SINCE the commencement of the political campaigns for the forthcoming general elections, every outing made by the Presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, seems to come with a new score, but the gains of today’s outing in Gombe, are spectacularly special, because they are both ginormous and gargantuan.
Like the people of Bauchi, supporters of Bola Ahmed Tinubu came out en-masse to welcome the Jagaba, who landed in Gombe for his mega presidential rally. Tinubu arrived in Gombe in the company of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Ali Pantami and Governor Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa state. Others are the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Dimeji Bankole and Alhaji Kashim Imam.
But long before his arrival, the National Chairman of the APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, Turakin Keffi, was on ground, and together with the Governor of the state, H.E. Inuwa Yahaya and the Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, they received the August visitor to the state in February.
From the Airport to the venue of the rally, Gombe town was turned into a politically cheerful and jovially festive city, that became garnished with the APC emblem everywhere and the Tinubu/Shetima pictures all over.
Flanked by the Presidential candidate, Sen.Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Director General of the Presidential campaign council, H.E. Bako Lalong, the National chairman of the party, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu kept smiling, as the crowd continued to cheer him up in his famous slogan of Maye! Maye!! Maye!!!. As always, he expressed satisfaction with the turn out, registered appreciation to the crowd, and succeeded in extracting a vocal commitment from them, that, as far as the coming elections are concerned, the Presidency is for Tinubu to pick, while the Governorship position in the state is for Inuwa Yahaya.
Seeing the gargantuan get-together, Senator Abdullahi Adamu said in Hausa, “Mai laya kiyayi mai zamani”, which metaphorically supports the submission of the French poet and novelist, Victor Hugo, who is credited with the phrase, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come”.
The large crowd in Gombe today is not surprising, because few days back, a support group called Arewa for Asiwaju, had boasted to deliver Gombe State to Tinubu and Kashim. The group also fulfilled their promise of getting 5,000 people to defect from the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP, and join the APC in Gombe state. That promise was made good today.
According to the Gombe coordinator of the group, Malam Ibrahim Muhammadu, the new defectors are from the 114 wards of the eleven Local Government areas of the state. It is these people or defectors, along with the existing supporters of Tinubu and Shetima, that would deliver to them, not less than 90 percent of votes in the state.
Contrary to the poor permutation that the Tinubu/Shetima ticket would not sale well in the north east, because Atiku is from the zone, the size of the crowd that is always receiving the Asiwaju campaign train in the north east, is almost always intimidatingly on the increase. In fact, sometimes late last year, while addressing the press, the Governor of Gombe, Inuwa Yahaya, said although the north-east is a hotly-contested zone ahead of the 2023 presidential election, the Tinubu/Shetima ticket has a very high chance of victory.
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu picked Kashim Shettima, a former governor of Borno state as his running mate, and the duo would be contending for votes from the zone with Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the PDP, who belongs to the zone and is believed to have a lot of influence there.
But according to Governor Inuwa Yahaya, Atiku’s influence matters little, saying that the APC will win in the geopolitical zone. “Our chances in the north-east are very high. We are strong in our resolve to win the 2023 general elections and we shall succeed”-Gov.Yahaya.
So as far as Gombe is concerned, the gains from the Tinubu/Shetima visit today, are as ginormous as they are gargantuan.
Ibrahim is the director, publicity for the APC.