Opinion
Of altruism and sundry misconceptions

By Tunde Olusunle
Perhaps the most important news item out of Kaduna, Monday April 25, 2022, was the visit of Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers State and and his solidarity with victims of banditry and violence in the state. In the course of that stopover in the north western state, Wike announced the donation of N200 million, to assuage the pains and dislocations suffered by victims of serial assaults on the state, by criminals and insurgents. The donation was consistent with Wike’s serial generosity, which has seen him support brother states across the country in times of need.
Wike, however, equally used the opportunity to engage with stakeholders of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), in the state. He interacted with delegates of his party to solicit their votes during the May 29, 2022, which should produce the flagbearer for his party. Since the declaration of his intention to contest the nation’s top seat over a month ago, Wike has been on a restless tour of the country on the same mission. Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, one of the founding members of the PDP and first governor of Kaduna State this fourth republic, led party leaders and delegates of the party in the state, to receive Wike.
Makarfi who had served in the national parliament as Senator after his stint in *Usman Katsina House,* Government House, Kaduna, had also led the PDP as National Chairman, during what was perhaps its most trying times, to date. The party was engulfed in a fiesty, make or mar leadership crisis, with two dignitaries laying claims to its national chairmanship. Ali Modu Sherrif, a former governor of Borno State, and his erstwhile counterpart, Makarfi, were in the trenches on opposite sides of the contestation. The brouhaha subsisted for two long years, between 2015 and 2017. Those times were truly challenging for a party which having been in power for 16 years, suddenly found itself an outsider without leadership or succour.
The situation snowballed into a protracted legal conundrum with conflicting judgments and injunctions issuing forth from different court rooms, across the country. Makarfi recalled with nostalgia: “When the Court of Appeal judgement came out against us and we knew we were right, everybody started running away.” Makarfi continued: “Wike called me and asked me: Are you ready for this fight?” I answered in the affirmative. Wike reassured me: “We are going to reclaim our party. What do you need? How do we go about it? And the rest is history.” Makarfi was not done: “Many people contributed to the PDP in many ways. But there is no single individual who contributed as much as he (Wike) did for us, to have the PDP which has survived till today.”
Left for the former chief executive of Kaduna State, he would gladly install Wike as president of the country if he had the powers. According to him: “If the presidency were an appointment and I have the powers to appoint people into the office, I will simply appoint you (Wike) and tell you to go home and rest.” Pursuing his thesis further, Makarfi said: “We are in a democracy, we have a major convention ahead and the delegates know those that have been with them and will continue to be with them. The party people know their own people… You are not sitting back at home banking on the favours you have done the party. Day and night, you are working, you are moving around. That shows commitment, the real desire to continue to serve.”
Those familiar with the trajectory of Wike over the years, acknowledge for a fact, his DNA for robust generosity. This, indeed, stands in sharp contrast with his fame as a “hard man.” Listening to, or observing Wike from afar especially his trademark no-nonsense mien, his characteristic bluntness, his scarce, maybe scant loosening up in laughter, one is inclined to profile him a difficult person. On deep interrogation, however, it would seem that Wike has elected to sustain this public profile, as a defence mechanism of sorts. The reality is that Wike is holistically African at heart. He cares not only about self, but about others and their wellbeing. Within the African context, he doesn’t just make enough broth for the consumption of his immediate family. He is conscious there could be wayfarers, worn and famished, who would knock on the door of his house, and can make do with a few morsels to placate their hunger.
Wike therefore, is a deeply conscientious giver. Not for him the razzle-dazzle and razzmatazz of public adulation for the blitzkrieg of it. Not at all. He shares with others to impact and imprint on their situations. Consistent with the old saying which exhorts that charity begins at home, Wike in May 2020, reached out to victims of the conflagration of March 2019, thrown up by the gubernatorial election which returned him to office, in Rivers State. Wike appropriately earned popularity with his people on the strength of his performance during his first term in office. The desperate opposition in the state, however, reportedly, visited mayhem on the hapless electorate, all in a bid to stall Wike’s reelection.
Specific local government areas where violence erupted include: Akuku-Toru, Asari-Toru, Abonema, Degema, Bonny, Ahoada West, Andoni, Ikwerre, Emouha and Okrika. Lives were lost, limbs dismembered at the polls. State security personnel openly took sides with candidates of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress, (APC), despite public rejection of the party at all levels. While monetary support could not equate the souls smothered by the incidents, Wike made available the sum of N450 million, to survivors of the mayhem and families of the deceased, respectively.
That was not the first time or only occasion, Wike demonstrated empathy and fellow-feeling. Earlier in January 2018 during his first term as governor, Wike provided N50 million for the upkeep and education of a precocious one-year old baby girl, Purity Anthony. Her parents were murdered by a notorious brigand, Don Waney, who plied his crimson trade across parts of the state. Wike indeed placed a ransom on the head of Waney, who has since been tracked by security personnel and duly decisioned.
