Democracy & Governance
Katsina 2023: Why Dr. Mustapha Inuwa’s Defection Could Turn The Election On Its Head -By Aliyu Sulaiman Babasidi
Dr Inuwa and his supporters have made their move. And whatever the outcome in 2023 is, the former SGS’ decision will spike up the votes in favour of his new party, the PDP. The APC and their candidate should (and must) be aware of this, and will be jittery.
This week, Dr Mustapha Muhammad Inuwa, Katsina’s former Secretary to the State Government, officially decamped to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) from the ruling All Progressives’ Congress (APC). This was obviously a fallout to his failed attempt to clinch the ruling party’s gubernatorial ticket for the 2023 general elections. The defection is not surprising to observers of politics in Katsina state. Indeed, the former SSG’s campaign office in Katsina state has seen more traffic of meetings and programmes sequel to the primaries, than the meetings carried out in the campaign office of the eventual victor, Dr Dikko Umar Radda. Not less than a score of marathon meetings were held between Dr Inuwa, his supporters, and the political parties that were courting him. It was obvious again that he felt aggrieved at the manner in which he lost the primaries.
While the manifest reason for his defection was because he felt ‘unwanted’ by the APC, the latent reasons for his defection are not unconnected to his need to remain relevant in Katsina state politics, just as he has managed to be since 1999.
The APC should be very wary now. In the same vein, the PDP should really fancy their chances. I will explain why.
Dr Mustapha Inuwa is arguably the most powerful politician in Katsina state’s history never to become governor. He is the longest serving Secretary to the State Government in Katsina. He has either deliberately or inadvertently created a structure of loyalists spread across the political and public service sphere of the state and across party divides. These loyalists, alongside him, contributed greatly to APC’s gubernatorial and presidential election success in the state in 2015 and 2019. His social capital in Katsina is akin to Bola Tinubu’s Lagos state. The similarities are in how he has been able to mentor, empower, and nurture politicians and technocrats in virtually all sectors of the state. Okay, obviously not exactly in the same scale and impact as that of Bola Tinubu, but you get the point.
Dr. Inuwa’s political and social capital transcends socio-economic classes and spreads across the 3 senatorial zones of the state. It will be suicidal for anybody to underrate his importance
Dr Inuwa and his supporters have made their move. And whatever the outcome in 2023 is, the former SGS’ decision will spike up the votes in favour of his new party, the PDP. The APC and their candidate should (and must) be aware of this, and will be jittery.
These being said, 5 months in Nigerian politics is a life-time, and Dr. Inuwa jumping ship to the PDP by no means imply that APC are still not favourites going into February 2023. 5 months is enough time to deconstruct and demystify even the strongest political structures. Moreover, the outcome of the Presidential elections, which precedes the gubernatorial elections, will play a huge role in determining the direction of bulk of the votes, whereby there would likely be a positive relationship between the outcome of the Presidential election and that of the gubernatorial elections. This is if you were to factor the previous 3 general election results in Katsina state, where the party that wins at the presidential level also mirrored that of the gubernatorial elections. The former SGS is well aware also that he took a gamble. Could this gamble also be partly because he has little to lose?
