If there are a few politicians in the north of Nigeria who know how to stoop to accomplish audacious political goals, a former two-term governor of Nasarawa State and current senator representing Nasarawa West senatorial zone, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, is one of them. Ordinarily calm, he is politically firm. His just-concluded assignment as chair of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Reconciliation Committee might have been sagaciously deployed in bolstering his quiet jostle for the national chair of the party. Having gone round the states to reconcile the disparate forces, he is now in a position to know the points of conflicts and if he steps in the saddle as national chairman, he would hit the ground running to address the contending issues in situ.
Abdullahi Adamu, contrary to a series of impressions created by the Daily Trust lead story of Thursday, February 24, 2022, entitled: “Buhari endorses Abdullahi Adamu as APC chairman” is not given to hugging the limelight. He is as diffident as he could be persistent on political causes and other issues that are worthwhile. He is never combative. He is well versed in the game of politics to know that much is always achieved through behind-the-scene consultations and rapprochement. It is thus in this context that Adamu’s expression of interest and entry into the race for APC’s national chair should be situated and deconstructed.
Adamu’s aspiration is quite significant. He is not in the race for the sake of it. He is latching on his years of political experience and his capacity to leverage political networks on the basis of understanding and camaraderie. Recall that he was once a media professional and he also practised as a lawyer. Having participated in the second republic politics on the platform of the National Party of Nigeria, he would hit the big governance stage when he was appointed as Minister of State for Works under the administration of General Abdusalami Abubakar. He would thereafter make a renewed foray into politics in 1999 when he emerged as governor of Nasarawa State. He served his constitutional two terms of eight years.
Between the time he concluded his governorship voyage and the time he contested and won election to the Senate, he had functioned as Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees. He would later dislodge Senator Abubakar Sodangi in 2011 from the Senate to represent Nasarawa West Senatorial Zone. He had won re-election twice after the 2011 victory-in 2015 and 2019. In 2015, he had dumped the PDP with his New PDP group to pitch tent with other political parties and groups to form the legacy party, to wit the All Progressives Congress (APC).
At 75, Adamu is full of political wisdom. It is his bag of wisdom that he has been deploying in relating with the political betrayals, shenanigans and the ever -expanding sphere of the cloak-and-dagger politics that is typically Nigerian. In 2019, he had quietly aspired to be Senate President, waiting for the party leadership to zone the position to the north central zone. Had the party done that, he would have given it his best shot. But when the party ceded it to the north east, he solidly supported the decision.
Grapevine had it at that point that there was an arrangement that was perfected by the leadership of the Senate to ensure that Adamu emerged as Majority Leader where he could deploy his vast experience and sagacity in driving the business of the Senate. Forces had conspired to ensure that that he was schemed out of the consideration for Senate Leader. According to grapevine, he did not protest. He did not fight the system. He simply carried and still carries on as Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture.
If the feelers in the media that he had been endorsed by President Muhammadu Buhari for the position of national chairman of the APC were true, then that would be salutary to his politics and would also be good for the party on the eve or threshold of the 2023 general elections. Adamu will have to bring his full administrative capacity, political dexterity and reconciliatory prowess to the job of leading the governing party into critical general elections in a transition-to-transition arrangement.
The APC will benefit from his vast experience and his wisdom. He would be wise enough to deal with political mendacities. At 75, some mundane things would also not matter to him anymore. He certainly would not be a transactional leader in the manner of some politicians who would turn the office of national chair into a money spinning position rather than building their heart in that circumstance of leadership into a cathedral of truth and justice, which is what the office of national chair requires.
▪︎ Emmah Adah, a media professional, contributed this piece from Abuja
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