Re: Saka Raji Audu And Jigawa Rarity - Nigerian Jounalism

15 March 2010

By Saka Raji Audu

I read the article on the above title written by one Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad, a 'researcher' published on page 8 of the New Nigerian Newspaper of March 8, 2010 and page 9 of Peoples Daily of March 9,2010. Nuruddeen's write up is supposed to be a response to my earlier article about the issues raised by one Sanusi Abubakar, a columnist with the Daily Trust. Sanusi's piece was titled "Jigawa: Keeping faith with the electorate." 

I have always argued that the essence of writing one's thoughts is for one to express one's feelings and not to impress or show-off. This is why no matter the sentiment, writers that worth their onions should endeavour to concentrate on issue rather than parochial and narrow-minded interest. In no circumstance should one deviates from the point of discourse to irrelevant issue that is capable of irritating readers' mind. This is the tragedy of Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad, who, for whatever reason, decided to move away from Sanusi Abubakar's piece to his concoction under the new title, "Saka Raji Audu and Jigawa rarity." This title by Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad is an attempt to hide the reality of things because it does not in any way reflect what Sanusi Abubakar wants us to know about keeping faith with the electorate in Jigawa State. 

Ironically, the import of Dr. Nuruddeen's crocodile tears for his Dr. Sanusi Abubakar in his "Saka Raji Audu and Jigawa rarity" was to deliberately undermine the big challenge I put before Sanusi's keeping faith with the electorate in Jigawa, thereby, causing deliberate confusion among his readers that require truth from him. This notwithstanding, Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad used my name, instead of the title of the subject he was responding to, as the central point to form his unimpressive title, thereby relegating Sanusi Abubakar's piece on Jigawa to the background.  

If really Saka Raji Audu's now vexed rejoinder to Sanusi Abubakar's piece is not so important, as Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad would like to portray, I wonder why he chose to trouble himself by being kept awake to devote almost full page of a newspaper talking about what he describes as irrelevant. The question is, who is more of insane, a "mad man" or a "supposedly sensible man" who followed the naked mad man to the public stream to take bath? 

Perhaps, it is because Sanusi Abubakar wanted to avoid this type of embarrassment, in view of my superior argument that made him to quietly 'block' my rejoinder to his Jigawa piece from appearing in his now Tuesday Column of the Daily Trust. Unknowing to him, there are always alternatives to every thing in this world except God. I know and am sure that if Sanusi Abubakar had known that my rejoinder would still see the light of the day, he would not have wasted his time giving it 'black out' from his own end. In any case, his column is not better than the five media houses that considered my rejoinder worth publishing. This was how the aim of the Tuesday columnist in relations to my rejoinder to his Jigawa piece was severely defeated.  

In his misguided argument, Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad stated that he did not expect a serious newspaper to risk its credibility by publishing a sloppy piece. Yet, he knows very well that his "Saka Raji Audu and Jigawa rarity" is personally motivated towards one side of the coin and he still expects the papers, New Nigerian Newspaper and Peoples daily to publish it. Does it mean that these two papers are not serious and would lose their credibility? What kind of double standards is this man called Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad?  

Consequently, journalism is not one- way- traffic of a thing. I think whoever is afraid of rejoinder to his article should not necessarily write in the first place. We cannot be cowed by the "doctorate tag" of Sanusi Abubakar as Nuruddeen Muhammad would like to suggest. Dr. Sanusi Abubakar is not God and only God is infallible. Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad however claims to be a 'researcher', yet he fails to realize the fact that any claim that is not supported with evidence becomes a mere assumption or hypothesis and therefore, such claim remains inconsequential until it is further subjected to critical examination and verification. This is why journalists, writers and researchers are always enjoined to disclose their source of fundamental claims and information. Here is what Sanusi Abubakar wrote about Jigawa and Kano that earned him my now vexed rejoinder. "Frankly, I felt like packing my bags and moving to Jigawa, after all I have been told that my great-grand fathers are from Dutse. But I love Kano too, with all its refuse, lack of water, dare-devil achaba riders, as well as arrogant and incompetent leaders who have little or no idea where they are taking us"(sic).  

It beats my imagination and like any one else, that Dr. Sanusi Abubakar could make this sweeping generalization without any back up and yet the type of agent as Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad wants us to consume it without much ado about any thing because an academic Doctor has written. In fact, there are other such unsubstantiated contentious statements made by Sanusi Abubakar in his attempt to sell Governor Lamido at all costs, and at the detriment of other states that have not invited him to see a particular thing in their states.  No one needs to be a doctor this, doctor that or Professor before one knows that Sanusi has an axe to grind with Kano State under Shekarau, on behalf of somebody, using his Daily Trust Tuesday Column as a subterfuge to launch attack on Kano in order to get Jigawa's pat on his back. This was why I had to put up the true situation of things before he went too far through my now vexed rejoinder. Fortunately enough, I was not the only reader that saw the blatant falsehood displayed in Dr. Sanusi Abubakar's advertisement of Jigawa State Governor.

In his own separate rejoinder titled "Between Sanusi Abubakar, Sule Lamido and Jigawa State" published on 2^nd March 2010 in the Daily Trust, one Adamu Muhammad Usman from Kafin-Hausa, Jigawa State  seriously challenged Dr. Sanusi Abubakar's keeping faith with the electorate in Jigawa State. He stated that, "Sanusi Abubakar, in his Tuesday column (Daily Trust) of February 9th and 16th -2010 busied himself eulogizing Lamido, instead of advising the governor to provide social services to people of the poorest state in the federation." Usman further disclosed that "even the Governor has acknowledged that Jigawa, has witnessed a lot of suffering, hardship and the total collapse of most of her system in high level of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, insecurity etc. "Jigawa in terms of criteria such as level of illiteracy, maternal and infant mortality, has been portrayed as the poorest in the federation". ---Governor Lamido (See page 9, December 22 and page 21 December -25- 2008 Daily Trust). Definitely, Saka Raji Audu is not the author of the piece that was critical of Sanusi Abubakar's "Jigawa: Keeping faith with the electorate."

