by Nasiru Jagaba
I find it amusing the rare courage and forthrightness with which you, a hypocrite and a bag of lies, wrote to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mr Muhammadu Buhari, about the state of the nation. Had this letter not been leaked by you (as widely rumoured) one would have thought of you as among the greater lot of blind followers who would always find nothing wrong with governance or leadership style provided “their man” is in power. Evidently, your display of deceptive courage means that you are not a blind follower, whatever the factors behind your new posture are.
For those who have followed your writings and read your books, perhaps you are in one of those moments of a sound minded pundit. I have found the memo to the President important considering foremost that the said document was written about six months ago, and that the grave allegations therein seem to have remained unaddressed till this day. Also, the issues enumerated were matters of governance, leadership and its consequences on the Nigerian State. Most interesting, however, is the assertion that you were persuaded to contest for the office of the Governor of Kaduna State by the Daura-born former Head of State and current President of Nigeria.
This singular admittance of this fact means that President Muhammadu Buhari has actually wronged many of his admirers, loyalists and citizens in Kaduna State by persuading us to vote an ego-maniac like you who is power-drunk into Sir Kashim Ibrahim house. You have proceeded to operate an inhumane and belligerent administration; that even past military juntas would salute and bow to your cruelty because you are an unrepentant dictator in civilian attire.
The show of maturity on the part of the President for not showing any outburst to the criticism of his close associates, his executive team and leadership style tells so much as to how you differ with him. Many pundits have thought you and the President to be of like-mind (although not on the anti-corruption disposition). There is obviously so much you can learn from the occupant of the Presidential seat in Abuja, in order to return Sir Kashim Ibrahim House in Kaduna to its pride of place in governance and free it from the crudity you have subjected it to.
So far, your memo to the president is the case of the pot calling a kettle black, or at best hypocrisy of the highest order. It is on record that the Federal Government under Mr Muhammadu Buhari has admitted to the error on the appointment of vice-chancellors when it did so wrongly. It is on record that the Vice President sees himself, the President and other numbers of the Federal Executive Council as a team.
It is obvious that the relationship between the leadership of the National Assembly and the Presidency although being from the same party and cordial shows that the Legislative arm is not a rubber stamp institution, unlike what you have turned the Kaduna State House of Assembly into a puppet. There has also been in existence the Independent National Electoral Commission carrying out the statutory duty of conducting elections without the challenges of funding. However, Nigerians have not forgotten those early days of President Buhari’s Administration, when statements from the presidency were remarkably incoherent, with the President saying one thing and the Vice President saying another differently. Those were the days when all was said to be well with the accidental (may we not witness such accident again) occupant of Kashim Ibrahim House and the Chief occupant of Aso Rock. It was rumoured that you shamelessly bragged of being the de-facto President. We have not forgotten that the worst commemoration of one year in office of any government since the commencement of the present democratic dispensation was that of 29th May 2016.
We have also not forgotten how you dismissed justifiable protests over the ministerial nominee from the state, who was said to be your cousin. You were quoted to have stated that anyone having a problem with the nomination should go and climb up the Kufena hills and fall. A political gladiator like Engr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso was not so favoured to claim such opportunities even after contributing magnanimously to the Buhari presidency.
The people of Kaduna state are now living with the reality that indeed you are an accidental public servant cum disaster. There is no aspect of governance in Kaduna state today that is not replete with the exhibition of high-headedness, ineptitude, empty propaganda, disregard for the rule of law, incomplete or abandoned programmes and projects. In fact, the only expectation that gives the people of the state joy is your fast approaching and disgraceful departure out of Sir Kashim Ibrahim house by May 29th, 2019.
Your Emperor, you lost the support of key politicians in your party nearly as soon as you had settled into office. Only those who are opportunistic and sycophants continue to hang around a self-obsessed dictator like you. True party men and women are patiently but eagerly awaiting the day of political retribution during the forthcoming elections. The fear that your party will be unable to clinch the seats in the Local Government Polls due to non-performance, coupled with the fact that your party men will outplay you in the general elections, will ensure that your obsessive thirst for power will come to an end. Now that you have agreed to hold local government elections, we can’t wait to see you disgraced out of office, as history will judge you as the worst mistake or accident residence of Kaduna state has made by voting you into power.
Your Excellency, under your leadership the civil service has been raped of professionalism at both Local and state government levels. It is no longer news that so many have been relieved of their duties without termination of engagement. All must know that it is in your administration that Directors are deployed to the classrooms, and nepotistically level 17 officers are supervised by GL 16 officers. It is under your administration that all manner of dubious individuals, who are on record to have fled Nigeria to escape justice after you ceased to be FCT Minister, have been brought from Lagos and other states to oppress and lord it over honest and hardworking people in Kaduna State. You despise the people of this state to the point where most of the teachers you employed are from other states, while highly competent graduates from Kaduna State are left roaming the streets unemployed.
