The Bauchi APC governorship race and the security question that will not go away
By Sani Umar Nabordo
That is the uncomfortable question now trailing the Bauchi APC governorship race.
It is not a conviction. It is not a judicial finding. But it is a question forced into public debate by repeated allegations, persistent denials, growing security concerns and the wider spread of banditry across Northern Nigeria.
Open-source reports have repeatedly linked Senator Shehu Umar Buba, who represents Bauchi South, to allegations of sympathy for, support for, or association with bandit elements. He has denied the claims. Some civic and religious groups have also defended him, arguing that engagement or dialogue with armed groups should not be mistaken for sponsorship.
But the allegations have not disappeared. They continue to shadow his public profile and now his governorship ambition.
To be clear, these remain allegations. They have not been established by a court of law. Yet in a state where banditry is spreading from the wider North West and North Central theatres into Bauchi’s rural communities, the issue cannot simply be dismissed as politics.
Bauchi is not yet Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Niger, Benue, Plateau or Borno – states repeatedly identified in open-source security reporting as major theatres of killings, kidnappings, banditry, insurgency and farmer-herder violence. But Bauchi is no longer insulated. Recent attacks, security deployments and rising fear in communities such as Alkaleri suggest that the state is drifting into the danger zone.
That is why the character, associations and security posture of every governorship aspirant must be placed under public scrutiny.
Bauchi cannot afford executive leadership that is ambiguous on banditry, soft on armed criminality, or politically entangled with actors whose activities have devastated rural livelihoods across the North. If the state is to avoid the fate of harder-hit northern states, it must insist on leadership that is firm, credible, transparent and trusted by communities living daily under the threat of violence.
The deeper question is whether the people of Bauchi are prepared to gamble away their future on any aspirant whose name remains constantly shadowed by unresolved allegations touching on the very insecurity the next governor will be expected to confront – and confront squarely.
Can Senator Buba confront banditry with the firmness, credibility and moral authority the moment demands, given the years of rumours and allegations linking him to the same armed elements he would be expected to face down?
That is the question Bauchi APC delegates, party leaders and ordinary citizens must answer before the state chooses the person who may be asked to lead it through one of the most dangerous security moments in its recent history.
