The political body chemistry of the majority of Plateau people is not in favour of the ruling APC to continue in 2023. The Party has since lost its fortune and favour because of the disappointing and abysmal performance and failure of the Lalong administration to lift the Plateau Spirit.
Not only has the opposition parties dubbed the Lalong era as one of retrogression and stagnation, and arguably the worst bargain to befall the state since Independence in 1960, one of the nineteen contenders for the Party’s gubernatorial ticket before the primaries had openly noted that his major strategy to win the favour of Plateau people and ultimately their votes, was to avoid Lalong, apparently pointing to the diminished and near unserviceable public perception into which a litany and trajectory of gaffes and goofs have plunged him.
No matter how much the aspirant kept his distance, Lalong had his plans: he ambushed and pre-empted the outcome of the gubernatorial primary by circumventing election of delegates for the primary, and ultimately skewed both process and procedure for a choreography that produced Nentawe Yilwatda as ‘winner’ of the ‘primary’.
Ever since that disputed and controversial primary, the temperature and temperament of the Party have remained at fever pitch. Apart from gruelling litigations with potential to torpedo chances of the Party to be part of the 2023 elections, there is disillusionment and malcontent grating on internal harmony and cohesion which are vital pre-election status for a political party to put a strong showing during elections.
The other 18 aspirants who were arm-twisted and short-changed by Lalong’s brutal sense of democracy are still grieving and yearning for justice and threatening to rock the boat at the crucial hour. Unfortunately for the handpicked Nentawe Yilwatda, Lalong has not as much as bothered to convene a peace or fence-mending parley with angry aspirants who are protesting that their constitutional right was violated and bungled by his executive connivance and conspiracy with external forces spoiling to foist a Nentawe political leadership on Plateau State.
Simon Lalong’s popularity and public perception have so waned that he is even a burden grating on the electoral fortunes of Nentawe Yilwatda, with the real misfortune being that Yilwatda does not seem to have realised this, and work out a design to extricate him from the battered image and unfavourable perception now hunting and trailing the governor. Lalong’s style of governance, with some of his policies and projects, has frightened the average Plateau man, with palpable fear that the Plateau heritage has been unwittingly endangered by the singular act of electing Lalong as Governor. This is the stigma stalking the ambition of Nentawe, more than his inchoate ‘generation next’ campaign cry and Lalong’s shrewdness and unwillingness to fund his campaign.
Celebrating his appointment – seen by many actually as political ridicule – as the Director-General of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Presidential Campaign Organisation has not helped to refurbish the political stature and relevance of Governor Lalong. Rather, with his earlier thoughtless and unnecessary name-dropping and appeal to spiritual personalities as a situational fallacy to justify a political faux pas, he is a literal outcast in the Christian congregation that is yet to reconcile with same faith presidential ticket preferred by Tinubu for the 2023 elections.
Within and beyond Plateau State, Christians seem to perceive Simon Bako Lalong as a Judas who is over due to come to judgment! For sure, however, judgment is not just coming, it is here.
Simon Lalong’s leadership of the BAT Campaign, like some evil incarnate, will end as a farce, and will gather no moss.
The odds are eloquent that Bola Ahmed Tinubu will not impress in the Presidential poll, as he will post miserable results that will also lack the vital national spread.
Sundry odds and electoral disaster await Governor Lalong in the Plateau South Senatorial election. Barring rigging and other forms of electoral disorders, Lalong will not win next year’s senatorial election in Plateau South. His opponent in the PDP has better and more verifiable chances to win.
In Qua’an Pan LGA in Plateau South, Lalong has more than issues to sort out, and assuage the people to change their minds in his favour, and the Pan Development Association is keeping the details of his political ‘sins’.
The Isaac Kwalu factor is seething and sedate as far as political calculations in Qua’an Pan are concerned. In Shendam, Lalong’s home LG, because an injury in the mouth bleeds downwards towards the stomach, he will manage a marginal win, irrespective of the combination of Pauline Tallen, Hon. Komsol, and other dark horses raging and waiting in the wings. But it is clear – and Lalong should know – that he will lose in Langtang North and Langtang South and Kadarko in Wase LG because the Taroh people will prefer their own in the PDP, Napoleon Bali, ahead of a Lalong that has been denigrating the aspirations and pride of the Taroh nation by perpetrating discord and confusion in Langtang North LG council by imposing a dubious political leadership there.
Although Wase could still go for the APC in Plateau in 2023, it is not a guarantee for Lalong, whose absurd ambition to win and win again in the Senate to emerge as the President of the 10th Senate has seen him and Reps Deputy Speaker, Idris Maje, working fiercely at cross purposes and deepening their socio-political gulfs within the region.
Not sure of Mikang with the least voter strength in the zone, it means Lalong has only Shendam to rely on, meaning his senate dream will end as a nightmare on a February morning in 2023.
Again, Lalong, as a political burden to himself and the APC, has negative implications for Nentawe Yiltwada and other aspirants, especially those identified to have been aided to emerge by any means by the governor and his cronies. The mood of the Plateau people is to administer political vendetta on Lalong using the electoral opportunity coming in 2023.
This increases the nightmare for Yilwatda and others. Thus, it will not be time to issue meal tickets for Yiltwada if he escapes the tightly intricate ropes menacing in the courts.
The mood of the Plateau people is that Lalong must be punished quickly for his failures, inadequacies, and excesses while in office as executive governor of Plateau State. This is a task that is waiting to be done. Given the tidal nature of the master stroke, the casualties will be many; but with Lalong and Yilwatda taking the shine, lead, and prominence in quality and colour.
Two events that took place in Plateau last week speak clearly of the days of tempests ahead. One was the legally contentious, tongue wagging re-award of the Legacy Projects contract for N26 billion. The second one is an order for monthly weekend sanitation exercise that was flouted massively to reflect the governor’s depleted authority, and anger of the people who seem to grasp every opportunity to express disgust with bad roads and a collapsed environmental sanitation regime.
The people are even more embarrassed and scandalised that Government House, Jos is in darkness, having been disconnected from public power supply; and that for a long time now water supply to the same Government House has ceased, with the Government House gate in tatters, and the entire complex ill-kept.
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