By Tanimu Abdullahi
In what is seen by observers as a desperate attempt to dim and shoot down the bright and ever-rising political star of Distinguished Senator Aishatu Dahiru Binani, and to clear the coast of what he sees as the biggest obstacle to his ambition to be the Executive Governor of Adamawa State come 2027, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, in what is clearly a misuse of office and insider privilege, is planning to send the statutory institutional attack dogs of EFCC and ICPC after Binani and her husband, Dr. Ahmed Moddibo.Reliable information filtering in from Abuja has it that Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, who is the National Security Adviser, NSA, to the President, has directed the Minister of Education, Professor Mamman Tahir, who worked for Labour Party (LP) at the 2023 Presidential election and worked for People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at the 2023 Adamawa Governorship election, a longstanding associate of the NSA and who got the ministership by the graces of the NSA, to probe the tenure of Dr. Ahmed Modibbo as the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, (2007-2012) and thereafter lodge an official complaint before the EFCC and the ICPC, who will then use the complaint to go after Dr. Ahmed Modibbo.The Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC, was established in 2004, and Dr. Modibbo served as its Executive Secretary in 2007 – 2012. His tenure ended 11 clear years ago and there have been three (3) other Executive Secretaries after him, namely Professor Charles Onocha, who served as the Acting Executive Secretary from 2012 to 2013, and Alhaji Dikko Sulaiman, who served as the Executive Secretary from 2013 to 2016, and the incumbent, Dr. Hamid Bobboi, who came to office in 2016.
The question we are asking is: why the selective probe? Why leave out the tenures before and the tenures after that of Dr. Ahmed Modibbo and probe only his tenure? The answer is that probity and accountability are not what this probe is intended to secure, but an arbitrary misuse of office by a high level insider to drag down someone he sees as his political albatross so as to achieve personal political ends. The aim is to bring trumped-up charges against Dr. Ahmed Modibbo, rope his wife, Senator Aishatu Dahiru Binani into it, and hopefully kill her political future by the resultant criminal case. It is a desperate and ignoble witch-hunt, an attempt to give a dog a bad name so as to hang it.This is not surprising to discerning observers of political events in Adamawa State. Since the APC governorship primaries were concluded and Senator Aishatu Binani, against the much tauted and vaunted candidature of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, easily won the ticket of the party, all hell broke loose. Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and his powerful associates, swearing that Senator Aishatu Binani will never become governor of Adamawa State, went after her with all the firepower in their arsenal. When they couldn’t use the courts to stop her, they resorted to all kinds of backhanded and underhanded tricks, including a well-oiled media smear campaign and high-wired subterranean anti-party activities that almost destroyed their own party, just to halt the march of the woman of the people. From the results of the 2023 Governorship Elections, which actually indicated a victory for Senator Binani, their efforts did not work. So, using their strong connections, they stole the elections and gave it to a usurper. She turned to the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal to recapture her mandate; they overshot themselves by concocting a judgment that has jurists and intellectuals wondering what stretch of imagination was used to pull that obviously twisted judicial abracadabra.
Now that Senator Binani has beaten them in so many negative attempts of destroying her political fortunes including the very fallacies of the concocted results announced by INEC after the gubernatorial elections – a situation that has gotten all the anti-Binani forces scampering for whatever cover they can find to save their croaked political necks – as a last-ditch effort, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu now came up with this probe to gain some respectability for what is clearly a vendetta crusade by a man who has always resorted to using the powers that be for personal political gains, instead of building his political profile by working for the people, against a woman who is truly a champion of the people, owing to her stellar career of selfless service to the people, who is only seeking political power to serve the people of Adamawa State.
As with all the previous ignoble attempts to stop the inevitable march of Senator Aishatu Dahiru Binani to Dougerei House, this one also shall also fail, Insha Allah. We shall come out of this, stronger and better.
Tanimu Abdullahi, is a public affairs analyst, writes from Agwan Rimi in Kaduna.