Sokoto: Tension in Gov Tambuwal’s camp as Wamakko, Umarun Kwabo harvest decampees in droves
By Nasir Dambatta
There is political tension in Sokoto Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal’s camp as key officials of his administration take turns to abandon him and the PDP at short intervals.
Political analysts in the State said they were caught unawares by the gale of defections as Senator Aliyu Magatakardan Wamako’s strategy continues to drain the PDP of its gladiators in the State at regular intervals.
Excited Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko has described the return of Alhaji Umarun Kwabo (Jarman Sokoto) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and hundreds of thousands of his supporters as “the end of discussion” for 2023 general elections.
Umarun Kwabo, who is also the Jarman Sokoto defected to the APC along with his long-term political godson, Alhaji Murtala Abdulkadir Dan’iya, who was a serving Treasurer of the PDP and strong pillar of Sokoto politics. Some serving commissioners and 164 Special Advisers to the government of Sokoto State have also joined Umarun Kwabo in the APC. Others include APC party chairmen and Local Government Chairmen and Councillors in their hundreds.
Receiving the Jarman Sokoto and thousands of followers into the APC, Senator Wamakko said the days of the misrule of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Sokoto are numbered.
“On behalf of the National Chairman of the APC, Dr. Abdullahi Adamu, the NWC leadership, our Presidential candidate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his running-mate Alhaji Kashim Shettima, I welcome the Jarman Sokoto into the APC family and I wish to assure them that we shall together work for the victory of our great party in the forthcoming general elections”, said Wamakko.
He described the Jarman Sokoto as a great statesman, a mentor, a guardian, the lord of Sokoto politics and one of the ultimate deciding factors in any election in the State.
“Umarun Kwabo’s return to the APC is a return home for a formidable gladiator of Northern politics who has been commanding political loyalty massively for decades”, Senator Wamakko explained to the mammoth crowd that was at hand to rejoice with the Sarkin Yamma.
APC chieftains in the State expressed joy at what they variously described as Wamakko’s brand of game-changer politics that has remained the dominant political culture in the history of the Caliphate for many years.
A cross-section of respondents in Sokoto expressed joy that a new dawn of progressive politics has set in. One of the respondents, Abubakar Musa said: ” We can now have a clean break from the culture of appointing a horde of Special Assistants in their droves, as if governance in Sokoto is political madness”.
