With the death of Kaduna State Governor, Patrick Yakowa last Saturday and the swearing-in Namadi Sambo’s political child, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero as the state’s new governor, the Vice President has finally captured in Kaduna State politics what he has been unable to do at the polls.
With the death of Kaduna State Governor, Patrick Yakowa last Saturday and the swearing-in Namadi Sambo’s political child, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero as the state’s new governor, the Vice President has finally captured in Kaduna State politics what he has been unable to do at the polls.
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Prior to the death of Yakowa on Saturday, the Vice President had been engaged in a tense power struggle with him, as well as with another former governor and now Senator representing Kaduna North Senatorial District, Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, along with some other political forces led by Alhaji Suleiman Hunkuyi. In the past two years, he and candidates backed by him have been repeatedly defeated at the ballot box in various elections.
Fate seems to have played the latest hand in his favour in Kaduna’s tense politics. A credible source within the Peoples Democratic Party told SaharaReporters today that Sambo is now the new ‘emperor’ of Kaduna power play, and has since his arrival in the State yesterday been holding a series of meetings to consolidate his new fortunes.
The meetings hinge on who is to be chosen as next deputy governor, and he wants to make sure he selects a person that will work in his favour.
The source said, “You know it was Makarfi that midwifed his entry into mainstream Kaduna politics, though with a long business association with Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and other top Northern elite. That never birthed any breakthrough in the polity. But it has been crises shortly after he becomes governor and later Vice President. They parted ways with Makarfi.
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“Makarfi too has a wide cloud and Yakowa’s main advantage was the fact that his Southern Kaduna axis was 100 percent PDP without resistance. And there is the Hunkuyi’s camp too. The three forces were dragging back and forth and now, Yakowa is gone, Sambo has finally gotten an edge with Yero being his boy. Sambo has governor, DG of NEMA, Sani Sidi, Minister of Environment, Hadiza Mailafiya and even the PDP chairman in the state.”
The source added that Sambo’s ambition of grabbing Kaduna power base has finally been realized, but that it remains to be seen whether he can consolidate it.
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