After Gubio’s death, what next for Borno ANPP?
Borno, Latest Politics, State News Saturday, January 29th, 2011When Alhaji Awana Ngala, an in-law to the Sheriff’s family and then chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) was shot dead last October, allegedly by Boko Haram men, not many believed that his death had anything to do with his political ambition.
However, with the killing, yesterday, of Alhaji Modu Fanami Gubio, ANPP’s candidate for April polls, people now know that there is more to Ngala’s death than meets the eye.
Saturday Sun has it on a good authority that Ngala was given the nod by Governor Ali Modu Sheriff to begin consultations, in preparation to run for the April governorship election in the state, two days before he was murdered.
Once, he was out of the equation, attention shifted to the governor’s kid brother, Mala Sheriff, a former commissioner in the Kachallah’s administration. The younger Sheriff, Saturday Sun recalls, had refused to resign from Kachallah’s government, in the heat of the crisis between Kachallah and Sheriff. But what many did not know then was that the former commissioner was acting under the influence of the father, who was also benefiting from the Kachallah’s government, despite the crisis. Kachallah was the governor from 1999 to 2003. He sought re-election, but lost to Sheriff.
All these may have informed the decision by Sheriff to kick against the idea of having his brother succeed him. Those who are close to the family revealed that Sheriff had reasoned that with the kid brother in power, the father would be fully in-charge of governance in the state, a thing Sheriff never liked.
So, while the struggle over who takes over from Sheriff was going on within the family, Sheriff’s mother was said to have stepped in and sold the idea of having Alhaji Modu Fanami Gubio, run as the ANPP’s candidate. Sheriff’s aunt, Saturday Sun learnt, was the one who brought up Gubio. As such, he is seen as part of the family. Even though Sheriff was said not to have liked the idea of having anyone from his immediate family succeed him, he sees his acceptance of Gubio as way of pacifying the father.
However, other accounts have it that Gubio is actually Sheriff’s first cousin. As such, once he was anointed by Sheriff as the next governor-in-waiting, tongues began to wag, from both within the ANPP and outside it, with some of the ANPP chieftains in the state, nursing the fear that the party may as well be prepared to bid governance bye, in Borno, with the emergence of Gubio, against the PDP’s candidate, Alhaji Mohammed Goni, former Borno governor.
Gubio, though, not a politician, was a honest and straightforward fellow. Until his death, he was in his 50s and 1981 Engineering graduate from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
He last worked as a banker, at the defunct Merchant Bank. His first political appointment was courtesy of Sheriff, during his first tenure, in 2003. He was appointed caretaker committee chairman of his council. But the people protested against his appointment. Thereafter, he was subsequently appointed the information commissioner.
Once the tenure ended, and Sheriff returned, he never looked his way. But after pressure from the mother, Sheriff, about a year ago, appointed him commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, before redeploying him to the finance ministry.
One of the close associates of the governor had told Saturday Sun on condition of anonymity: “Goni is from Kareto, in Mobbar LGA of Borno North Senatorial District. Fanami Gubio is from Gubio LGA, also in Northern Borno. Both of them belong to the Badawi clan of the Kanuri race.
“So, Sheriff is having sleepless nights because he miscalculated the outcome of the PDP primaries. He thought the PDP will give the ticket to a layback person, but alas!, Goni won overwhelmingly. Because of the anointment of a dour, difficult and tight-fisted Gubio, he (Sheriff) has dug our political grave and our supporters are moving over to Goni’s camp in droves.”
As it is now, Sheriff would have to shop for a replacement for Gubio. Will he now pick his kid brother? It seems only time will tell. If ANPP is to retain Borno as one of its states, then Sheriff may have to look beyond his immediate and extended families, in picking Gubio’s replacement.
-Sunwp_posts
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