Umaru Bago’s Celebrity Status

Farmer governor Umaru Bago has repeatedly said it; he doesn’t have a godfather. What he has always had are people. Right from his days in banking, Umaru Bago has always been a people’s man.

The very moment he dipped his hand into politics, the people around him turned into a crowd around him before it became a following.

It was why his predecessor in office couldn’t simply endorse a candidate and impose him on the party; a point proved by the speed with which Isah Liman, the PDP candidate in the 2023 governorship election, conceded defeat.

It is also why some notable politicians in the state have chosen to sit out the 2027 election rather than challenge the governor. It would have meant running against a governor with celebrity status.

And that social and political standing is no accident. What Bago has demonstrated goes beyond his political achievements as a lawmaker and a governor. And what really stands out is accessibility.

The Niger state governor could easily be the most accessible in the country. There is nothing that motivates voters more than the feeling that they are heard and seen, and that their opinions matter to leaders.

Here, we are talking about thousands of people, voters who feel genuinely heard and seen by Bago.

Quite all right, the governor has made meaningful progress in governance, raising farming to levels not seen in decades, executing projects in healthcare, education, and infrastructure, and combating insecurity.

Even well-meaning politicians who deliver the best of public service, when tested with the challenges of governance, elicit people’s anger and resentment. But very few can retain voters’ high opinion for over a decade.

Muhammadu Buhari was lucky he didn’t start his political career at the local level. Yet, it is not easy to define the Buhari phenomenon: his entry into politics, his growth in it, and the inevitability of his electoral victory in 2015.

Observers have described it as the Buhari tsunami and even a cult-like follower-ship that propelled him to political stardom.

What is clear is that it didn’t happen overnight. It took 12 years of mounting electoral tension. Who would have ever imagined that there is victory in defeat?

After every defeat, in 2003, 2007, and in 2011, maybe the straw that broke the camel’s back, his status and the cult following only grew until Nigeria’s electoral system could no longer contain late Buhari.

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Umaru Bago could very well be the new Buhari in terms of voter enthusiasm, but a more sociable one. The proof of that is in the political path he has travelled. And where that path eventually leads to, only time will tell.

The difference is that it isn’t defeat that is building Bago’s status as a political force. It is the direct opposite: he never loses; instead, he keeps growing.

After the 2023 elections, a political operative in Minna lamented how he had underestimated Bago when he ran for the House of Representatives and when he ran for governor, vowing he’d never underestimate Bago again.