by Salihu Yakasai

Ibrahim Shekarau is NOT an asset to the PDP, not in Kano, NOT In the North and most certainly NOT in the country. He defected alone, with no single House of Reps member, nor State assembly member. All former Local Government  chairmen that are a strong political bloc in the defunct ANPP did not go with him, all ANPP aspirants did not also move with the Mallam.

As a politician, I know the value and importance of each and every party member. I hardly celebrate the defection of my party members for everyone has his day and it will always come. Be it a thief, a criminal, a prostitute, a saint and even a priest. One way or the other, their “expertise” will come in handy, especially in a Democracy like ours in Nigeria.

But the one person that I will gladly sacrifice and kick out of my party if given the chance, is a hypocrite. A hypocrite is the most dangerous politician to have in your midst, for before he is exposed, he can cause damages of gigantic proportions which will remain irreversible for a very long time. This is even worse for a hypocrite that hides behind religion. Shekarau has for long managed to hide under the cover of religion to achieve his selfish ambitions. In Nigeria, a country where religion is indeed “the opium of the masses” a religious hypocrite that is also an excellent orator who you can hardly be found wanting when he speaks, simply because he has mastered the art of hypocrisy, is indeed a hypocrite that is to be feared and treated with utter disdain.

For long, those of us who were once close to him came to realize his duplicitous character. He got the ANPP ticket after deceiving the likes of Buhari that he was indeed a just, honest man. When the Buhari group realized their mistake it was a little too late.

His decision to decamp to the PDP didn’t come to me as a shock , if anything, it was an occurrence I had long envisaged and was silently praying will happen. Shekarau has been an undercover member of the PDP since after the death of Yar’Adua when President Goodluck Jonathan was made substantive president.

This became evident when he was used as a spoiler in the 2011 presidential elections. He contested with the sole aim of dividing the votes in the North to the detriment of Buhari.

Indeed, he did divide the votes especially in Kano, which happens to be Buhari’s stronghold politically. He managed to secure 526,310 votes which was 19 per cent. These votes could easily have gone for Buhari who won 59 percent of the votes.

Again, it was later revealed that Shekarau gave President Goodluck Jonathan donation of two bulletproof jeeps as his own contribution to the President’s election campaign, a person that Shekarau was supposed to be running against. How ironic?

When the constitution of APC was being drafted, Shekarau and his other ANPP leaders that were part of the merger suggested that each sitting governor in the state should be the leader of the party and an automatic member of the board of trustees. In the absence of which, the immediate past governor of the state that is in the APC should be the leader of the party in the state. Buhari’s men vehemently rejected this seeing it as an avenue to subdue them because CPC only has one governor, and no former governor in their team. Tinubu had to plead with them to accept this input in the overall interest of the party which they did. This all happened even before the formation of G7 aggrieved PDP governors. As God will have it, five out of the G7 governors later decamped to APC, and that’s when Shekarau hypocritically rejected the notion that Kwankwaso is the leader of APC in Kano, something which Shekarau coined even before Kwankwaso thought of joining APC.

Ibrahim Shekarau is NOT an asset to the PDP, not in Kano, NOT in the North and most certainly NOT in the country. He defected alone, with no single House of Reps member, nor State Assembly member. All former Local Government chairmen that are a strong political bloc in the defunct ANPP did not go with him, all ANPP aspirants did not also move with the Mallam. They have categorically pledged their allegiance to the APC in Kano under the leadership of Kwankwaso. This only means one thing. Shekarau is on his own! GEJ’s calculations is to secure at-least 25% in Kano, well Mr. Ebele, I’ve got news for you, the current PDP in the state, including the chief hypocrite himself (Shekarau) CANNOT deliver that to you. You got 16% in 2011, I can guarantee you that you won’t even get 6% in 2015.

Lest we forget, this is the same Shekarau who was a sitting governor in 2011 but couldn’t even deliver his favored candidate at the state polls despite holding forte for exactly 8 years. To compound the issue, people were willing to vote Kwankwaso despite him being in PDP than Mallam’s candidate in the ANPP.

How can someone who despite being in power lose his state elections so pitifully in 2011 be counted as someone important? If he lost while in power how won’t he lose when he is out of power, with the Buhari factor and Kwankwaso factor now in in one camp? I am sure when the PDP bigwigs like Aminu Wali and Ghali Na’abba realize his worth or lack of it and also his hypocritical nature, they will do away with him without batting an eyelid. Perhaps that will seal his fate politically and confine him to his political oblivion.

Shekarau has killed his political career in Kano. For it’s the same Mallam that said in an interview on BBC Hausa Programme in 2011 and I quote “I swear to Almighty Allah, that if the entire North will decamp to PDP, I Ibrahim Shekarau will not”. The same Mallam in another interview said and I quote “Jonathan has failed woefully and does not deserve a second term”. It will be very interesting to hear from Shekarau what has changed, that he is now campaigning for GEJ and even joining the same party that he swore not to. Indeed, the hypocrite has been exposed, and his political career is over for now, at least in Kano.

Kanawa are not hypocrites and will show him very soon that they want nothing to do with him. They have done for him more than he has done for them. In case we have forgotten, he is not even a bona-fide Kano indigene. He is originally from the Babur tribe in Southern Borno, but that did not stop Kanawa, in their true hospitable nature, from making him feel at home. And this is the thank you we get.

So long Shekarau, now APC in Kano will work in harmony.

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Tanko Yakasai is a proud husband and father of two. He is a broadcaster with Freedom Radio, Kano. Yakasai believes in the unity and development of Nigeria, which paved his way into community activities through NGOs in transforming our society for the better. He is a registered member of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.