APC’s failure in Benue was premeditated (Opinion)

By Akume Raphael

During the Era of political party’s campaigns in Benue, Samuel Ortom started his campaign in Zone A senatorial district a formal Governor of Benue state and one time leader of the party the people’s Democratic party PDP Gabriel Suswam a current Senate contestant followed him to all the local governments of the Zone, even though Ortom being a seating governor of the state was a hard commodity to sale to the people, Suswam did his best, managed the situation and hand the campaign train over to Orker Jev in Gwer East, Another senatorial Candidate in Zone B senatorial district.
It was in Gwer East that Suswam mesmerized the people with his funny Jokes by saying ” Being a man is not by having blokos hanging between your legs if its only that you can wake up and shake the He-Goats because it also has”. he also said, “Ortom was fighting with him, raised him from the ground and wanted hitting him back to the ground, Tor Tiv came in and asked Ortom to drop he(Suswam) back, and here they are today ready to work for the unity of Benue state. These funny realities presented in a funny way endeared the people to these two Benue Son’s.

In Zone C, Abba Moro, a Senate contestant in the zone and David Mark the current senator and two times senate president in the history of Nigeria were very much on that campaign train as it went round in the Zone. Did they have a message of hope for the people? I don’t think so but they also did their best to convince the people to see reasons why Ortom should be reelected.

When APC started their own rounds of Campaign, Sen. Akume was deliberately absence. They cite all reasons for him not being around which were largely base on the fact that he was controlling Buhari campaign within the north central Nigeria. Most APC party faithful use this as a campaign message while addressing the people at campaign grounds.

Sen. Akume only appeared on the Gubernatorial campaign when the campaign train was to visit his local government(Tarka) and that was the first and last local government he went to throughout the outing for Obvious reasons. Why was that day not booked for Buhari campaign in Kwara or somewhere else? While in his local government what was he able to tell his people?

This development sent out so many signals to the people, they started asking questions as to why will The APC gubernatorial candidate be going on campaigns without Sen. Akume which was never the case in the past. Many believed this partly formed part of what contributed to the party’s poor performance at the polls.

Now it also makes one to wonder why APC will not lose elections in Benue, Even he (Akume) didn’t campaign for his reelection to the Senate, he sent Tazoor, was Tarzoor the right man to carry on with such big task, why was this so? The reasons are very obvious. Maybe just maybe he didn’t have anything to tell the people again, But his presence would have done the magic many believes.

Political analyst are of the opinion that, the magic of politics works better when the contestant present himself to the people for physical evaluation, having direct contact with the people does all the magic.

Sen. Akume and indeed the APC as a party will spend four years learning from this mistake if at all they are able to recover from the trauma that comes with it.