In December 2014, a maverick Catholic Priest, Rev Fr EjikeMbaka of the Adoration Ministry Enugu read out his New Year message for the coming year entitled “From Goodluck to Badluck”. In it he prophesized that the incumbent President, Goodluck Jonathan would be defeated by his challenger, Gen Muhammadu Buhari. That prophecy was fulfilled in 2015.

President Buhari is yet to end his four-year mandate but the drum beats of prophet Mbaka have changed. On December 31^st last year, he came out with a warning to Buhari:

“Mr President, you need to change or you will be changed. You are the one who introduced change as your mantra. Nigerian economy is in shambles and Nigerians are in sorrow. Nigeria is not just passing through an economic depression but also economic repression and compression. Very soon, Nigerians will know that the country is in a terrible mess”, he thundered.

The prophet from Enugu then spotted a new Messiah:

“If you go to Gombe, it was a rural state, the present Governor there, Ibrahim Hassan, has turned that place into almost an ultra modern city and that man was a former Accountant General of the country. If you go to Gombe, you won’t know Gombe again; why can’t such a person come out; I don’t know the party he is in; and he is still a young man; in his early 50s, whether in PDP or APC, I don’t know but whoever is doing that kind of magic in Gombe can handle Nigeria. A man who did PhD in Accountancy, chartered in marketing, chartered in Accountancy, a lot of things, a guru, we need somebody with such aura.

“And the Gombe people will tell you, he does not discriminate between Muslims and Christians, he is shielding even Christians there.”

If Fr Mbaka does not know, I make bold to inform him that Dankwambo is a member of the PDP on whose ticket he was elected Governor of Gombe State.

Readers of my column may have noticed that for all that happened to Nigeria under the PDP, I never completely lost hope in that party. I believe that the country should be ruled by a strong party with a strong opposition party as a check on its excesses. But as I regretted in my column of December 18 last year after the PDP National Convention, “PDP leaders are sadly doing nothing to make the party more attractive to the Nigerian voter.”

My hope that the PDP will be an alternative voice in Nigeria is predicated on my distaste for a one party state. In the same column I warned that:

“The APC may soon become an all-conquering party as the PDP was in its hey days. That will make me sad because when you have such a powerful party in an African country, the end result is always a comprehensive catastrophe. Look at Kenya under MzeeJomo Kenyatta, Uganda under Milton Obote, Ivory Coast under Felix Houphouet – Boigny, Zaire under Mobutu SeseSekoNgbenduWaZaBanga,Liberia under William Tolbert and lately Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. The list is endless. If only the PDP could change and give the APC a serious challenge.”

If Fr Mbakas crystal balls are telling him the truth and Dankwambo becomes the new face of the PDP in next year’s polls, the party would have risen to my challenge that it needs to “make itself more attractive to the Nigerian voter.” Such a development will also give a signal that “it is poised to give the APC a serious challenge.”

I am a living witness to the progressive efforts of the Dankwambo government. As I confessed to his Deputy Governor, the amiable Charles Iliya when we met in Abuja late last year, my first visit to Gombe was in the mid 70’s when it was a one street town. All I needed on that visit was to wait by the roadside and as my senior brother drove pass in less than an hour’s time, I waved him down.These days, when I go to Gombe, I get completely lost.

In 2013, two years after Dankwambo became governor of Gombe State, I was there to attend the 2^nd North East Economic Summit. It was clear to me at the time that the man was moving Gombe forward.

Again I was there last year – to hold public hearings – as part of the activities of Nnamani Panel on Constitution and Electoral Reforms. This time, it became even more clearer to me that the Governor was moving the State forward and moving it very fast.

Given his pedigree before assumption of office as Governor, Dankwambo has lived up to expectations. An alumnus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and University of Lagos, where he bagged his Bachelor and Master degrees in Accounting and Economics respectively, he became the Accountant General of Gombe state in 1999 at age 37. In 2005, President Olusegun Obasanjo elevated him to the position of the Accountant General of the federation (AGF), thereby reaching the pinnacle of his profession in the public service. He resigned his job as AGF in January 2011, ran for Governor of Gombe state and won in the April 2011 poll.

As Governor, he bagged a PhD in Accounting from Igbenedion University, Okada. He is also a fellow with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, (FCA), Fellow, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (FCTI), Fellow, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (FCIB) and Fellow, Nigeria Institute of Marketers (FNIM).

Governor (Dr) Ibrahim Hassan Dankwamboat 54 years represents the generational shift many people are yearning for in the leadership of Nigeria. He is said to be a core professional and a perfect technocrat.