Perhaps, Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad has only read my rejoinder and not that of Adamu Muhammad Usman or was it because of the glaring truth in favour of Governor Shekarau of Kano State? Indeed, it is because the Jigawa State Governor knows that truth is the best policy of good governance, he chooses to face the truth squarely, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If this was the case, could both Dr. Sanusi Abubakar and Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad tell us whose praise they want to sing? Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad, the 'researcher' should not tell us that he has not done enough research to discover this truth. Now that the above other side of Dr. Sanusi Abubakar piece was published in the Daily Trust, can Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad say that the paper is not serious and would lose its credibility? We can now clearly see who should stop writing or adopt pen name in view of these glaring contradictions.

It baffles me and I do not understand why some people think that they have monopoly of talking evil of other people and no one should talk of theirs. When Dr. Sanusi Abubakar decided to pinch a tent in favour of Jigawa Governor, at the detriment of Kano, that he loves with its so called "arrogant and incompetent leaders"(sic), he was doing the correct thing. But whoever tries to correct the erroneous belief with fact and figure, such person would be regarded as being hired to do so. If in Dr. Nuruddeen's mind, Saka Raji Audu was hired to always say the truth about Shekarau, who hired both Dr. Nuruddeen and Dr. Sanusi to market Lamido? In this case, would some one not be right to say that we are all agents, serving our various masters? See how clever and smart these doctors think of themselves.

Contrary to the perception of Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad, I want to also refer him to my book published in 2006 titled: "Kano Industries at Cross roads" where I critically examined some of the problems confronting Kano industrial sector especially textile.  One of the main problems that were bedeviling the sector in Kano was the issue of poor state of infrastructural facilities such as bad roads leading to most part of the industries in the state. This dilapidated state of the roads had been a critical problem long time before the coming of Shekarau administration. Shekarau, being a leader with listening ears and a man that believes in the development of his state was able to listen and swing into action to transform all the industrial roads in the state. In particular, the industrialists at the Challawa Industrial Estate should ever remain grateful to Shekarau administration that the roads, which I narrated its disastrous state of affair in my book has now been rehabilitated, not minding the tight schedule of the state budget.

This is just an aspect of the numerous land mark achievements of Shekarau administration.  With this, it would amount to great injustice for any one not to encourage such a leader, knowing full well that it is not easy to get this type of hard working leader in our contemporary society in view of the kleptomaniac society we are living today. So, whether or not Nuruddeen Muhammad and his fellow travelers like it, it is an undisputable fact that the present leader of Kano under the leadership of Sardaunan Kano has really achieved a lot in the socio-economic and political developments of the state.

On the issue of the Talakawa Submit by the Jigawa State government, I am very much in support of it just as I also gave kudos to Kano State government over her Tsangaya project. However, the reference I made to an article published by the Desert Herald Weekly of 2^nd -9^th June 2009 edition was meant to simply draw the attention of Dr.Sanusi Abubakar to what I read about the Talakawa submit, which is capable of debunking his beautiful claims of Jigawa, if the impression created by the author is not corrected and quickly too. This is the aim and nothing else.  Nuruddeen Muhammad might be a doctorate degree holder and a 'researcher' in his own way but these qualifications do not qualify him to assume what does not exist. The reader of Dr. Sanusi Abubakar's article on "Jigawa: Keeping faith with the electorate" was first introduced to the relationship between the writer and the Governor in paragraph one, line 21 where the writer clearly stated that, "Frankly, I never thought my friend Sule Lamido had a chance when he was elected the new Governor."The issue of Katsina wedding was only mentioned as a smokescreen in paragraph two by the writer. It is therefore wrong for Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad to think that what is stated in paragraph two should take precedence over and above what is stated in paragraph one.

In whatever type of writing, the most important aspect always comes first, followed by the second important aspect and not vice-versa. So, I am perfectly right to have stated that Dr. Sanusi Abubakar was invited to Jigawa State to see how the Governor keeps faith with the electorate, based on the already existing relationship as friend, which the writer Sanusi Abubakar did not hide in his article as quoted above. Why Dr. Nuruddeen should betray his intellectual prowess just because he wants to show to his sponsors that he, Nuruddeen Muhammad can use his doctorate tag to intimidate Saka Raji Audu and his factual articles? Methinks that writers are respected based on factual analysis, not minding the name tag. 

As I said, Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad, Dr. Sanusi Abubakar and any one else have the right to award pass mark to any leader of their choice just as they have done to Jigawa State governor. But they have no right to deprive others the right to exhibit similar award to any leader of their choice. It is therefore instructive to advise both Nuruddeen and Sanusi to learn how to accommodate the opposite view, no matter how bitterly expressed, to enable the society to grow. Let them know too that they do not need lie to undermine Shekarau- led administration because it will definitely not work since it has never worked. This is because, in addition to the fact that Shekarau has already won the hearts of Kanawas and indeed, Nigerians because of his integrity and hard work, there is nothing envious and sadists can do but to swallow their pride and ego for the undisputable truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  So, God help us all.

Saka Raji Audu writes from Kano and can be reached on his email: sakaraj@yahoo.com

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