Nigerian Politics: Can Gov. Shekarau Lift Nigeria From The
Abyss?
Writers Articles And Opinions
02 September 2010
By Saka Raji Audu
In his above titled article
published in the Peoples Daily edition of
Saturday, August 28, 2010, the writer; Muhammad Sagagi
rhetorically asked if Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of
Kano State deserves the key to the villa. In the
writer's attempts to support his thesis, he tends to
commit academic suicide by speaking from both sides of
his mouth. At first, he wholeheartedly accepted the
basic fact of Shekarau's outstanding performances when
he extensively and rightly averts in his article as
follows:
"In fairness to him, yes! To re-engineer society and
‘establish a new order’, Shekarau has invested in new
structures and institutions and in new initiatives to
curve the menace of ethnic and religious violence and
promote peaceful co-existence. In fulfilment of his
pledge to rebuild the state economy for growth and
economic prosperity, Shekarau has demonstrated
willingness to reform, and to implement a formal
development agenda: the Rolling Plan and Road Map for
Economic Development; as part of a private sector
revival strategy, the administration has set out to
address one of the critical areas that need state
intervention: the development of basic infrastructure;
the state is opening new markets, establishing new
industrial estates especially for SMEs and
rehabilitating the Central Business District to
‘reinvigorate the age old commercial and industrial
status of Kano state’. A huge chunk of state
resources-close to N20 billion or 21% of capital
expenditure since 2003- has so far been invested in
the rehabilitation of the water supply system: the
Tamburawa Water Project, with a capacity to supply 150
million litres of water daily to Kano metropolis, has
been successfully completed. The Watari water supply
project, when completed, will supply up to 75 million
litres per day to the outlying areas. These are
undoubtedly positive undertakings which Shekarau will
be remembered for."
By this open admittance of
Shekarau's credible performances; Sagagi has in
fairness achieved two basic things for Shekarau. One,
he has clearly admitted himself into the governor's
self appointed spokespersons. However, unlike Ujudud
Sheriff and Saka Raji, Sagagi is not in any way sure
of his stance on the hardworking governor and whoever
chooses to be in dilemma of fact should not be taken
seriously. Two, Sagagi's statement of fact about
Shekarau as quoted above also justified why the
governor earned his various awards across the length
and breadth of the country, which Sagagi detests and
by extension adduced reasons why Shekarau deserves the
key to the presidential villa in 2011 to clear the
mess committed by the Poverty Development Party (PDP)
in the last eleven years of its governance.
Unfortunately for Sagagi,
he suddenly realizes that as a PDP sympathizer
(because he shows no reason why any one should
criticize PDP poor outing in Nigeria), in academic
attire, it would not augur well for him to make such
open confessional statement, commending Shekarau's
unsurpassed achievements in Kano State. Sagagi
therefore betrayed his academic sensibilities when he
changes gear as chameleon changes colour in his second
aspect of his article. In this aspect, Sagagi went on
Self Assured Destruction (SAD), using the principle of
hear-say and unverified thesis against the same man he
said has done pretty well for his people in the same
piece. Nevertheless, we should pardon Sagagi for his
Double Standard Approach (DSA) to the issues he
discussed in his Saturday outing in the Peoples
Daily. This is in view of the fact that as a
doctor, perhaps without philosophy, he failed to
realize the difference between his theoretical
frameworks of his academic environment and the
practical disposition of the political environment.
This is why people like our President Dr. Goodluck
Jonathan, the former INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice
Iwu, the late Dr, Tai Solarin and perhaps, the
incumbent INEC Boss, Professor Attahiru Jega may not
see reason why they should fail in their various
national assignments.
It however beats our
imaginations how Muhammad Sagagi wonders that "there
is too much for the metropolis and too little for the
rural folks." Hear him again, "There is too much
economic infrastructure-the three lane roads, the
street lights, the solar panels, the drainages and
roundabouts-and too little social infrastructure."
This is Sagagi describing the wonders of Shekarau's
performances in Kano. One also wonders too if Sagagi
has ever been to Victoria Island and Ajegunle and
Agege in Lagos state or still, has he visited the
Abuja main city and its rural suburbs? It is not even
quite long documentary news was aired on British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which portrayed the
city of Lagos as a slum. Does this signify the poor
performances of the hardworking Lagos State governor
and his administration?
If in Sagagi's frame of
things, there should be equal development in rural and
urban areas, why should there be too much noise about
rural-urban migration? If
"too much economic infrastructure-the three lane
roads, the street lights, the solar panels, the
drainages and roundabouts" as provided by Shekarau
administration are in rural areas any where in
Nigeria, why should many of us come all the way from
our villages to town in search of greener pasture?
