He once stole fire from the gods of Nigerian politics. Like the mythical Prometheus, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the governor of Sokoto State, has a certain rebellious streak, the type that nonconformists are made of. But he is not exactly a nonconformist. He is just a rebel with a cause. He fights, when he has to, for good reasons.
He displayed this tendency early enough in his political career. As a member of the House of Representatives, Tambuwal rejected an arrangement that sought to put him in a pigeonhole. He revolted against what was thought to be an established order to emerge as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The opposing authorities resented him for his defiance. To get back at him, they laid landmines for him. But he remained focused on the job. That way, he was able to weather the storm. He rode the crest in a manner that left his detractors crestfallen.
But he was to fall out of favour again with the ruling order in the run-up to the election for the office of President in 2015. The power play at that time was fierce and intense. As the presiding officer of the Lower House of the National Assembly, Tambuwal was, understandably, at the centre of the storm. He had good reasons to challenge the status quo, and he did so with conviction and commitment. He took his rejection of the Goodluck Jonathan order to its logical conclusion when he, in conjunction with some other principled members of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), left the party to embrace the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC). A certain revolution was taking place. Incumbency was about to be thrown overboard. Tambuwal was a frontline member of the angry crowd that filed out to topple the apple cart. He rode on the back of the revolutionary order to become the governor of Sokoto State.
But that was just the beginning of the battle to come. The euphoria, which greeted the victory of the APC at the presidential polls, had begun to peter out. It was time for those who won elections through the revolutionary fervour to settle down for the serious business of governance. This came with its own challenges. The party was over and reality had set in. The governor was to discover in the course of his governorship that there was no rose without thorns. Certain unusual happenings within the new ruling party had brought about a new phase of alienation. Tambuwal was no longer at ease with the new set-up. Again, he would not be caged. He had to break loose from the stifling arrangement. The result was his return to the PDP on whose ticket he won re-election as governor.
Even though Tambuwal is truly a strong character who hardly succumbs to bad situations, the diametric opposition that existed between him and the powers that be within the ruling clique in Sokoto State was a drag for his administration. Given the circumstances of his defection to APC in 2014, Tambuwal saw himself working with Aliyu Wamakko, the man who handed over to him as governor. But it turned out that they were not birds of the same feather. The romance could not endure. Even though the governor bent over backwards to accommodate Wamakko, their separation became inevitable because Tambuwal would not allow himself to be ensconced in a strange brand of politics. But the effort put him in accommodating a supremacist order had a telling effect on the Tambuwal administration during his first tenure. Consequently, those who did not have all the facts were tempted to dismiss him as a non-performing governor.
But Tambuwal has since given a lie to all the misconceptions and misrepresentations. He has demonstrated beyond any shred of doubt that he is one of the few governors of the federation that can be associated with legacy projects. In Sokoto State and beyond, Tambuwal is being acknowledged as that governor that has given his people a 120-bed university teaching hospital, which promises to be the best in the northern part of the country. He is building a sprawling model city, complete with all the appurtenances of modernity, within a reserved area of Sokoto. Only recently, he unveiled a state-of-the-art advanced medical diagnostics centre, which is the first of its kind in his part of the country. Governor Tambuwal is also doing something for the girl-child through the provision of special and specialized education facilities such as the Government Girls Science Academy, with curricula designed to provide special skills in the fields of science, technology and engineering. With this academy in place, Sokoto State looks forward to breaking uncommon barriers in the education of the girl-child.
These legacy projects are designed to tell a story, to wit, that there was once an achiever called Tambuwal who held sway in Sokoto. The signature projects also tell the story of a man who dreams dreams and converts them into practical realities.
As he winds down in Sokoto State, Tambuwal is aiming for the national space. But he no longer has his eyes on the legislature. His attraction this time is the Presidency. Like the committed idealist that he is, Tambuwal has good reasons to pursue that cause. If you ask him why he wants to be President, he will quickly retort that the system needs him. He had walked a brilliant pathway with all the positive stories that go with it. The people have not forgotten. They want him to illuminate the presidential scene with his stroke of brilliance. This is what Tambuwal is aiming at at moment.
But then, there is a snag. The North, his home region, is being asked to take a break from the presidency after Buhari’s eight years in the saddle. But Tambuwal repudiates such sectionalism. He wants Nigerians to think national. That way, they will break the artificial barriers that lie in the way of national development and integration. But how will he weather the storm in order to arrive at a safe harbour? That is the challenge before Tambuwal. As the battle for which region of the country should grab the presidency rages, Tambuwal has a lot of war fronts to contend with. But since the governor is not a run-of-the-mill politician, it is expected that he will come up with fresh vistas that will give him an edge over the motley crowd that has massed up to fight for the presidency. Indeed, he has cause to bid for the presidency and he is doing so with zeal and determination. That is the stuff rebels of the Tambuwal variety are made of.