Day Ex-IGP Adamu’s supporters stormed Wadada’s base

By Aminu Mainasara

Keffi town, in Nasarawa West Senatorial district, was a Mecca of sorts last Monday as it played host to an unusual crowd.

To the untrained eye, the crowd, if you may, could have passed for a mixed multitude – signifying nothing really significant!

But to the discerning mind, the mammoth crowd who traverse the length and breadth of Keffi metropolis and its environs was too significant to dismiss, especially coming at this time and season, with politics thick in the air.

Hints that the day was going to be a memorable one in the annals of Keffi’s history was apparent judging by the caliber of people who formed the crowd including the who-is-who in the ancient traditional and commercial town and also not forgetting the hoi polloi, otherwise referred to as the talakawas in local parlance, the ever-trusted allies who make politics tick during political hustings and campaigns of this nature.

As people emerged from the different corners of the town, all roads led to the epicenter of the event, the Nasarawa State University, NSUK Gate, where the supporters of the Mohammed Abubakar Adamu Support Group Organisation (MAASGO) had set the stage for the mass mobilisation of the former Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar Adamu’s political communication and campaign.

Anyone could have wondered why the supporters of the former top cop chose Keffi of all places when they could have settled for Lafia, the state capital and home base of their principal.

Of course, the supporters of the Ex-IGP Adamu were just as intentional and very deliberate about the choice of Keffi as the mustering point to officially kick off the mega rally for the mass mobilisation of their principal.

The rationale behind the choice of the venue, as yours truly would later learn, was not just to make a bold political statement but to show in every material particular that the Walin Lafia, as a war strategist himself, knows when and where to pick his battles, and always never misses his targets!

More than anything, Keffi is the home base of Senator Ahmed Wadada, one of the figures touting himself as the annointed candidate with the backing of Governor Abdullahi Sule who has also been the former’s hype man in a manner of speaking as he has been going about flying the kite of zoning, a view not just alien to Nasarawa State but runs contrary to logic and critical reasoning in its entirety and as such remains inconsequential!

To all intents and purposes, the mega rally in Keffi proved bookmakers wrong, because the outpouring of goodwill, well-wishers for the person of Mohammed Abubakar Adamu was obvious for anyone to see, what with the influx of people, including curious passers by and onlookers, who literally emptied into the streets to join the mobilisation train for the former IGP.

The atmosphere in Keffi was more or less an epic movement of sorts, if not heroic, as self-evident both in the visages and temper of the crowd whose faces lit up with the ecstasy of victory in battle.

You could feel the air of victory even by the way the crowd gyrated to the drums and cymbals, and the different ululating
chants by the joyous folks that rent the atmosphere showed that victory was indeed inevitable.

Little wonder when Isa Nathaniel JP, Chairman of the Contact and Mobilisation Team tried to address the crowd he experienced what you could call a moment of epiphany seeing the way and manner the people roundly accepted the person of the Ex-IGP Adamu so much so that he had to raise his voice above the din to do so because all the supporters were literary over the moon already savouring the joy of victory for their principal, which is just as well.

Upbeat, Nathaniel declared the gathering a “revolution of hope” and a testament to the people’s decision to choose competence over rhetoric.

He said, ” The people have chosen competence over rhetoric, compassion over indifference, and a proven leader over empty promises,” adding that the gathering is a covenant with the people.

For Ex-IGP Adamu, his main conviction for throwing his hat into the ring remains clearly an altruistic motive and which is why he has taken his time to go round the 147 wards across the state to see things for himself – and his verdict is that things can be better hence he is prepared to take the lead in his quest to turn the fortunes of the state around in every way possible.