This is however not to say that our rural folks should
in any way be neglected by the government but we
shouldn’t make mockery of our own realities just
because Shekarau wishes to become President of Nigeria
next year. In order to justify his thesis, Sagagi
deliberately or otherwise borrowed archaic argument
against Shekarau as if any of the previous
administration in Kano state had done anything better
than the present administration. Let us make an
evaluation of Sagagi's insinuations he champions in
his Saturday piece to be able to ascertain who is
fooling who.
One, the matter of the so called
fertiliser scandal is not an issue that Sagagi should
busy himself with because the erstwhile EFCC boss,
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu who investigated the matter was
very clear about his finding when he said, "neither
Governor Ibrahim Shekarau nor any member/official of
his government was involved in any shady deal in the
fertilizer scandal. Ribadu said that investigations
conducted by his commission showed that the government
was innocent of any blame in the contract. The EFCC
Chairman then commended the Kano state Governor for
his transparent and honesty in the running of Kano
government. At the heat of the matter in 2007, Ribadu
re-emphasized the innocence of Shekarau on 27th
February 2007 via the interview he granted to media
Trust, publishers of the Daily Trust. In the
said interview, Ribadu bared his mind on his so called
indicted politicians. According to Ribadu, “all
allegations against Governor Ibrahim Shekarau could
not be proven.” He said the EFCC investigated Shekarau
based on the several petitions received including
maintaining a foreign account but they could not be
established.
Two, it is also very funny to
observe that while some pockets of opposition would
like to hold Shekarau for using Shari'ah to 'deprive'
them of their social convulsion, Muhammad Sagagi on
his part is holding Shekarau for not making the
Shari'ah to 'work in Kano'. We can see that as the
popular saying goes, one man's meat, they say, is
another man's poison. None of the two sides can hold
Shekarau for their selfish reasons. Again, Sagagi
knows pretty well that unless for reason of mischief,
he could not have said that the present situation is
indiscipline, knowing full well that indiscipline
breeds disorder and disorder breeds crisis.
Ironically, Kano has been living in peace and harmony
for the past six years of Shekarau's administration,
mainly because the idle youths who used to foment
trouble before the coming of Shekarau administration
have been adequately empowered and are now busy with
their empowerment. So, what is Muhammad Sagagi Saying
about indiscipline now when in the pre-Shekarau
administration, we hardly observed our Friday prayers
without the heavy presence of armed chest looking
mobile policemen?
Consequently, Shekarau's sangaya
project has also gone a long way in reducing the
number of beggars and child hawkers on our roads in
Kano state. This is a continuous process and not a one
day job because the beggars and hawkers did not come
to Kano in one day. If one may ask, where are the
parents/guardians of these beggars, many of which come
from neigbouring states as Katsina, Yobe, Borno,
Jigawa, Kaduna and even the federal capital territory,
FCT to impregnate the beggars' population in the other
states of the country? If the parents/guardians of
the beggars had not shiedaway from their
parental social responsibilities on these neglected
citizens, the problem of "street begging, hawking,
stealing, political banditry, drug using and
trafficking, prostitution, child labour, etc" in the
north would have been reduced to the bearable minimum.
But, see where we are today. No body wants to address
the issue of parental negligence but to put the
problem squarely on the head of Shekarau simply
because he has offered himself to serve the people. I
should think that parents should have endeavoured to
complement the effort of government by trying to live
up to their parental responsibilities to secure the
future of their kiths and kin. Sagagi should have
thought of this.
Sagagi also made sweeping claim
that health and education sectors under Shekarau are
under funded. If we are to go by this biased
observation, then let Sagagi make available the
statistics of Kano State teacher's strikes and that of
the Federal Government ASUU strikes in the last seven
years as a result of under funding. Sagagi's ASUU went
on strikes many times without number on the issue of
Federal Government's under funding of universities,
which led to dislocation of academic programmes of our
students, and which at the same time pave way for the
university teachers to use the lost hours for their
Private Practice (PP). The problem of university under
funding is still there today, in spite of many ASUU
strikes. Unless Sagagi makes the statistic available
to us, he should not act as kettle, calling pot blank.
It may also interest my dear
friend Sagagi that recently, thousands of people in
the northwest states were reportedly ravaged by
cholera and measles epidemics and hundreds of the
victims were confirmed dead. Is it not a plus for
Shekarau government that only Kano State, out of the
six states in the northwest zone was not affected by
the ravage in the last eight months due to the state
government adequate attention on this sector? Perhaps,
Sagagi has not heard about this. The statistical data
about the epidemic outbreak is with the Federal
Ministry of health for him to confirm.
