There is an urgent need for a very deep retrospection and a sincere post-mortem on the abysmal performance of APC in Kaduna state during the Presidential,Senatorial and House of Representatives elections.

In my humble view,several factors are responsible for our not so impressive outing in the election. This piece is my own contribution of the analysis and diagnosis of the several factors that contributed to our poor performance at the elections.

A very important factor in my view is the way and manner the campaign was formulated and implemented. Clearly,almost every critical issue about the campaign was run by a clique and not by the people that were appointed and given ‘responsibility ‘in the campaign Council.Majority of the people appointed were left with just a piece of paper with signature of our Governorship candidate, Dstinguished Senator Uba Sani.

For instance, I was given an appointment as Assistant Director Health and Environment in logistic Directorate but we were only called for a meeting once by our Director.Most of us in the Directorate were not consulted nor involved on any strategy pertaining the organisation and implementation of logistics for the campaign activities.

Additionally and also very important to note is that we approach the campaign with arrogance and overconfidence when in actual fact we do not have the grassroot support on our side.Unfortunately,few people that were the “chosen ones” keep reassuring our Governorship candidate that they will deliver the votes for the entire Kaduna state for him when in all honesty they do not have the capacity to deliver the grassroot to the candidates of our party.

Added to this is the poor reward system of APC government in Kaduna state in the last eight years.

Several people that campaigned and fought tooth and nail for APC to win in 2015 and 2019 are still very aggrieved because they are either poorly rewarded or not rewarded at all for their efforts in playing a decisive role in the victory of APC in Kaduna state.

For instance, we have very competent people and technocrats of Kaduna state origin that are sufficiently qualified for political appointments after APC formed government in 2015 and 2019.However, to the utter surprise of several APC supporters,people from South-western Nigeria, Kebbi, Katsina,Plateau and other states who knew nothing on how APC won election were brought in and given very key appointments that should have gone to competent people from Kaduna state.This has clearly created disaffection within the ranks of APC in Kaduna state.

Again, some competent and grassroot people that declare to contest for various political offices in the 2023 elections were muscled out of the contest because of the interests of the few clique that run the government and the party. Aspirants that decided to go by the global best practice of notifying the Governor and his lieutenants in government were completely ignored and not ‘honoured’ by even a reply of wishing them the best of luck in their aspirations.

Those that run the government and the party in Kaduna state behave in a manner that send a clear message to all others that APC is their personal property.It therefore behoves to them to select who they wish to ‘crown’ to be the candidate to run for political office under the party.

Most analysts that are familiar with the way APC supporters have been treated in the last eight years can confidently say without equivocation that APC as a party in power in Kaduna state cannot boast of 100 persons that worked for the success of the party in 2015 and 2019 elections that can bring out 10 million Naira out of their pockets and spend for the party in this elections.This is because only few clique of people benefitted from APC as ruling party in the last eight years and unfortunately most of the are not grassroot politicians/technocrats or were not from Kaduna state.

We all have to accept that the APC government in Kaduna state made a lot of mistakes politically in the manner the government was run in the last eight years.Politics and especially party politics is very important in democracy because it is the only way peoples can group themselves and come together to have access to power.

In formulating and implementing our strategy toward winning the Governorship election ahead of us in two weeks,let’s not lose sight of recent events in history.In 2015 we defeated an incumbent Governor who obviously had more funds to execute the election campaigns than we do. In additional to having more financial resources at the disposal of then government of the PDP,the ruling party,they also had the huge advantage of been in government.But despite these factors to their advantage,we soundly defeated them.The lessons to learn here is that if it can happen to them,it can equally happen to us if we do not do the needful.

For us in APC to deliver Kaduna state to Senator Uba Sani and our House of Assembly candidates,we need to have a complete change of strategy by designing and implementing a more inclusive campaign structure for the forthcoming Governorship and state house of Assembly elections. All the APC campaign Council Officials,members and grassroot support groups should be co-opted and be actively enaged in the campaign process.

There is also the need to tell ourselves the honest truth that we do not have a genuine grassroot support base at the moment.Anyone in Kaduna state APC with an impression that the common people in Kaduna state are with APC is deluding himself.This is very evident from the results of Presidential and National assembly elections. Also, believing that the masses will vote for APC because we shared food items and provided free transportation close to the election time is trying to gloss over a serious issue that requires a lot of hard work and genuine engagement of the people.

We must make deliberate efforts to mobilise and engage genuine grassroot politicians and stakeholders who understand and can speak to the sentiment of the common people in the society who provide the majority of voted needed to win an election.

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Dr Mijinyawa Bashir Bello is the Assistant Director, Health & Environment, Kaduna state APC Campaign Council.

He is a Consultant Physician and a Public affairs Analyst.