership unanimously decided that the party had no other candidate than Wamakko. He said: "I can tell you as the secretary of PDP here in Sokoto that without Wamakko, there will be no PDP here. "Wamakko is PDP as far as we are concerned."
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