The issue of 'wasteful and
imprudent expenditure' by the government is just a
figment of sagagi's imagination as he did not provide
any statistics to back up his spurious claim. In
contradistinction to this, it is well known fact that
in Kano State, all
federal receipts and disbursements are usually
disclosed by the state Finance Ministry at the end of
every month through media briefings. This is aimed at
giving an insight to money accrued and expended by the
government on monthly basis. It also gives opportunity
to every member of the public interested in the
government incomes and expenditure, including Sagagi
to know the statement of government accounts. This is
not all. With the introduction of Project Monitoring
and Evaluation Directorate by Shekarau government,
every project and contract awarded in Kano are under
serious scrutiny and are vigorously pursued to their
logical conclusions. There is no room for projects or
contracts abandonment as in the case of stories we
hear from other states and the federal parastatals
where billions of public funds earmarked for social
amenities disappear with nothing to showcase for it.
Has Sagagi ever heard of the N16 billion power sector
fund diverted to personal by Obasanjo administration?
On the reference made by
Sagagi to the publication of Abba Mahmud of
Leadership Newspaper edition of September 18,
2008, he should know that truth heals and rebuilds,
dear Sagagi. He may not know that conscience as an
open wound, only truth can heal it. So, Abba Mahmud
corollary of accusations on Malam Shekarau
administration, deliberate as it may look like is
baseless, malicious and unfounded. Such provocative
and malicious allegation as we have in his
squandering of goodwill in Kano is imaginary and
could only be peddled by him because he has no grasp
of the situation and perhaps, he did so to curry
favour and sympathy from the idle oppositions since it
is very easy to destroy than to build.
If Sagagi thinks that it is
funny for him that Kano is the 15th poorest
state in Nigeria, he should also know that Nigeria has
once been rated as the 13th poorest nations
of the world, not minding its richness in oil. The
much talked about the high poverty in the North was in
comparison with its Southern counterparts of the
country. In order to put the issue of poverty in the
North in its proper perspective, it is discernible for
Sagagi to go down the memory lane to unravel the
initial factor responsible for the situation in the
North. This is better than putting the blame squarely
on one man.
By 1957, the western region
introduced Universal and Compulsory free primary
education and devoted almost fifty (50) per cent of
the region's budget to education generally. At
independence therefore, there was already a criminal
gap between the North and the South in the matter of
western education. The Northern region had only a
handful University graduates and probably no more than
two thousand (2000) holders of school certificate. The
South, which received western education earlier than
the North and which also, sponsored more students
abroad than North had these two categories of educated
elements in their hundreds and thousands respectively.
Ten years later in 1967, there were about two and half
million children in the primary schools of Eastern and
Western regions, compared with a half million out of
the greater population of the former North. Besides
these, 119,000 students were in Southern secondary
schools, against 14,000 in the Northern secondary
schools. Teachers in the South numbered 24,000 while
teachers in the North numbered only 3000. In 1910, the
first Director of Education for the North, Hanns
Vischer was appointed, even though the education
department for the protectorate of Southern Nigeria
was established in 1903. The notorious educational gap
between the North and the South could only be
appreciated when it is remembered that while as early
as 1859 when the Church Missionary Society opened a
Grammar School in Lagos , the equivalent of such a
school to be opened in the North was the opening of a
government school in Kano in 1912. Despite these
setbacks, the Northern region contributed tremendously
towards the eventual achievement of independence of
1960 and has been a region in a careful hurry to catch
up with the other regions. It is against this
background that the high poverty level in the north
should be seen and not for Sagagi to wake up from his
deep slumber to castigate one man for everybody's woe
just because he does not want the man to become
President of Nigeria.
Sagagi should therefore
understand that PDP has not made any difference since
it came to power more than eleven years ago. The
country has no air carrier of its own but a whooping
sum of N24 billion was expended on one man's plane.
Billions of naira has also been allocated to 50 years
anniversary of the country to celebrate corruption,
ineptitude, umemployment, rampant kidnapping,
insecurity, epileptic power supply, smuggling, north
–south dichotomy, abuse of office, etc. Those
responsible for these problems are either looking for
continuity or wants to come back to cause more havoc
to the chaotic system. This is why in spite of
Sagagi's consistent inconsistencies in his article
against the man of the people; Nigerians should try to
endorse Malam (Dr) Ibrahim Shekarau as President
because he is the only person that deserves the key to
the Aso Villa in 2011. If this is achieved, it means
that Nigerians realize the problems and want a change
in their lives and if they do otherwise, it shows that
they have not appreciated their problems and want to
postpone the evil day. We pray that God forbids bad
thing and allow the best for the country.
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