In Nasarawa, a quiet drama unfolds where gratitude fades, process bends, and power is exercised with troubling precision and consequence, argues MUHAMMADU USMAN
History is not kind to those who inherit political capital and attempt to recast it as self-creation. In the intricate and often fragile architecture of Nasarawa politics, a quieter but no less consequential tragedy is unfolding, one shaped by ambition, selective memory, and a steady erosion of process. The name Abdullahi Sule once suggested continuity, discipline, and restraint. Today it invites a more careful reading, one in which the language of order sits uneasily beside the practice of control.
The pivot from promise to pattern is swift. Ingratitude, manipulation, and a disregard for process do not appear as isolated missteps. They form a consistent method, visible both in the governor’s own account and in the broader political record. He insists there is no crisis, yet constructs an elaborate defence against one. He affirms a commitment to free and fair primaries, yet outlines actions that quietly narrow the field before the contest begins. He invokes consensus, yet reduces it to moments of deference that he alone interprets. These contradictions are not incidental. They are the structure upon which his argument rests.
To understand the full weight of this moment, one must return to the origin of his ascent. It is a matter of record that Senator Tanko Al-Makura, against prevailing sentiment, against broader consultations, and against what many considered the safer internal consensus, argued forcefully for Sule’s emergence. That decision was not routine. It was a deliberate political investment, anchored in trust, continuity, and belief in judgment.
That history sharpens the present. It invites a difficult question, whether that act of conviction has now become a source of regret. Whether, in choosing Sule against the tide, Al-Makura has been left to confront a reality that unsettles the very premise of that choice.
The governor’s own words do little to dispel this tension. He acknowledges support, then steadily diminishes its weight. He accepts mentorship, then confines its relevance. He expresses gratitude, yet strips it of consequence. What remains is authority, presented as self-sustaining, detached from the relationships that helped construct it.
His assertion that carrying along his predecessor is a privilege rather than a right is revealing, though not in the way intended. In constitutional terms, it is correct. No leader is compelled to defer. Yet politics is not governed by law alone. It rests on a deeper, unwritten architecture where consultation, recognition, and continuity sustain legitimacy.
To reduce that relationship to discretionary courtesy is not a neutral clarification. It is a redefinition. It shifts politics from shared investment to personal discretion. In doing so, it reflects not on Al- Makura, but on Sule himself. It signals a narrowing of political memory, an inclination to benefit from inherited structure while distancing oneself from its obligations.
Ingratitude, in this context, is not a flourish. It is a posture. When a leader acknowledges support while simultaneously diminishing its relevance, he sends a message about the durability of political bonds. That message travels. It reaches allies, stakeholders, and party members alike. It suggests that loyalty may not endure, that consultation may not be consistent, and that precedent may be negotiable.
This posture flows directly into the handling of process. The governor speaks in the language of order, indirect primaries, stakeholder engagement, agreed timelines. Yet the sequence he outlines tells a different story. Aspirants are convened, encouraged to align, and when alignment proves elusive, a decision emerges from the centre. That decision is then presented as consensus, its origins softened by the language of collective trust.
For those who understand party mechanics, the distinction is decisive. Process is not merely the event at the end. It is the integrity of every step that leads to it. When those steps are shaped by the authority they are meant to balance, credibility becomes fragile.
Manipulation here is not overt. It is procedural. It operates through structure, not outside it. Meetings are held, options are discussed, and authority is exercised with restraint in tone but firmness in direction. The appearance is consultation. The effect is control. By the time the formal process begins, expectations have already been set.
The handling of dissent reinforces this impression. Concerns about internal democracy are minimised, often framed as anxiety or misinterpretation. Stakeholder objections are acknowledged only to be absorbed into a broader narrative of agreement. Even when respected figures express unease, their positions are reframed in ways that reduce their weight.
This creates a surface calm. It suggests cohesion and forward movement. Yet beneath that calm lies a thinning confidence. A party’s strength is not defined by the absence of disagreement, but by the credibility of the structures that manage it. When those structures are perceived to be shaped rather than respected, trust begins to erode.
