Adamawa 2023: Binani Threatens Fintiri And The Glass Ceiling -By Kene Obiezu

The 2023 governorship Election in Adamawa State promises to be a fight to finish between Aisha Binani of the All Progressives Congress (APC)  and Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP). Who will outlast the other?

Women  are on the move in Adamawa State. When Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri hastily shuffled his pack top luck Professor Kaleptwa Farauta from her position as the Vice Chancellor of Adamawa State University, Mubi, and pick her as his running mate in the 2023 Governorship election, he  was not acting out of volition. His hand had been forced by a formidable foe in the  form of Aisha Dahiru Binani.

In…..,Aisha Binani, the Senator representing Adamawa Central in the 9^th National Assembly, and  Chairman of the Senate Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, shrugged off several household names in Adamawa Politics to clinch the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC).Left in her wake were former EFCC Chairman, Nuhu Ribadu, Abdurazak Ramdas, the former House of Representatives, as well as Mohammed Bidow,a former governor of the state.

She was probably alone in envisioning her victory ,but  Aisha Buhari, Nigeria’s first lady, who hails from the state was quick to greet her, describing  her emergence as a  victory for women.

Adamawa State is one of the six states which make up the Northeast geopolitical zone. It is  bordered by Borno to the northwest, Gombe to the west, and Taraba to the southwest, while its eastern border forms part of the national border with Cameroon. It takes its name from the historic emirate of Adamawa, with the emirate’s old capital of Yola, serving as the capital city of Adamawa state. The state, one of the most heterogeneous in Nigeria, with over 100 indigenous ethnic groups, was formed in 1991, when the former Gongola state was divided into Adamawa and Taraba states.

Its most prominent politician is Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former vice president, who was the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)  in the February 25, general election. Other political heavyweights from the state are Jibril Aminu, Aisha Buhari, Binta Masi Garba, Buba Marwa, Babachir David Lawal, Murtala Nyako, Tahir Mamman, among others.

Aisha Dahiru Binani may have floored six men to snare the Governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC),but she faces an uphill task to unseat Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, the current state governor.

In a state that  counts Numan, the ancestral home of the  Bachama people, feared and famed warriors that they are, if Binani is to become governor she will have to do battle. A slew of court actions have already tried but failed to stop her momentum.

The People’s Democratic Party remains in the ascendancy in the state with the manner Atiku Abubakar swept votes in the state as he finished runner-up to Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the presidential election. But it  faces the sternest of tests from the All Progressives Congress, and Binani, who has combined stints as a legislator in both houses of the   National Assembly with establishing a string of successful businesses.

In a  country  that remains unjustifiably patriarchal, Binani is evidence  that women can punch above their weight

In an election cycle  when  the harvest is ripe for women in the “Land of beauty”, the presence of  Professor Kaleptwa Farauta alongside Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri on the ticket of the People’s Democratic Party will ensure that woman will occupy one of the two highest offices in the state no matter what happens  on March 18.

Before June 30, 2022, Professor Farauta, a seasoned technocrat, who became the North-East region’s  first female Vice-Chancellor, was the Vice-Chancellor of Adamawa State University, Mubi. Fintiri’s choice made her the first woman to be  nominated for the office of deputy governor in the North-East.

Fintiri’s re-election will be a hammer blow on the glass ceiling  as a woman will be a deputy governor for the first time in the North-East region.

Adamawa women prefer that Binani becomes governor, but they won’t mind a Fintiri victory if it catapults Farauta to the state’s second office, that is if Fintiri’s performance in the last four years is enough to fetch him  re-election.

If a woman is to become a state governor in Nigeria 15 years after Virginia Etiaba’s short stint in Anambra, it may just come from  the “Land of Beauty” where women with beauty and brains continue to push boundaries.