If we are to believe Fr Mbaka,GovernorDankwambo, though a practicing Muslim, is not a religious and tribal bigot – a perfect description of what a leader should be in a multiethnic society like ours.

When I spoke to Charles Iliya late last year, he rolled out the achievements of his boss: Dankwamboconverted the Yan-kalare – a group of political and social miscreants that unleashed terror and havoc on the State – to employable and responsible citizens by giving them skills.

He also invested heavily in the education sector making way for a revolution from the primary through secondary up to tertiary levels by establishing fresh academic institutions like State Polytechnic (Bajoga); State College of Education (Billiri); College of Business and Administrative Studies (Kumo); Vocational and Technical Institute (Akko); and College of Nursing Studies (Dukku) etc.

I have always argued that any governor in the North that improves the education of his people touches my heart. It is educational backwardness in the north that has dealt a painful blow to the region and stifled Nigeria’s development. For this and many other achievements, Dankwambo has won my heart.[myad]

As Nigeria prepares for the 2019 general elections, a few people have already started subtle campaign. Of course, you can be sure that the starting point is in the media as always and the torchbearers are the journalists and writers; hack or hired writers or otherwise.

From what is coming out in the media and self-appointed soothsayers, it appears that the shape of the campaign for the 2019 general elections will not be different from what we have always had, especially what we had in the 2014/15 campaign/election period. It is looking as if it will be full of insults, hatred, verbal attacks, innuendos, mudslinging and all such other negative and archaic political jibes.

As a matter of fact, the campaign is not likely to be issue-based, for the simple reason that none of the political parties, much less the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) can claim to have clearly defined ideology. Not even the Presidential candidates that will emerge from the lot.

It is strangely interesting to know that while President Muhammadu Buhari has not come out to declare his intention to run for a second term, a few writers, preachers and professional hack-writers are already in town churning out hateful comments on why he should not even think of coming out to seek for a second term.

The concern here is not really about what such writers are saying, but the ignorance that is built into the write-ups; I mean ignorant about how democracy works, how leadership emerges in democracy and so on.

One of such write-ups had already expressed fears that the candidate he favours to be President from 2019 will be prevented from winning election by what he called cabals, as if the cabals are a group that installed leader or leaders.

Of course, if the present President has not performed enough to enable him become the next President, it is the electorate across the country that will deny him such privilege with their votes, and it has been made clear time without number that Nigeria had gradually grown beyond the crudity which such writers are thinking of.

This point is made strong with the example which the immediate past President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had set, having handed over the reign of power to the winner of the 2015 elections, who happened to come from the then opposition political party.

It will be a clear intimidation and denial of right for anybody to say that President Buhari should not seek for second term or that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar or even any other Nigerian should not contest the next year election. What is important is for us to grow out of our archaic, undemocratic thinking. The thinking that it is a sin for even a none performing leader, this time, President Buhari, to contest election or re-election as the case may be. Or, that by contesting, it means that he is being floated by unseen cabals.

From the example which Dr. Jonathan had set, it will be difficult for any body, even the incumbent leader, to cling to power when the electorates say it is all over.

So, instead of dissipating energy fearing the method of installing the next President, in a clear democracy which Nigeria has long embraced, the campaigners would do well to begin to sell their candidates and their programmes, if any, to those who will vote in 2019.

The issue of cabal or that a section of the country has enslaved the other parts of the country by the mere fact of the man at the helm of the nation’s affairs, should be left where it belonged: political dustbin.

At any rate, by the way, the constitution is designed and being practiced in a way that no candidate from whichever part of the country can be President unless he wins election in not less than 26 out of 36 states of the country, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

As a matter of fact, Article 134 (2) of the Nigerian Constitution stipulates that a presidential candidate will be duly elected after attaining both the highest number of votes cast, and having received at least a quarter of the votes at each of at least two-thirds of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

If therefore, an Igbo man for example, wins election in at least 26 states of the federation, crossing all the geographical and ethnic boundaries, how, for God sake, would such President be regarded as being floated by cabals or that his part of the country is enslaving the other parts?

The campaigners should learn to know that, despite those hiding under the new social media to spread hateful and divisive political antics, Nigerians are no fools; they understand the workings of democracy and the method of electing President.

What Nigeria wants as the 2019 beckons, are Presidential candidates that would come up with clear idea of how they will address the numerous economic, security, social and other challenges of the country, and how they will bring about job opportunities and other welfare packages, not who is going to contest, why is he going to contest and or reading meaning into where such candidate comes from.

Where anybody comes from ought not to be anybody’s business, in a democracy, because, every adult and educated Nigerian is qualified to contest. [myad]