The invocation of zoning follows the same pattern. It is presented as fairness, and in many contexts it is. Yet here, it appears less as a guiding rule and more as a supporting argument. It is applied firmly when it aligns with the governor’s preference, and flexibly when it does not. This elasticity does not invalidate the principle, but it places its current use within a broader pattern of justification.
For a wider audience, the implications extend beyond Nasarawa. This is a study in how power behaves at a moment of transition. Succession is a test of leadership, one that demands restraint as much as authority. It is where character
becomes visible, where the balance between influence and imposition is most clearly drawn.
In this instance, that balance appears unsettled. The governor retains the language of fairness, yet advances a position shaped by prior influence. He acknowledges loyalty, yet redefines its obligations. He affirms process, yet adjusts its direction.
Each of these positions may stand when viewed alone. Together, they form a pattern that invites scrutiny. It is not a single contradiction that defines the moment, but their accumulation.
What makes this particularly striking is that it was avoidable. The governor possessed the political capital to manage succession in a way that strengthened both his authority and the credibility of the party. He could have acted as a custodian of process, guiding without determining, influencing without constraining.
Instead, the path chosen has concentrated decision making while narrowing trust. It has preserved the outward form of process while altering its substance. It has acknowledged relationships while diminishing their meaning.
And in that choice, something more revealing has occurred. By his actions and inactions, Sule has offered a clearer account of his political character than any defence could provide. In asserting control, he has exposed the limits of his regard for process. In affirming independence, he has revealed the fragility of his gratitude.
In the end, the issue is not whether he can justify his actions. It is whether those justifications can survive the weight of their own contradictions. When process is choreographed, loyalty reduced to convenience, and history quietly rewritten, judgment no longer needs to be pronounced.
It settles, quietly and persistently, in the minds of those watching, waiting for the moment when power is no longer shielded by office, but measured, plainly and without mercy, against the record it leaves behind. And in politics, memory has a way of outlasting explanation.
In the end, the tragedy is not simply personal, it is institutional. It is the slow unravelling of a promise once anchored in discipline and continuity, now recast in the language of convenience. Abdullahi Sule’s misstep is not that he wields power, but that he appears to misunderstand its limits. In mistaking control for leadership, and choreography for process, he has, regrettably, lost the plot. The consequence is not only a narrowing of his own political horizon, but a quiet weakening of the very structure that made his rise possible.
For the All-Progressives Congress, the cost is no less profound. A party that once prided itself on internal order now finds its processes bent by expediency, its principles softened by selective application. What should have been a moment to reaffirm credibility has instead exposed its fragility. And so, the headline writes itself with a certain inevitability, not as rhetoric, but as record. A governor, once entrusted with continuity, drifts into contradiction; a party, once defined by process, yields to preference. In that convergence lies the true tragedy, one that neither defence nor denial can easily obscure, and one that time, with its unforgiving clarity, will not forget.
What makes the unfolding drama around Abdullahi Sule particularly compelling is that it no longer reads merely as a contest over succession or party influence. It has become a test of political memory itself. In politics, power often creates the illusion of permanence, but permanence is rarely determined by office. It is determined by conduct, restraint, and the ability to leave behind structures stronger than those one inherited. Sule still possesses the opportunity to steady the moment, to rise above the instincts of control and return to the discipline of consultation that once defined his public image. Yet every passing intervention appears to move in the opposite direction, deeper into the politics of personal authority and further away from the moral architecture that sustains enduring leadership. And that is perhaps where the real sadness resides. Not in disagreement, which is natural in politics, but in the spectacle of a leader gradually diminishing the very traditions of loyalty, balance, and process that once legitimised his rise. In the fullness of time, Nasarawa may not remember this period for who won a contest or controlled a structure. It may remember it as the moment a governor stood at the crossroads between statesmanship and control, and chose, regrettably, the narrower path.
Usman writes from Lafia