Kaduna State
One of the most pressing issues in Kaduna politics today is who will succeed Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, the state’s outgoing governor, in May. The former FCT Minister did the unthinkable by selecting Mrs Hadiza Balarabe, a Muslim woman, as his running mate in 2019 in a state with a sizable Christian population. This has understandably reawakened some old ethno-religious grievances historically associated with the state.
On May 29, El-Rufai will complete his second term as governor of Kaduna state.
The Kaduna 2023 governorship election has a total of 17 candidates, with four of them considered major contenders. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has fielded Senator Uba Sani, while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has stuck with its 2019 candidate, Hon. Isah Ashiru. The campaigns between these two have been heated. While there are other major contenders, such as Jonathan Asake of the Labour Party (LP) and Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), analysts have noted that the race is largely between APC and PDP candidates, with very little chance of a third-party upset.
Senator Sani will go to the polls on Saturday with the achievements of the current APC administration in the state. The current government’s policies under Mallam el-Rufai, such as painful civil service reforms, Emirate reforms system (resulting in the removal of 313 district heads and over 4000 village heads), and downsizing of public sector workers, may be among the challenges the APC candidate will face.
Several residents of Kaduna state have stated that el-infrastructure Rufai’s projects are not evenly distributed across the state because they are concentrated in only three major cities: Kaduna, Zaria, and Kafanchan.
Sani is expected to win Kaduna North and do well in Kaduna Central, but he must keep a close eye on Kaduna South.
On the other hand, Ashiru, a grassroots politician who gave el-Rufai a run for his money in 2019, poses a significant threat to Sani’s governorship ambition.
Ashiru is arguably the biggest beneficiary of Kaduna’s growing dissatisfaction with the APC government. His campaign theme has centered on reversing some of el-unpopular Rufai’s policies.
“According to voting patterns in the presidential and National Assembly elections, the PDP won the majority of elective seats, even in APC strongholds,” political analyst Dr. Nasir Aminu told QUEST TIMES.
“This demonstrates how quickly things have changed in Kaduna politics in recent years. Ashiru will win the day, according to current data,” Aminu predicted.
Sani and Ashiru will face significant challenges in dealing with “spoilers” like Hunkuyi and Asake in their respective strongholds. Both ran underfunded campaigns. Asake, an influential figure in Southern Kaduna, did not fare well in the February elections, which saw the PDP comfortably win the zone.
Hunkuyi is running under a largely unpopular party in Kaduna state.
Dr. Aminu said further that el-Rufai and the APC are “only banking on Kaduna Central senatorial zone. Even his Chief of Staff lost the election for Senate in Kaduna Central the last time out, despite the fact that the PDP was embroiled in a legal battle ahead of the election.”
The Cardiff Metropolitan University scholar further said, “This election is a referendum on el-Rufai. His accomplishments are currently in tatters.”
Adamawa State
Senator Aisha Ahmed Binani of the APC appears to have overshadowed Adamawa politics this election season. She faces a difficult task in unseating the PDP’s incumbent governor, Umaru Fintiri.
Binani is the first female candidate to fly the gubernatorial flag of a major political party in eight years, succeeding Senator Aisha Al-Hassan (Mama Taraba), who won the Taraba APC in 2014.
Binani, the Senator representing Adamawa Central, will be banking on the fact that no incumbent governor has been re-elected since Admiral Murtala Nyako was impeached in 2014.
Interestingly, the biggest impediment to Binani’s ambition is not Fintiri, as the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, and other key stakeholders in the APC reportedly put pressure on party leadership in a plot to replace Binani with the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.
Furthermore, allegations that she worked for PDP presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar may hurt her chances, as some APC members have pledged to work against her on Saturday.
According to sources, Atiku supporters have decided to support Binani in the gubernatorial election in order to make a strong showing in Adamawa North, Fintiri’s stronghold.
Professor Oluyemi Fayomi, a specialist in Gender Studies at Nigerian Army University, Biu, Borno state, told QUEST TIMES that there appear to be more cultural biases against women’s political participation in the country’s north-eastern region.
Fayomi wondered why there are always gender barriers to women’s political participation.
According to the Professor, who has written several publications on women’s political participation, women like Binani in Nigeria appear to be judged by different standards during elections.