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By Victoria Ngozi Ikeano
The character of the newly elected chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator AbdullahiAdamu, shined through in the run up to the party’s national convention that saw him and others eventually inaugurated as APC’s new National Working Committee. Once people got wind he was going to contest, the brickbats and stone throwing started to fly around. Fake news, sponsored stories couched in the form of informed commentary and news began to appear with uncanny rapidity. Some of them verged on character assassination. What was the intention? To paint him black? Undermine his reputation in the eyes of the public, his sponsors and backers? Ultimately, to intimidate, force him to drop out of the race and for his sponsors to have a change of mind on him? Does 70+ Senator AbdullahiAdamu who has gone through ups and downs in his long years of political career look like someone that can be intimidated by mere mortals?
Someone not strong enough would have crumbled emotionally under the avalanche of these sponsored news stories. Take the former Finance Minister, KemiAdeosun, who was forced to resign over ‘forged’ NYSC certificate which to all intents and purposes was not of her making. In the Nigerian parlance you would say that she was ‘set up’ more or less. She said that she cried for months thereafter, was disoriented and needed some kind of therapy to overcome the trauma.
Most of the stories were spread by the social media, a 21st century creation where netizens in their millions share posts even before they have read or digested them. It is foolhardy for anyone to swallow hook, line and sinker everything that he/she reads on the social media. The advice is to put on your thinking cap to be able to read between the lines whenever you are reading a post in the social media.
Apparently having gotten wind that he was about to contest the chairmanship position, a sponsored, group held a press briefing in Lafia, capital of his home state of Nasarawa, accusing him of taking advantage of his being Chairman, APC Reconciliation Committee to campaign for it as he went round the states on that assignment. Then at an occasion to mark the 20th anniversary of the traditional ruler of Azara in Awe local government of same Nasarawa state, an event that attracted very eminent personalities including the Sultan of Sokoto who doubles as head of the Muslim faithful in Nigeria, a group of hired youths protested against him as he was about mounting the rostrum to deliver his speech. Abdullahi Adamu, the Turakin Keffi, however kept his cool in the face of this uncouth behaviour at an important event with an array of people of timber and calibre on ayyendance. The protest was a disrespect to the traditional institution and to Muslims generally with the president of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (Sultan of Sokoto) personally present. The argument is that Nasarawa state stakeholders had met and agreed on Senator Tanko Al-makura; that Senator Adamu did not indicate any interest to run at the time and that his entry into the contest at seemingly the 11th hour was an attempt to topple the apple cart. Deep thinking persons should have reasoned that Abdullahi Adamu’s rather late entry has more to it than meets the eye. As it turned out, he was drafted to the race by the presidency. He himself explained that he did not declare for the post until he was called to come and serve.
Even when it was in the public domain that the president was pushing for an Abdullahi Adamu chairmanship with credible newspapers reporting it, some of the aspirants were denying this fact and came short of accusing Senator Adamu of name dropping. When he declared publicly that the president had not endorsed him, it was a political statement, seeing that those who would lose out were becoming highly agitated and could be planning some sinister moves. Some frayed nerves were indeed calmed but some and their supporters continued their false narratives against him. At a time they spread a fake news that he had withdrawn from the race. They said he is not an original APC man but he averred that he joined the party at its formation stage which makes him one of its foundation members.
The most strident of the falsehood is that he has corruption charges hanging on his head. This is a rehash of an old script which surfaced when Bukola Saraki then president of the senate and Adamu had some squabbles. The new APC chairman had said that he has no case with the EFCC, explaining that , ‘’My case was terminated when it was discharged in the Federal High Court in Lafia, way back on June 28, 2016.’’. In all these false accusations and even invectives on him, Senator Adamu had been cool headed like a gentleman that he is, not replying or using harsh words, attesting to his maturity. He did not consider his co-aspirants as enemies but as his brothers.
By rooting for him as his choice for APC chairmanship, President Muhammadu Buhari is repaying Senator Adamu for his loyalty and sacrifice for him. Recall that as chairman of the Parliamentary Group in the 8th Senate, he had confronted the then senate president on principle. Adamu had asked Saraki to resign as senate president, after his defection. He likened Saraki’s opposition politics to a betrayal. For this, Adamu was called names, ridiculed and insulted by Saraki and Dino Melaye all because he was defending the president’s interests. Many had thought he would be made the majority leader of this 9th senate. But things apparently changed at the last minute and it was not to be. Still, Turakin Keffi took it all with philosophical equanimity. Now comes his recompense.
Ikeano is a former media aide to Abdullahi Adamu
