OPINION

BY YUSUF IDRIS GUSAU

Sule Lamido, can Nigerians still remember this name? Well, for the records, he is a former governor of Jigawa state who is still most remembered by the few that still bring him to their minds with disdain following what he was known for while he served as governor; arrogance, terror, pettiness, abusive, bitterness, hard feeling and disrespectful to all.

I am quick to start with these discriptions and characters of Lamido’s to refreshen the memories of the reader just as Lamido tries to release these terrible acts of his on one of the most promising governor we presently have, governor Bello Mohammed Matawalle of Zamfara where he called him names just because the latter exercised his constitutional human rights of freedom of expression and association by changing his political affiliation from the PDP to the APC.

In total disrespect to other people’s choices and desires, arrogant Lamido in his usual manner called Matawalle as an ingrate who had benefited the most under PDP largese.

Perhaps he should have expanciated by telling us such benefits, but since he did not, it meant he didn’t have any qualifier, thus we need to show him where the benefits are and to whom.

In the first place, Matawalle has been the one who single handedly held on to the PDP through thick and thin in Zamfara by financing it and sustaining its opposition stance against the ruling APC at both the state and national levels which made him the candidate with the second highest votes after the APC in the state at the 2019 governorship election which later gave him the governor’s seat through a Supreme Court ruling.

One would have expected the PDP with chalatants like Lamido to rally round the governor with advices moreso when some of them were governors and especially with the banditry challenges facing the state, but alas, none of them could think about that including as close as a PDP governor in the neighborhood.

However, both the Presidency and APC governors and their leadership were always there to sympathize with the governor, the government and people of Zamfara whenever there was any crisis in addition to giving their assistance to victims of natural or man-made disasters.

This continued until it became embarassing to the so-called PDP before a few of their governors now showed up only to plead with Matawalle not to be enticed by APC and defect.

At this point, Matawalle, a founding member of the defunct APP which transformed into the present APC has realized who his true friends are and would only listen to the noise coming from the PDP governors because he is a gentleman.

The PDP noise only became louder having seen that Matawalle is making his marks in the APC and in spite of the partnership attack being metted against Matawalle by the angry PDP and disgraced and disgruntled APC members.

What we expected from a lame dog who falls in to a lion’s den to remember his days as a governor when he visited Zamfara State to receive then governor into PDP and his unpleasant statement to the people of the state which is still fresh in the mind of many citizens who upto date require an unreserved apology.

My candit advise to you Sir, as a former governor to observe restraint in all your utterances in order to regain your lost political relevance in your state of Jigawa as is being done by many of your political class.

Where they now resort to offering useful advises to their fellow successors with a view of having rancour free states and region more formidable and making them economic hubs to upcoming generations other than trying to mislead and redirect them to the days of envy and hatred.

It is evident that Zamfara under Matawalle has transformed for the better in the last two years and even his defection to the APC is part of the peace loving governor’s continued desire to bring people of the state together under one political roof as a family.

These are the kinds of efforts that envious people like Lamido do not wish to see happen.