Will Maku break Nasarawa’s Christian gov jinx?

April 10, 2015 3:18 pm

Labaran Maku, former minister of information who is “renowned” for his loquacity and bluntness, may be on the threshold of history.

Maku’s October 2014 decision to quit his job as minister for competitive politics came to many as a surprise. A surprise because he was thought be tiptoeing into uncharted waters.

Unexpectedly, the dauntless former minister confronted his own “mortality” when he failed to get the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship ticket. He was beaten “manly” by Yusuf Agabi in the PDP primary, which held a month after his resignation.

In a blaze, Maku left PDP, citing injustices in the party. However, he didn’t let his dream of becoming the governor of Nasarawa state die. In a quick breath, he strolled into the ball of the Labour Party (LP), but left when forces within it would not let him become the party’s standard bearer.

Soon, he settled in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), after the party handed him its governorship ticket on a “cock-platter”. Now, he is to square off against two strong contenders among eight governorship candidates in the state: Agabi, whom he could not defeat in the PDP, and Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, incumbent governor and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC). These men have a swelling hotchpotch of supporters in Nasarawa, just as Maku.

Two things will determine the outcome of Saturday’s gubernatorial election in the state. They are religion and ethnicity.

Nasarawa has 13 local government areas, and in these areas, the Eggon ethnic nationality is scattered all over. In other words, the Eggon are the largest ethnic nationality in Nasarawa, and the bubbly former minister happens to come from this stock.

Conversely, Al-Makura and Agabi come from splinter ethnic nationalities in Nasarawa: the Gwandara and Agye, respectively. Therefore, going by the sheer population of the Eggon people who will desire to have their “progeny” become governor, Maku will perhaps fulfill his dream. Yet, his emergence is not all sealed.

There appears to be a chink in his armour. He is Christian, and no Christian since 1999 has been governor in Nasarawa. Past governors Abdullahi Adamu, Aliyu Doma and incumbent Umaru Tanko Al-Makura are all Muslims. It is therefore safe to say that the voting population of Nasarawa swings towards a Muslim governor, obviously because the religion of the majority is Islam.

But again, we are in a “season of change” and summer surprises can happen. Maku may be the first Christian governor of Nasarawa. But that is left for the 1, 242, 667 registered voters of Nasarawa to decide on Saturday.