Your Emperor, besides your cronies, contractors are abandoning ship in Kaduna, and that is because many have lost their confidence in the administration of contracts in the state. The stories are endless of indebtedness to contractors who are themselves debtors of financial institutions. In Kaduna today, very few rush to pick up tenders as many are sure that the bidding processes is a hoax. There is deep mistrust as to the processes especially with the so-called consultants who are now doing the work of the civil servants and the rumours of their involvement of collecting 10-12% on “someone’s behalf”. Of course, after all the adverts on the pages of newspaper most of the projects have still not reached the award stage from 2015 till date. Is there anywhere else that you can find so much white elephant projects more than Kaduna state? Clearly, someone is using a trickster’s wiles to pretend about transparency, when in actual fact the citizens are being hoodwinked and taken for a ride.
After your experiment of the sale of the legislative quarters through processes rumoured to be shady, it is also perceived that you only made richer the members of Kaduna State House of Assembly and consequently bought over their loyalty. This is believed to be the reason why the legislative arm of government in the state have no mind of its own and does nothing more than doing the bidding of the Emperor in power today. The words on the streets are that you had been away from the state, you hardly spend a week in the state, and even outside the country without any correspondence to the KDHA in this regard. Even the conspiracy of silence and inaction of the KDHA leadership begs for answers as to how intangible the right to life and security has become under this administration in the case of the unabated Southern Kaduna killings.
There is clearly covetousness at play in the way you are trying to convert public properties to private estates without any regard for the civil servants who have served this state and are in the twilight of their service by denying them simple right to first refusal offer. Civil servants may not be able to afford the intended sale of government properties to which you have called on your cronies from afar and near to share with them. It is known that you have before now sent surveyors to evaluate the Kaduna State Media Corporation to ascertain its value and take over the property to convert the property into shopping malls.
It will be untrue to say that peaceful existence has never suffered in the State, but never in the history of the state has such been poorly and incompetently managed. We have seen you turn into a spokesman of the murderous Fulani herdsmen and their militia, that the narrative of the MACBAN has turned out to be so far all you parrot about the menace. From the moment when the outcry was rife to the time when citizens in southern Kaduna realised that the only development that their taxes can provide for them as you deemed it fit is the payment of compensation to so-called rampaging foreign terrorist herdsmen to appease them to cease the attack.
It is utterly ridiculous and wicked to pay killers, who will use the money to buy more arms and become more dastardly, then turn around with tongue in cheek to claim that you are paying them to stop the massacres, which only intensified. You showed clearly your indifference to the plight of the Southern Kaduna people whom you have refused to engage in attempts to finding practical measures to addressing the Fulani genocide. Not until the coming of the Vice President, then Acting President, did the crisis abate. Indeed, you have remained resolute in your resolve to dispossess them of their land and replace the Southern Kaduna people from their ancestral lands with foreign herdsmen forcefully in this modern day and age.
You have bragged shamelessly of arresting your critics calling them hate speech makers while you allow the armed herdsmen free movement even in areas where you have imposed curfews within the months under review. Your Emperor, you have imposed curfews lasting weeks and months in three local government areas on people who have largely been displaced and had no means of survival to feed and thereby blocking humanitarian aid from reaching them, while they had to depend on whatsoever their kinsmen could provide.
As if all this wasn’t enough, you have gone further to boast about your inhuman actions, and have used the mass media to preach more hate and religious intolerance dividing the state along religious lines to save face; this is in the face of your waning popularity in the state. The suffering of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria and the killings of their members that you encouraged from your unguarded statements will never be forgotten. Thankfully the people of Kaduna state are not such simpletons to be easily swayed.
From the experiences so far, there is little wonder as to why you will not make public your assets declaration form. As a so-called progressive or looking back to your performance as FCT Minister in the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, and the N32Bn loot indictment in your term in office amidst other sharp practices you were associated with. I am sure if you have not been found culpable in this matter it would largely be because some other signatories have taken the fall. The Senate has now been vindicated by their verdict that you are unworthy of holding any public office of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
It is noticeable with the special advisers and chief of staff many of whom had relocated their addresses with your emergence as Governor of Kaduna state, who have seemingly been convened to divide the state like spoils after a conquest. These are the people who are seen to wield more power than the Deputy Governor, Head of Service or anyone else. These band of men, as I would call them, are sure not going to be here when you are out of office.
Clearly your understanding that none is worthy of succeeding President Muhammadu Buhari but yourself is quite naïve and for someone so covetous, I am sure that even if you move the capital of Kaduna State to the Southern parts of Nigeria your antics will only elude a few. Many would have found contentment serving under President Muhammadu Buhari and in your case, the immunity enjoyed by you at this time was a wish so many have failed to fulfil. Surely time will tell, be fair and just to the fact that you, your Excellency are an overrated accidental and disastrous Public Servant.
Nasiru Jagaba
National Youth Leader,
Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU)
Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
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