By Ukasha Kofarnassarawa
Like almost everyone, I saw that Sheikh Ali Isa Ibrahim Pantami is now PDP’s gubernatorial flag bearer for Gombe State. Congratulations to him. Pantami is now everything he once criticised. But that’s not my focus here; the internet has receipts for anyone interested in digging.
The real calculation:
Amid all the “consensus-coronation” drama unfolding nationwide, many observers expected Sheikh to defect to either ADC or the NDC, which are seen as the strongest opposition blocs. But Abuja is playing a different game. This looks calculated.
Right now, the entire core North — both North-West and North-East — is held by APC governors, except Bauchi, which lately switched to APM. The party’s structure and acceptability are widely seen as weak, and the state is likely to return to APC in the next election, given its current flag bearer, the former governor of the state.
For the President’s party, having zero opposition across the whole core north would be a dangerous optics problem. It would look like a monopoly. To avoid that, Abuja needs to “sacrifice” 2 core northern states to the opposition, just to create balance. One in the northwest and the other in the northeast.
And among all opposition parties, PDP is the “lesser evil” from Abuja’s view because one of its sons controls a major faction there. So Pantami decamped to the PDP, which functions as an extension of the APC. The plan: he gets “appointed” governor to create the illusion of balance, then switches to the main APC immediately after winning.
Abuja’s handwriting is not hard to understand.
Ukasha Kofarnassarawa wrote via Ukasha_sani@yahoo.com.