ISA YUGUDA AS APC’S BRIDE

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is surely anxious about the 2023 general elections as it cannot afford to lose power to anyone. The party, as it appears, is worried about winning future elections as that will translate into the sustainability of its prosperity and therefore its continuous relevance. And with its congresses to elect party leaders across wards, local governments, states and national levels already on course, there is the feeling that it must get it right if the APC is to smoothly sail through the next general elections. This is especially so given that the outcome of the congresses will have unimaginable effects on the party’s primary elections that will hold ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Impliedly, the upshot of the congresses will go as far as significantly determining the success of the APC at the 2023 polls. Therefore, there is no gainsaying the fact that the party is at a crossroads and needs not only experienced politicians at the helm of its affairs but also those who are dynamic and can put in their very best in leading it to total and permanent victory. In essence, the party’s next crop of leaders across all tiers must not only have cognate leadership experience but must also emerge through a fair and legitimate process. This will essentially facilitate in placing it ahead of its competitors in terms of internal democracy and therefore an unperturbed sail to the coast of electoral victory.

And while there are many aspirants to all the party`s elective positions across the country, members of the party ought to appreciate the import of voting for candidates who are dynamic and audacious. And most significantly, party members have to ensure that the next national chairman of the APC is not only an astute and dynamic politician but also someone who has national outlook and is committed to the cause of the party. By the forthcoming APC conventions, our party should have a national chairman who sees the APC as an institution of democracy that serves as a veritable vehicle that facilitates the delivery of good governance, which is the key objective of democracy.

Isa Yuguda, an economist, a successful banker, a former minister of the federal republic and former governor of Bauchi State so much fits the kind of politician the APC needs to be its next national chairman. Over the years, the gentleman politician demonstrated an appreciable level of leadership capability in the private sector, politics and the public service. As a bank chief executive, Yuguda repositioned both the defunct Inland Bank and NAL Bank to greater heights. As minister of transport and later aviation, the political heavyweight left his footprints on the nation`s transport sector in general and its aviation sub-sector in particular. And as governor of Bauchi State, Isa Yuguda initiated and implemented people-oriented policies and programs that culminated in both infrastructural and human capital developments.

Politically, Isa Yuguda is astute, calculative and a strategist in the truest meaning of the word. He has all it takes to renew the hopes of the APC through resolving all of its internal disputes especially at the states level thereby setting the stage to capture or recapture those that are not in the party`s control. Yuguda does not negotiate out of fear and is never afraid to negotiate. He is a master political planner who can bring everyone along in the APC vehicle as it travels to the land of promise. The political juggernaut has the political wherewithal to lead the APC pass through the storms of the 2023 general elections and come out even stronger.

• Mukhtar Jarmajo, Bauchi