About a year later, Wike reached out to the family of Dr. Ferry Gberegbe, who was also killed during the better-forgetten electoral fiasco of March 2019. He provided N200 million for the family. In November 2020, Wike assuaged the grief and despair of the wives of six families, whose breadwinners in military service, were allegedly killed by members of the outlawed Indigenous Peoples’ Of Biafra, (IPOB). Wike was not interested about the state of origin or religion of the deceased servicemen. They lost their lives in the line of duty within the geographical space of Rivers State. He reckoned therefore, that they needed every support to get on with their lives. He availed the six bereaved families of the sum of N200 million.
A year ago, on May 27, 2021, Nyesom Wike was special guest at the groundbreaking ceremony of the “Akwa Ibom State University Teaching Hospital,” in Awa, Onna LGA, next door to Rivers State. Both states are brothers, and leading oil-producing entities. They have both been administered by the PDP since the return of democratic governance in 1999. Wike at the event, pledged the support of his government to the project, to the tune of N600 million. Four months before the Akwa Ibom event, Wike had visited Sokoto State. He was there to sympathise with the people of the state, and his colleague, Aminu Tambuwal about a tragic fire incident which razed thousands of shops, impacting several livelihoods.
Moved by the scale of devastation, Wike advanced the sum of N500 million, as support from the Government and People of Rivers State, towards the rebuilding of the market. Wike has also lent support, now and again, to Benue State. The North Central entity, has been serial victim of inconsiderate, vicious and presumptuous Fulani herdsmen, who think the entire acreage of Nigeria, their allotted grazing ground. Apart from Wike’s initial support of N200 million in 2018 for displaced persons in the state, he has continued to stretch a hand of kinship, to the geopolity, every now and again.
Wike’s large heart reminds of the Nigeria of old where Africa eternally looked up to us for support, leadership and inspiration. From the neighbouring countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Chad, Guinea, through Sudan, Somalia in Central Africa, eastwards to Kenya, Uganda, and thenceforth to South Africa to Zimbabwe and Namibia, Africa could barely breathe without Nigeria. Whether it was the battle for political emancipation, amelioration of socioeconomic dislocations, or the resolution of internal or external political turmoil, Nigeria was a constant, behind Africa. It was like the hump which is eternally stuck behind the hunchback, as the Yoruba proverb says.
Expectedly, Wike’s actions have attracted criticisms and recriminations, especially from his domain, Rivers State. He has been criticised for not paying pensions and gratuities to retirees in Rivers State. Independent reports opine that this is not entirely Wike’s fault, though. Indeed, his 2022 “May Day,” address took due cognisance of this and urgent steps are being taken to address the anomalies, which pre-date Wike’s dispensation. He has also been accused of abandoning the maintenance of government infrastructures, notably the State Secretariat, *Point Block,* the hub of state bureaucracy. Environmental management has also become an issue of public concern, given the level of filth and degradation in the erstwhile “Garden City” Port Harcourt, the showpiece of the state.
What Wike has done with regards to his famous fiscal liberalism, however, is to expose the thieves, pilferers and gluttons amongst our political elite. He has taken a subtle dig at governors who perennially encamp in Abuja to ambush allocations to their states from the automated transmission machine, (ATM), of the federal government. They subsequently abduct and domicile bureau de change operators in the bedrooms of their Abuja homes, to convert popular resources, into foreign currencies, for their personal consumption and onward transmission to foreign vaults. They spontaneously throw up their hands in dramatised despair, announcing their inability to meet statutory obligations because of diminishing resources. These fellows do not only devour our collective patrimony, they also gobble the plates, pots and pans with which they are served.
These fellows are in permanent liaison with project contractors for the inflation of the bills of quantities and the upfront receipt of mega percentage cuts from every contract which comes under their red ink. This does not preclude the mind-boggling portions of state funds they appropriate to themselves as “first line charge,” in the name of spurious, even scurrilous “security votes.” Many governors have been known to prioritize their loot, over and above the emoluments of poor workers, and the delivery of basic services. Wike has demonstrated that the resources may not suffice to fulfill government’s ever broadening canvas of obligations. Properly managed and deployed, however, so much can be achieved and relevant developmental sectors impacted with the bit at hand.
Wike has unwittingly expanded the possibilities for increased collaboration between states in the country, the type experimented between Lagos and Kebbi states which berthed *LAKE* rice, a few years ago. While Lagos provided the resources, Kebbi provided the land for mass cultivation of rice in its infinite landmass. Wike will not be governor forever, but he has in a way opened up fronts for further conversations between his successors and various other states. Why wouldn’t Rivers and Akwa Ibom for instance, collaborate on the actualisation of mutually beneficial causes, like information technology and industrial parks, as different from oil and gas per se? If former President Olusegun Obasanjo has luminous stretches of fruit farms in Benue State, why not a Rivers/Benue venture which incorporates cultivation, production and processing of various agricultural products?
