2019: As Bantex Slips Into Political Oblivion…

The decision by Kaduna State Deputy Governor, Arch Bala Barnabas Bantex, to run for the 2019 senatorial election is generating consternation among political analysts. Less than seven months to the 2019 polls, those close to the corridors of power had always predicted a gloom for the deputy governor whose popularity has incredibly waned over the years, following his lackluster performance as deputy to Governor Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai.
Against popular expectations that Southern Kaduna was poised to deliver bloc votes to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015 polls, as it did in the last previous 16 years, bookmakers were astounded as the zone broke off the chain of consensus that was the trait associated with the area. For the first time in 2015, the zone’s votes were divided between the two leading parties in the 2015 governorship contest. With the new song for change, the former Chairman of Kaura Local Government Area sought to convince his people to hope for the best, promising that the days of coldblooded murders were over.
Haplessly, nearly a year after the duo emerged in the corridors of power, things went awry as the suspended herdsmen’s killings returned with voracious occurrences. Besides loss of hundreds of people by herdsmen and decimation of scores of communities, governance in the state became a power-point presentation, with various programmes reduced into artistic impressions. By the end of the last quarter of 2016, the hope and dream for better days ahead for an embattled had fizzled out, leaving the citizens in an unprecedented trepidation.
In the face of unmatched bloodshed and horrendous destruction of properties, Bantex recoiled into an incomprehensible political figure head. Instead of identifying with his people, he chose to be a megaphone of his boss who told shocked television viewers that he paid foreign herdsmen to stop attacks on Southern Kaduna communities. Instead of pursuing reconciliation between his people and the state governor, Bantex found it expedient to excoriate the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) for championing ethnic and religious politics.
In 2016, I was a member of a professional group that sought an audience with the deputy governor. However, the planned meeting turned out a mirage, as one excuse or the other was always given to defer the meeting. In the last quarter of 2016, in company of my senior colleagues, Mr Azaria Kucha and Amos Dunia, we were guests of Governor el-Rufai in Kaduna to discuss issues confronting our people, especially on insecurity. After a formal presentation, we deliberated on some of these issues for nearly three hours.
I remember telling the governor to task SK political appointees to build bridges in order to bring their people closer to the power corridors in order to appreciate issues and government’s challenges in tackling them. Considering the age-long history of peaceful co-existence between our people and the Fulani, we made it clear that it is not true that Southern Kaduna people hate Fulani and Muslims.
My anger with Bantex’s statement on his decision to contest for Senate in 2019 is not about his aspiration; I am angry at the deliberate falsehood in justifying his decision. Instead of telling the world that he has fallen out of favour with his boss, apart from failing woefully to convince his people to embrace APC, Bantex resorted to a spurious attempt to cover up the motive(s) for his decision. Both el-Rufai and his deputy are acutely aware that el-Rufai/Bantex Team in 2019 is Dead On Arrival (DOA). If the people were deceived in 2015, they cannot be deceived this time around.
If our people were convinced that the killings were not orchestrated against them, certain actions of the state government were later to send clear signals that the el-Rufai-led government was out to relegate us to the backwaters of existence, having told the world that we were just 30 per cent in the state. For the first time in history, tertiary schools in the zone were closed down for over eight months. The Kafanchan campus of Kaduna State University was bereft of any form of academic activities for over a year. Education was worst hit, with over 20,000 teachers sacked. Attempts to get qualified teachers have largely remained a pipe dream, as some of the schools have remained without teachers for several months. District and village heads in the state, numbering over 4,000, have been unturbaned and their royal attires discarded. Additional 15,000 public sector workers were thrown into the labour market by the state government, while chiefdoms in Southern Kaduna converted into emirates on the claim that the people of Kauru, Kagarko and Kajuru demanded for them, among others.
In all these, Bantex and other political appointees remained silent and refused to engage on advocacy to explain government’s position. The activities of some of these appointees have brought revulsion on the APC than encourage people to support the party. The failure by Southern Kaduna to embrace the APC is hinged on the failure of Bantex and other appointees to carry their people along. Bantex, who knows that he has nothing to show for his over three years in office, has seen the gathering clouds that would soon turn into a torrential rain to flood him away from power. If he cannot convince his own local government area to vote for APC, how can he convince eight LGAs in the zone to vote for him for the Senate?
Bantex should be pitied and not be condemned. He is a metaphor for the political tragedy that has become our burden in Southern Kaduna. Politics is all about people and when we neglect the people, we walk alone and must be prepared to be disgraced in the final analysis. If Bantex attempts to go for the Senate, disgrace awaits him. As the Hausa man will always say, “Da mugun rawa gwamma kin tashi’ (It’s better to sit down than to be engaged in a dance of shame). Bantex has taken this wise counsel and prepare a soft landing into his political oblivion.
One lesson Southern Kaduna must learn is this: Never allow tired legs and old hands turn the deputy governor’s position into retirement package, if you cannot produce the governor. If Bantex’s health cannot see him through the rigors of being a deputy governor, certainly, the Senate is not a hospital for the sick. As Bantex slips into political irrelevance after 2019, may God Almighty be gracious to him and grant him good health in the years ahead.