Former Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, has again joined the Nasarawa State governorship race despite loosing to the incumbent Governor Almakura (APC) in 2015. Maku on the other hand assert that he won the election in 8 Local Governments, but it was manipulated in favour of Almakura by desperate influences.

Maku, who is the National Secretary of APGA, left the PDP where he served as commissioner, deputy governor and Minister to join APGA when he was rigged out of the primaries in favour of the least of all aspirants on ethnic and religious grounds. Maku ended in second place beating the PDP candidate with a very wide margin in the state during the 2015 general election. It is belived that it is his results that was swapped for Almakura.

Maku notwithstanding the outright robbery of his mandate in the polls and the tribunal is in the race again for 2019 and so far is the most popular candidate among the top three (A.A. Sule (APC) David Ombugadu (PDP) and Labaran Maku (APGA)). Commentators are of the view that he may find it difficult to win because he is contesting in a political party that is not popular within the region. However, the wide support he is getting across the state shows otherwise.

Nasarawa is also known to be a very politically conscious state and looking at past trends where former Governor Doma was voted out in favour of Almakura in an unpopular party (CPC) despite being an incumbent in the ruling party while the same election returned a dominantly PDP House of Assembly shows that the vote was per candidate not party.

Random polls both online and offline shows Maku leading and closely followed by A.A. Sule. The PDP candidate is last of the three usually with about 20-25% of the votes. For Maku to win with a good margin, he will need to go into a coalition with the PDP to avoid the Osun kind of scenario.

Maku have a better chance because the APC candidate A.A. Sule is not widely accepted because he was imposed by the Governor. What might help him will be the ethnic and religion politics that has engulf Nigeria and the Northern states. His rejection is connected to the fact that he is originally from Bauchi state and not Nasarawa state. So far his marketers are trying so hard to convince the Mada people that he is their brother lol.

During a rally in Lafia, Mr. Nawani Aboki, Maku's campaign organization DG, is optimistic that with or without the coalition,Labaran Maku will win the 2019 guber election in Nasarawa.

See pictures of his supporters in the rally as shared on his Twitter account >>> https://twitter.com/RealLabaranMaku/status/1047941437495681024

Nassarawa sai Maku