By ABUBAKAR YUSUF

It is obvious that what the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has lost, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has regained to the fullest.

This is evidenced in the return of the most vibrant political mover and shaker in Kogi State, Sheik Ibrahim Jibrin, the immediate past governorship candidate of APGA in the November 2019 Kogi election.

Sheik Jibrin, featured not only as one of the youngest governorship candidates in the last Kogi election, but one of the popular candidates with large followership and support base in the history of our time.

This was largely responsible because of his new style of politics of tolerance and acceptability, even when his entrance to politics is just few years ago.

Another twist to it was the successes recorded in his private capacity as a conglomerate for over a decade that had successfully ran a private estate entity without hitches.

His well thought management of both human and resources along with his exposure made it a walk over the idea of joining politics to advance the course of humanity, through public service, after creating a niche for himself in the organised private sector that specialised in estate, properties and development.

His initial notion to join politics was greeted with a lot of support and enthusiasm from the people of Kogi State and Nigerians at large, hence his decision to join the ruling party, APC, as one of the governorship aspirants in the wee hours of Kogi governorship contest.

He had every opportunity as a young lad and successful private individual to contribute his own quota to the development of the state under the platform of APC, campaigned vigorously but was later not able to clinch the ruling party’s ticket.

Alhaji Ibrahim did not hesitate, since politics is local and a game of numbers, he hurriedly moved his base to join our immediate kits and kin from the South East, by popularizing the hitherto known political party only in the South East, APGA as second to none in Kogi state.

His popularity combined with his followership saw APGA as another party to beat in the last Kogi Governorship election in November 2019.

This was on the premise of his strong belief that no political party is unpopular, but the candidacy of the party, so he demonstrated that ideology to the conviction of the eastern bloc of the country.

He ran the race successfully, even though he lost the election, the support base became a threat to both the ruling and the opposition party, as all efforts was put in place to woo him back either to the ruing APC or the main opposition PDP through emissaries.

After due and wider consultations, Sheik Jibrin decision to return back home to his former political party was greeted with encomiums from the national level to the state level, as well as his local government and ward.

This is coming especially when APC is busy wooing PDP governors and now other political party’s governorship candidate, not only as a candidate of APGA, but strong member that left due to one disagreements or the other.

It is glaring that with his return to APC and in a level playing ground, the party need not to worry about coasting to victory not only in Kogi East, Kogi West, Kogi Central, but to penetrate more to the South East, and also ready to do more exploits in other regions towards the 2023 general elections.

With Sheik Ibrahim Jibrin the membership drive and forthcoming APC congresses from the ward, local government and by extension the national convention will witness huge support and success that will return the party without hitch in 2023 elections.

The political iroko and magician has landed again, all hands must be on deck to support the APC from the unit, ward, local government, state and the federal level towards winning elections.

•Yusuf writes from Lokoja.

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