At the
onset of the country’s democratic experience in
The victory then was so clinical that
even the defeated governor, did not bother to challenge the outcome of
the elections in court. And for the eight years that Goje governed the
state, he changed the fortunes of the state, making essentials of life
that were hitherto thought to be impossible in the state, possible.
For instance, before his assumption of
office in May 2003, water, which is one of the essentials of life, was a
very scarce commodity in Gombe State, with a near consensus of opinion
that making water available in Gombe and its environs was near
impossible, the existence of a dam notwithstanding. But Goje said it was
possible.
And promptly he swung into action. After
spending N8.2 billion on the project, which included a Water Treatment
Plant, the Gombe Regional Water Supply Scheme came alive and was
commissioned in 2006.
Next, was the state University; this was
another project, many, in and outside Gombe State thought was
impossible. In fact, most of the elites in the state engaged Goje then
in a verbal war over the project. But a determined Goje insisted it was
possible. And today, the University remains a reference point in the
country.
Again, Goje came up with the idea of
building an International Airport. This too, did not go down well with
some people in the state who felt it was another impossible venture. In
the end, the governor proved everyone wrong, as the airport is today
functioning at its optimum, leaving Bauchi, an older state, which
incidentally gave birth to Gombe, with no standard airport, in spite of
several attempts being made in the past to get one.
Goje’s eight year in the state, it was
gathered, no doubt endeared him to the people such that he had no
difficulty in determining his successor, in 2011, after the end of his
tenure. He successfully installed Governor Hassan Dankwambo, also of the
PDP, as governor, while he headed for the senate.
But midway into the Dankwambo’s first
term, he fell out with Goje, just as Goje also fell out with the
national leadership of the party, and the events that followed compelled
Goje and the multitude of his supporters and followers to join the then
newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC).
With his defection, and because of his
reputation for unseating an incumbent governor, many had concluded that
APC would stop Dankwambo’s second term bid, in 2015, since he (Goje) was
instrumental to making Dankwambo, in the first instance in 2011.
But Dankwambo survived the onslaught, not
because the APC did not try, it was largely due to lack of synergy
among the members of the party, occasioned by infighting. Thus, making
Dankwambo, the only PDP governor in the north, who bided for a second
term and made it, despite losing the National Assembly election and
parts of the state Assembly election to the APC.
Ironically, even after 2015 governorship
was won and lost, the APC in the state, continued with its acrimony and
rancour, until February this year, when it resolved to dislodge the PDP,
in 2019. Interestingly, despite its state of affairs, the party has
continued to attract influential members of the PDP, to its fold. One of
them is the immediate past Transport minister, Senator Abdullahi Idris
Umar.
He was part of the delegation to the APC
national secretariat in February, where the Care-Taker Committee for the
state chapter was inaugurated.
Speaking while inaugurating the
four-member committee, the party’s Deputy National Chairman (North),
Senator Lawal Shuaibu, explained that the inauguration of the new
committee was necessitated by the “irreconcilable differences” among
members of the previous Caretaker Working Committee.
“We have had a lot of challenges running
the party in Gombe state, challenges which I narrated when we
inaugurated the first caretaker committee. We got to a stage where a
consensus was reached as to how we can move the party in Gombe state
forward. Arising from that, we constituted a caretaker committee. The
caretaker committee did a wonderful job, but along the line we observed
some irreconcilable differences among the members.
“Observing that there was no way they
could reconcile themselves, we decided to ask them to step aside and we
are today inaugurating a newly reconstituted caretaker committee. The
caretaker committee basically is not there to do any other thing except
what the National headquarter has asked them to do on the basis of
resolutions reached with the stakeholders of Gombe during its meeting
with the National Working Committee (NWC).
“Any other thing should be left for the
NWC to handle. We can handle every challenge if we have the cooperation
of the stakeholders. The newly constituted caretaker committee has a
mission, a mandate and they are only expected to discharge their mandate
not any other thing,” he noted.
In his acceptance remarks, the Caretaker
Chairman, Hon. Idi Barde Gubana, promised to work strictly in line with
the Terms of Reference provided by the APC NWC, just as he called for
the support of all stakeholders in the state chapter so as to enable APC
emerge a strong and united political force in the build up to the 2019
general elections.
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