At the launch of a book titled *The Arc of the Possible* authored by Waziri Adio last December, I met Muyiwa Adekeye, a journalist. He is a younger alumnus of my alma mater, the University of Ilorin, by the way. It’s always a delight for me to meet fellow alumni, irrespective of their generation. Having graduated from the same institution four decades ago, it’s an enriching experience sharing cross-generational perspectives with others. What intrigued me the most was that Adekeye, a Yoruba man, is media adviser to Nasir El Rufai, governor of Kaduna State. Just like the Ben Akabuezes and the Joe Igbokwes have featured in governments in Lagos State, the trend of some intercultural integration is gaining some traction afterall. We should hear of an *Ikwerre* man as local government chairman in Sokoto State, someday, with the unintended foundations laid by a Wike. This is the way Nigeria should be.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, poet, journalist, author and scholar, is a Member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, (NGE).
Opinion
The Labour strike and FG’S Inertia – The way forward

By Prof. Mike A. A. Ozekhom, SAN, CON , OFR, FCIArb, LL.M, Ph.D, LL.D, D.Litt, D.SC, DA, DHL
Labour has literally grounded Nigeria – from airports, hospitals, tertiary institutions, to electricity which has plunged the biggest black nation on earth into total darkness. I am in full, complete and total support of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress’ (TUC)’s current national strike for upward review of the FG’s proposed minimum wage of N60,000 per month. NLC and TUC had also demanded that the government reverses the increase in electricity tariff to N65/KWH. When talks broke down with none of the parties shifting grounds, Labour commenced a strike action on the midnight of Sunday 2nd June, 2024. FG’s proposed meagre salary is certainly not a living wage in today’s Nigeria. At the current parallel market exchange rate of N1,470 to one dollar, the wage being conceded by the Federal Government to labour is a mere $40.82 per month (N60,000), while the NLC and TUC are asking for a whooping N615,500 per month.
By way of comparative analysis with some other countries globally, the monthly minimum wage in the United States is US$1,160 ( N1,705,200); UK £1,376 (N2,528,950); Canada 2,464 CAD (N2,710,400); France £1,539.42 (N2,847,927); Ghana GHC 2,904 (N292,548.96) Rwanda RWF 56,668 (N64,602); South Africa R4,067.2 – R4,412.8 (N322,406.944 – N349,802.656); Botswana P1,168 (N122,056); Germany £1,985.6 (N3,673,360) Australia AUD3531.2 (N 3,490,414.64); Kenya is KES15,201 (N172,683.36). In UAE, there is no general minimum wage as it differs from profession to profession. However, for skilled Labourers AED 5,000 (N2,019,435); people with University degrees AED12,000 (N4,846,644); qualified technicians AED 7,000 (N2,827,209); South Korea is 2,010,580 Won (N2,161,574.558). China differs from city to city. However, Shanghai is RMB 2,690 per month (N551,181) and Heilongjiang RMB 1,450 (N 297,105). Singapore does not prescribe a general minimum wage for all its workers. However, the minimum Singaporean wage is averaged at 6,792SGD/Month = N7,464,408).
Even though Rwanda and Botswana’s minimum wage per month which is RWF 56,668 (N64,602) and P1,168 (N122,056), respectively, appears meagre, the two countries have since put in place social services that cushion the masses’ suffering and put them on a developmental path. Imdeed, they are two of the fastest growing economies not only in Africa, but also in the world. We do not have such in Nigeria. Nigeria is perhaps the only country in the world that brazenly defies Isaac Newton’s Law of Motion to the effect that “what goes up must come down”. In Nigeria, once prices of good go up, they never come down.
Are these countries and us not living on the same Planet earth? We are, of course.
With the present spirally inflation, N60,000 cannot even buy one bag of rice which today sells for between N80,000 and N120,000 depending on the grade and quality.
What is the way forward from this FG-Labour face-off and stalemate? Part of the solution lies in steering a middle course between labour’s N615,500 per month demand and the FG’s proposal of N60,000 per month. This is more so having regard to the impossibility of the private sector, especially small scale businesses and private professions, having the capacity and economic wherewithal to pay such exorbitant wage. Another solution lies in public office holders making deliberate sacrifices in the midst of public angst and disenchantment by cutting down their ostentatiously vulgar lifestyle of ugly display of opulence and their sheer exhibitionism of wealth in mindless convoys of vehicles in the midst of grinding poverty and wretchedness of the masses. The Nigerian people are not happy at all. Anyone who advises the government to the contrary is nothing but a fawner, bootlicker, ego masseur, toady flatterer and clapper.
