By Dr. Dahiru Maishanu
Mallam Saidu Umar, Ubandoman Sokoto, the Sokoto State PDP Gubernatorial Candidate for the 2023 elections has departed from the norm. He has broken away from his usual, mild approach. He has broken his usual lines.
Mallam Ubandoma, at the PDP’S flag-off for the Sokoto State Governorship Campaign at Dange Shuni local government did the unthinkable. He broke the ice.
We were left Flabbergasted! He took the bull by its horns and damned the consequences.
Un characteristically, Saidu Umar, at the flag-off, called the bluff-off his infantile opponents and braved the odds. As always, only my ardent readers can understand my pedestrian way of writing .
He began with informing the people of Sokoto State that he held the attack statements of his APC opponent in arrears and was about to burst. The payback time had come!
His opponent was widely reported to have pondered how he (Ubandoma) would be able to fill in the gaps of Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal’s elephantine foot steps when he eventually emerges as the Governor in the next dispensation.
That was a self inflicted shot on the foot of his opponent, for not focusing on his own Principal .
Ubandoma opened the offensive when he asked his opponent what legacy his own alter ego left other than desecrating the core values of the umbilical cord of the youths in the State.
The youth restiveness and its negative effects , he argued were what his opponents had bequeathed to the State and Governor Tambuwal had to change the narrative for the better.
The legacies of Aminu Waziri Tambuwal were in contrast and in opposite direction to his APC opponent’s benefactor and would be Ubandoma’s building pillars after the victory.
Ubandoma told his opponent that he would be focusing on Tambuwal’s legacies of repairing schools that his boss destroyed, energising the civil service that his boss deliberately desecrated and rejuvenating the abandoned health care system of the state.
The era of mediocre governance would be quashed, he promised.
Ubandoma further challenged his opponent to tell Sokoto people his legacies after having spent over a decade as a second fiddle and a shadow-dancer in the politics of the state.
He owned up to being a part of all the laudable programs of Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal from inception and assured all that, he would build from there, without apologies.
The candidate further told his opponent that he would rather deal with the main substance, rather than the superficial attachments.
That his government would concentrate on attacking those that armed the restive youths rather than the unfortunate youth, reforming the female youths that have been thrown into the bottomless chasm or abyss by the heartless leadership that produced them was for sure, he emphasised.
The Governor-in-waiting threw the challenge of an open debate with his opponent for both to declare their blue prints and leave the choice to the Sokoto state electorates to decide .
Finally, the morally acclaimed upright Mallam threw a challenge to the electorates to place the two of them on a moral compass and contrast.
He told the public of the impending Jama-a Project, a social political, people oriented, programme that would form the nucleus of his administration. Beat this if you can!
Maishanu is former Information Commissioner in Sokoto state and can be reached at moyijoh62@yahoo.com
