Politics Via The Mechanism Of Press Conferences In Southern Kaduna

By Gora Albehu Dauda

NEWSDAILYNIGERIA: Never before in the politics of the Southern Kaduna Senatorial Zone has the political space been so heated up as in the outcome or aftermath of the PDP Senatorial primaries. I must state lucidly that I am not a pen for either of the political pugilists in the ongoing engagement. I am therefore simply a concerned Southern Kaduna individual passionately interested and concerned with the politics of the Zone yet staying a safe distance away. Though I was not anywhere in or around the political theater when late Sen Isaiah Balat contested for the governorship ticket on the platform of PDP, and almost won but for the treachery and perfidy of some extremely greedy brethren who are still very much around and still muddying the political waters, I cannot recall that the aftermath of that dubious political outing threw up as such highly toxic dust and fumes as to have blanketed the whole of Southern Kaduna and almost making it impossible for the sun’s rays to reach out over the area. Many a press conference have held and statements or positions put out over the aftermath of the PDP Senatorial.primaries in Zone 3 of Kaduna State. It is yet unclear if any of these outings under reference have managed to stitch up an agreeable position from where to proceed.

From what has been fed to us from the menus of Press Conferences or Statements my narrow understanding tells me that the issue in contests may not be the end product of the Primaries but the ways and means to that outcome. It is a fundamental truth that in any engagement as in this case, not all the contestants can win. There will always be a winner but such must win in a clean contests in which case those who lost will find their loss explainable. One very recent Press Conference clearly was VERGING on extorting acceptance of the outcome from one of the contestants who may have had issues or may still be having issues with process that produced the outcome. There is no extant law requiring that a contestant should respond in such a way. The choices are very clearly his. That he has chosen to remain stoic is simply a matter of choice and this cannot be denied him.

What I find deeply worrying is that some political busy bodies have since the PDP Senatorial primaries been pressing too hard on their gas pedals to make some capital out of this situation. One of the strategies which is doomed to failure is to pitch one group against another. This is not only naive but fraudulent. I found it very much unnerving when some rather well informed individuals wil lengage in asking cheap questions as to if the Senatorial position is reserved for only a particular individual. On the face of questions such as this, one cannot help.asking further if we are not being reduced to the issue of ‘ Our own versus their own ?”. This has reduced Southern Kaduna to a political theater of absurdities, blackmail, mudslinging and name calling. Our friends on the other side of the political divide are being entertained without them paying any fees to access the theater.

Informing this state of affair in Southern Kaduna politics is the seeming surrender that our people or political zone cannot otherwise have the dividends of democracy accrue to the zone except and unless they belong to the PDP stable. This is a thoroughly flawed way of thinking. Our world is one that offers many other options. The impression is almost being created that Southern Kaduna is a colony of PDP. If PDP is the colonizing regime, how can it be explained that many other former PDP colonies have.since secured independence and moved on with their politics?. Why is Southern Kaduna technically marooned on this tiny island. Could the metaphysical poet John Donne have been wrong when he wrote that epic poem about ” No man is an island “?Adumbrating the PDP politics in Southern Kaduna the fact comes clear that the zone is in this straight political jacket only to serve the interest of a few political office holders and the political urchins lining up behind them. In all of this, the bulk of our people derive virtually nothing from their political participation. Rather than putting our very narrow political/economic interests first, why will we not factor in those of our people who are only refused to voting for names on election day when virtually nothing may accrue to them? A rethink is the position this piece is advocating.