AS GOVERNOR FINTIRI COMMENCE SECOND TERM …

The 2023 Adamawa governorship election was not only tough for Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, it shocked him to his marrows. Fintiri said he didn’t only contest against Senator Aishatu Dahiru Binani, but against a powerful people in Abuja. Fintiri further said it was an attempted coup d’état against him.

The aftermath of the April 15th governorship election rerun led to Gov. Fintiri ending his first term in a kind of ‘anger’. So, Fintiri’s second term is highly likely to begin in anger, vengeance, and fighting real and imaginary political enemies.

This is where we must pity Fintiri, if he mistakenly allowed these three things to control his thinking in making appointments, siting of development projects, and creating policies and programs – his four years of the second term will be shrouded with just politics. If Fintiri allowed the ‘trauma’ of April  15th to be on his head it will be the beginning of the end of his political future  because of two things – the complexity of Adamawa politics and the current moment.

Nevertheless, Fintiri’s first actions will be how to punish those he presumed went against party in the PDP, and how to compensate the ‘outsiders’ who did anti-party in their parties to his advantage. This is where the first problem of Fintiri’s second term will commence – new enemies within his party, the outsiders will feel meagerly compensated while those who worked hard for his second term will feel that the outsiders have more than what they ought to have.

For his political survival, Fintiri’s second term should be a kind of political redemption for him – work on his poor relationship with some of his party stakeholders, discard any thought of unnecessary fights with people who he thinks have worked against him and cool the growing tongue and faith division in the state’s polity, especially among jobless young people.

Fintiri second term should be reconciliatory one towards some of his party stakeholders, the traditional class, and some of his so-called enemies. And his appointment should reflect Adamawa’s complexity and the people that truly contributed to his victory in both his first and second terms. This will go a long way to ‘heal’ the past and ‘nurture’ the future.

As things stand now,  if Fintiri doesn’t apply the science of politics and wisdom in his thoughts  most of his actions will be viewed through the prism of ‘we’ vs ‘them’, which will be very bad for a governor in a second term; because second terms are intricate – one’s political values diminish as he utilizes the term’s years; followership  reduces, permutations and carpets cross occur without necessarily factoring the second term’s driver’ while those wishing to replace the driver becomes more of yes men, at the detriment of the driver.

Fintiri should quickly make some marks with legacy programs and projects in the area of youth empowerment, poverty reduction, and human development and industrialization, amongst others. Roads projects are good- but within 10-20 years, often,  people will forget who did them, while some will deteriorate. New ones will replace them, but human development and youth empowerment are everlasting- this is where Kwankwaso and Tinubu derived their unending popularity at their primary constituencies

The truth is, the Binani case is a big hammer dangling on Fintiri’s head. Anything can happen in a Tinubu regime that will be thirsty to maintain the old and get new strongholds and votes including being non-apolitical on some issues.

Zayyad I. Muhammad, Abuja