Kebbi guber 2011 Fight to the finish:.. As Aliero, Argungu jostle for ANPP’s soul From ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, Kaduna

It is no longer news that immediate past Kebbi State governor, and former Federal Capital Territory, FCT, minister, Senator Mohammed Adamu Aliero and Governor Saidu Usman Nasamu Dakingari, are not the best of friends.

What is, however, new is that the same platform, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Aliero and his supporters abandoned three years ago, to join what they then referred to as “mainstream” politics, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is the same party, they are again making “contacts and frantic efforts,” to return to, Daily Sun can authoritatively reveal.

But in a swift reaction, Aliero’s two close confidants said on phone that even though pressure was on their benefactor by his supporters to dump the PDP, Aliero is yet to decide on that as he was still “talking” to the officials of the PDP in Abuja to step in and resolve the lingering crisis amicably.

In the beginning
Aliero, while serving his second term in office, led discussion on behalf of other ANPP chieftains, within the North-West zone, on the need to dump the party for the PDP. Aliero and his group were of the view that the zone would be better off under a party that was controlling the central government than had been in the opposition. But former Sokoto State governor, Attahiru Bafarawa, refused to buy into Aliero’s game plan.

Aliero succeeded in convincing Saminu Turaki, former Jigawa State governor and Aliyu Wamakko, former Sokoto State deputy governor, to come along with him to the PDP. He was handed the party’s platform in Kebbi State. He produced the governor, just as the party’s ticket in Sokoto was snatched away from former Water Resources Minister, Muktar Shagari, and handed to Wamakko, who eventually emerged the governor, while Shagari became his deputy.

However, one man who resisted Aliero’s onslaught then is former deputy governor, Alhaji Suleiman Argungu, who, it was learnt, told Aliero then that he may be poor, but his “integrity and creditability” were certainly “not for sale,” as he was willing to remain in the ANPP. Argungu voluntarily resigned in February, barely two months to the April polls, to “keep the ANPP together.” A decision many described as “courageous and brave.”

Argungu later emerged as the running mate to Senator Faruk Bello, the standard bearer of the ANPP, during the 2007 governorship polls in the state. Argungu, later led another group within the ANPP, called the Integrity Group, at the national level, to oust the leadership of the Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke. He also emerged as the National Organizing Secretary of the new executive.

story by ISMAIL OMIPIDAN

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