By Adamu Aminu.
Professor Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami is a man in a breathless sprint.
In the theological tradition he has mastered and taught for decades, destiny is what we call ‘Kaddara’ in Hausa and is understood as a fixed station. It is stationary, divinely ordained, patiently waiting for man to arrive at his appointed time. Man walks toward it with faith and patience.
But in the turbulent and unpredictable arena of Gombe State politics, that doctrine has been turned on its head. Here, destiny does not wait. It moves. It shifts, it negotiates, it hides behind courtrooms and party caucuses. And so Pantami has been forced to run.
He is running fast, fiercely, and against political winds that change by the hour, desperate to catch an earthly fate that refuses to stand still.
His recent political odyssey captures this friction with painful clarity. A towering figure who once operated from the absolute authority of the pulpit and the high office of a federal minister, he chose to walk away from the consensus calculations of the APC.
He sought a new path, a fresh refuge under the umbrella of the PDP, believing that his stature would guarantee a smooth passage.
That passage was short-lived. The Federal High Court in Gombe nullified his candidacy, which had been secured through a voice affirmation.
The verdict was blunt and institutional. It was a reminder that the architecture of power in a mosque is fundamentally different from the architecture of power in a democracy.
This is the first paradox of his journey.
The man whose voice has commanded thousands in silent obedience found his own voice vote insufficient to command a single ballot. What works as divine authority in the sacred space collapses as procedural invalidity in the secular space.
It is a lesson in hyperbole and humility. He sought to cross an ocean of political ambition with the boat of a mere echo. He believed the loudest “Yes” in the hall could drown out the quiet will of a thousand voters queuing in the sun.
The court simply said no. In a democracy, an orchestrated echo cannot replace the rigorous, individual counting of paper ballots.
Herein lies the structural pattern our political class must confront. We have built a culture where power is treated as something to be seized through strategic shortcuts — through consensus lists, through affirmations, and through elite alignment in closed rooms.
Pantami’s nullification exposes the emptiness of that culture. Power that is not tested is power that will not last.
This is the second paradox: to stand firm, he must first learn to stumble; to be affirmed by the many, he must first be rejected by the few who claimed to speak for them.
The path forward for Gombe, therefore, requires a hammer, not a whisper. If Pantami truly intends to catch his destiny, he must stop running from the process and start running through it.
His platform, his ideas, and his vision for the state must be subjected to the fire of true internal democracy, transparent primaries, open and issue-based public debates, and direct engagement with the common people whose lives his leadership will affect.
True leadership is not caught by chasing backroom deals. It is earned. It is earned when a man stops to listen while everyone else is shouting, and when he allows his destiny to be written not by a chorus of loyalists in a hall, but by the authentic, unfiltered mandate of the farmer, the trader, and the student.
In the end, every man learns the same philosophical truth. You do not catch destiny by outrunning it.
Pantami’s final lesson is the paradox of choice. In having too many political roads to choose from, he ended up with no road at all. He will only find his destiny when he stands still enough, and honest enough, for destiny to finally catch him.
Allah ya gafarta, Mallam. Since you have now been cleared to contest in the yet-to-be-announced PDP primary election in Gombe State, you have the right to flex your political muscles and test your popularity.
Perhaps you are the one destiny has been waiting for to become the next gubernatorial aspirant of Gombe State. Or perhaps not.
Whatever the outcome, take it as divinely ordained by Almighty Allah.
Adamu Aminu writes from Kano.