Godiya Vs Danladi: Grudge primaries with national echo

There are 109 senate races across the country and nomination contests are on-going across party lines. But unlike elsewhere, where such an exercise is voter-driven, back home, is at the whim of governors. When they are not retiring to the senate, they are sending equerries to hold in trust. Occasionally, when a different outcome is recorded, it becomes a shock win, particularly at party level. It is also not certain that the winner would end up being the party’s candidate, especially now that the Supreme Court has incredibly held that the deeds of a political party can’t be queried. We will pay, soon, for turning party’s state chapters to governors’ merchandise. I digress.

Despite the gun-point nomination process we have adopted, what is playing out in Nasarawa North Senatorial District and its end-game effects on the local politics of the state and the nuances of the governing All Progressives Congress at the national level should ordinarily push the nomination contest between Senator Godiya Akwashiki and his challenger, Judiciary Encyclopedia, Danladi Halilu, to the centre of political discourse. Between the duo, there is a recent history.

In the early days of March 2019, Godiya, fresh from his election as a Distinguished, was stripped and beaten in Abuja by family members of Danladi for allegedly seducing the wife of the former Secretary of the National Judicial Council (NJC). The senator-elect, was allegedly caught in the act. Lavishly reported in the media, police had to step him, with both Godiya and Danladi, who was a benefactor to the senator-elect when the seduction scandal broke out, being invited and questioned by the police authorities in the federal capital.

Solomon, the great Biblical King should know. He said three things are too wonderful for him in Proverbs 30:18. One, the way of a snake on a rock. Two, the way of a ship at sea and the third, is the way of a man with a maiden. Even in the western world where they practice coated infidelity, as open marriage, men still rage when they sight other men, chosen by their wives as the agreed sexual partners outside marriage. Ejo nbe lorun awi sokun. (Armaggedon is finally here). Imagine Will Smith, slapping Chris Rock, over Jada Pinkett, the same woman with whom he is practising open marriage, simply because the comedian “dragged” her at Oscars. The same woman you signed on other men sleeping with? What exactly is wrong with men?

If Smith could go wild because of a woman like Jada (no disrespect meant), Danladi’s response to Godiya’s obvious indecorous communication with his wife, would be deemed appropriate, only that as an icon of the Judiciary who served eight Chief Justices of Nigeria as the Secretary of the NJC, he should have restrained his own, from taking the laws into their own hands on his behalf. His wife, however, deserves a gold epaulette. Sensing that Godiya, the godson, was beginning to manifest the saying “onibara nbole bo” ( the beggar manifesting kleptomania tendency), she quickly activated the red alert button, but the family agreed to play along, to nab the alleged debaucher on the wrist. She signposts the optimism that marital fidelity isn’t completely lost to the dogs, running the ultra-liberal movement. All can still be well.

Well, Nasarawa elders and APC leaders, sensing a catastrophe if any of the two, is arraigned for assault or enticing a married woman, waded in and the matter was resolved in the manner of a family affair, with Godiya writing to withdraw the assault complaint and Danladi’s clan, letting go, the enticement charge. Everyone went home somehow happy, until police came early in the year, doing their thing, their way.

On January 19, celebrated online medium, Premium Times went to town with a police report clearing Godiya and indicting Danladi and his own. The report said the police probe clearing the senator, was inconclusive, thereby putting the benefit of the doubt in his favour. How do you declare a winner in an inconclusive election? But that is the Nigerian police, which couldn’t obtain call logs to establish the veracity of the recorded conversation between Danladi’s wife and Godiya, but still went ahead to clear a party and indict the other, in a case, both parties, agreed to settle as brothers.

Danladi was enraged when the report hit the airwaves. He promised to fight the injustice. When practically everyone was expecting him to institute cases against Godiya, police and the publishing house, he played a fast one, making a play for Godiya’s seat, which was in the safe column, until the big fish dived in.

What a way to teach “thou shall not ogle.”

Danladi’s entry into the nomination battle simply changed all permutations. The three A-lister leaders of the party in the state are now involved. APC national chair and former governor of the state, Abdullahi Adamu has no scruple showcasing his affection for Danladi. With uncharacteristic wide-mouth smile, the always glowering Adamu almost cuddled Danladi at the unveiling of his nomination form. Adamu’s arch-rival and former governor, Senator Tanko Al-Makura is likely, still smarting from the drubbing he got in his (Adamu) hand, well, with presidential support. While Al-Makura’s ticket for Nasarawa South is almost assured, the Danladi/Godiya contest, is an opportunity for him, to test strength again, with his conqueror for the national chair seat. This time, without the mighty presidency, Al-Makura will try to deliver for Godiya, to even score with Adamu. If Al-Makura succeeds, he may be opening a floodgate of eyeball-to-eyeball against the chairman, from other places, especially in the presidential contest where aspirants are already being compelled to sign undated undertaking, withdrawing from the race that has barely started. APC wonderment, you say.

To prove his community value, Adamu must win for Danladi. Then, there is the state governor, Abdullahi Sule, who, by APC’s arrangement, is the leader of the party in the state. He has been hoisting Danladi’s poster, dancing to funny local beats by his side. But the music that politics dances to, isn’t the everyday R&B. But if Sule has truly joined the Danladi train, then Godiya is likely stranded. Just because he couldn’t look elsewhere?