Although we were sure the just defeated Senator Aisha Alhassan Jummai would not concede defeat, we did not expect her to add insult to injury by trying hard to explain away her serial failure at the polls. Aisha and her minions are now everywhere trying hard to rain on the PDP’s parade by concocting lies, twisting facts and creating confusion. She has said it was Christians in the state that caused her the election because they allegedly ganged up against her. She had blamed her party, the APC and the President-elect Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. According to her, Buhari was not interested in her candidacy in the first place and did not give her the needed support. She said only Atiku showed concern. She had also accused the PDP in the state of rigging the re-run election. We shall return to all these accusations later. Aisha is currently on a war mode, ready to cause more problems and confusions which is her stock-in-trade. As we write this now, a curfew has been imposed on Jalingo, the capital town of the state because security reports has shown that Aisha and her goons are prepared to unleash mayhem should anyone rejoice at the victory. PDP supporters are now forced to remain indoors and celebrate quietly. But beyond all of that is the fact that Aisha is not ready to accept “Ikon Allah” (God’s power) as demonstrated in this election. That is hardly surprising because all that she is doing is following in the footsteps of many APC losers who don’t concede defeat. It is a well known pattern right now that APC losers don’t play the game like sportsmen (and woman) – they would never say “congratulations”. And you begin to wonder what type of people these APC’s politicians are. Is that the attitude they would bring into governance?
But that’s another matter altogether. Aisha has however upped her own game. She is hoping to get power by all means. What she can’t get through the front door, she must now try to get through the back window. The first thing she did was to ensure that Taraba falls within the infamous list of states with inconclusive elections. Now, the PDP candidate, Arc. Darius Ishaku, had won the election on first ballot. However, a sinking Aisha got INEC to cancel an entire local government result (because of problems in 5 units of the 165 units in Donga, INEC’s Mohammed Kyari, cancelled the entire LG’s result). At the end, even after all the funny cancellations mostly in places where the PDP won, Darius still led with a whopping 54,812 votes. That became the headache of Aisha and her gang. To worsen her problem, the rerun she was able to extract from INEC was in PDP’s stronghold. A clear calculation showed there was no way she could win the rerun that would hold in Darius’s catchment area. That was when Aisha went bunkers and began to call for more cancellations of results of all the 11 local governments where the PDP won. And that was the infamous call that got the entire world wondering who or what Aisha represented in the nation’s politics. Even ardent supporters of the woman became agitated by this call. And when she began to talk of naked women protesting, many saw through her raw desperation. But her plot was to ensure that Taraba remains perpetually in confusion so that no governor-elect would ever emerge as if that was even possible. In the heat of the moment, Aisha who had ambition of emerging the first ever elected female governor was prepared for anything. She eventually played up the gender card. But it was getting too little, too late.
NEW TACTICS
For even a political neophyte, there was no way Aisha was going to win the re run elections. First Darius was entering the race with a wide margin- a fact that everyone knows. Secondly, the re runs were in Darius’s strongholds. Thirdly, Aisha had lost momentum having clearly shown open signs of defeat (her calls for further cancellation of results were largely viewed as an admission of failure). On the eve of the rerun, Aisha and her supporters were already in disarray. It was even speculated that she might boycott the exercise. Remember, she had given conditions to participate in the rerun. As at last Friday, it wasn’t clear if her request or conditions were met by INEC. But whatever was the case, she entered the polls. And lost.
Aisha new game plan is to continue her crusade of calumny. She still wants to give the impression she won the election but was rigged out though many fail to see how that is possible in an election that was practically done twice to convince any doubter.
THE BLAME GAME
The blame game is on and Aisha is going to swirl and revel in it. According to her, Christians in the state voted against her. That is the most preposterous thing to say by any reasonable person. First, there were members of both faiths in the APC and PDP. In fact, it was Aisha who wanted to play up the religious card in a state that does not mix religion and politics. The political experience of Taraba shows that using religion doesn’t ever work.
Another group she is blaming is even her party, the APC. According to her, the party, especially the president-elect has not shown her any serious care. She pointed to the fact that General Buhari has not bother to comment on her ordeal. But this one is strictly her problem.
Of course, she is also blaming the PDP in the state. According to her, even the rerun was rigged. Clearly, in her estimation, any election in which she doesn’t win must have been rigged. If President Goodluck Jonathan had though like Aisha, the world would have been laughing at us today. Unknown to Madam Aisha, the votes she got in this election are mostly viewed as the traditional votes that PDP doesn’t even try to get. Taraba is predominantly a PDP state. Aisha became a senator on the PDP platform before she had the pipe dream of becoming governor on a different platform. Currently PDP has produced all the three senators in the state. Most of the House of Reps members is PDP. Same thing for the House of Assembly.
It doesn’t take any hard thinking to conclude that the governorship race was not Aisha’s to win. Only the willfully blind would ignore all of this and claim that Aisha was muscled out by a cabal. Aisha lost simply because
1. The state is predominantly PDP
2. Darius Ishaku is more popular
3. Aisha has a questionable marital and even financial background
4. She was not sincere enough with the electorate
5. The wind of power shift to the south agitation was just too much to be denied.