Opinion
Rivers political crisis: Fubara raves as Wike likely retreats (5)

By Ehichioya Ezomon
Has the political heat in Rivers State simmered in the past week to suggest perhaps – just perhaps – that conventional wisdom has taken hold of the dramatis personae in the crisis to pull back from the precipice they’ve pushed the state in the last eight months?
There’s nothing on the ground to suggest otherwise, even as Governor Siminalayi Fubara and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Chief Nyesom Wike, played their brand of politics at separate locations, trying to undo each other in showcasing achievements in their official jurisdictions, to mark one-year in the saddles in Rivers and Abuja, respectively.
Amid “all the distractions from those that want to draw Rivers State backward,” Fubara invited prominent persons from within and outside Rivers – including Abia State Governor Alex Otti of the rival Labour Party (LP), and former Rivers Governor Peter Odili – to launch projects he “executed in record time, and with full payments to the contractors” – an obvious dig at Wike for allegedly failing to pay contractors for their services.
As is the routine in Rivers governance, especially since the Wike’s helm, Fubara, using his “State of the State” address to render account of his one-year stewardship, revealed the “huge debts to contractors” that Wike left behind for his government.
At the Dr. Obi Wali International Conference Centre in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, May 29, Fubara said his administration “inherited 34 uncompleted projects, valued at over N225.279bn in 13 local government areas of the state,” adding that the contractors, who executed the 34 projects, have come to him for payments.
Fubara stated that though he inherited a state, “whose economy was on a declining trajectory despite its growth potential,” his government has changed the narrative for the better by “increasing astronomically internally-generated revenue from N12 billion to between N17 billion in off-peak periods and N28 billion during the peak months.”
“Our liberalized business-friendly economic policies and programmes are boosting confidence and attracting local and international investors and investments into the State, judging by the expression of interest offers we receive every month.” Fubara said.
“We have kept our taxes low, frozen the imposing of taxes on small businesses across the State, and increased the ease of doing business by eliminating bureaucratic bottlenecks. No request for the signing of a certificate of occupancy (CoO) remains in my office beyond two days, except if I am otherwise engaged beyond two days or out of town.
“We have established a N4 billion matching fund with the Bank of Industry (BOI), to support existing and new micro, small, and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs) to grow their businesses to drive economic growth and create jobs and wealth for citizens. Over 3,000 citizens and residents have applied to access this loan to fund their businesses at a single-digit interest rate, and a repayment period of up to five years.”
Commissioning the completed projects – mostly inherited from the Wike administration (2015-2023) – the invited guests heaped praises on Fubara, not only for achieving commendable strides within a short time, but also for “liberating Rivers State” from Wike’s stranglehold – the same Wike that some of the invitees had praised to the heavens barely a year ago.
For instance, Dr Odili, an erstwhile ally of Wike, noted that Fubara “has taken full control of governance in the State,” stressing that the governor is “focusing on the people” in line with his chosen mantra: ‘People First’. It’s on Saturday, May 25, at the inauguration of the dualised Omoku-Egbema road in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area (ONELGA) of the state.
An elated Odili even predicted a seamless second-term election for Fubara in 2027, and urged him to remain focused on the people, giving succour to the less-privileged and hope to those who do not have anyone to help them go through life’s challenges.
“I can tell our people that the next election is very far, but what the Governor has done so far, is enough to secure the support of Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area going forward,” Odili said. “Thank you, Your Excellency, because the greatest assets of the State remain the people, not oil and gas.
“The people of Rivers are behind you, rallying support for you because they trust you, believing in what you say and convinced that you mean whatever you say,” Odili said, adding, “I want to agree with you that the sky would become the takeoff point of your administration.”
Relatedly in Abuja, it’s Wike’s days in the sky. Though he didn’t have the luxury of throwing brickbats at Fubara – and there’s no surrogates to do same for him – Wike had the rare privilege of enlisting President Bola Tinubu to launch some of the projects that were “abandoned for decades,” and received applause from Tinubu for returning and restoring Abuja’s Master Plan, and transforming the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
On Tuesday, May 28, at the commissioning of the Southern Parkway, which Wike proclaimed as “Bola Ahmed Tinubu Way” – a crucial infrastructure project that’s dormant for 13 years before Wike’s intervention – the President described the minister’s vision as “inspiring many and yielding remarkable results in the FCT.”
Tinubu said: “Barr Nyesom Wike, ‘Mr. Project,’ thank you for giving us this home and for your sincere commitment to shared values. Your revolutionary vision is inspiring many and yielding remarkable results in the FCT.”
Highlighting the significance of the road, the President said, “The Southern Parkway not only connects vital areas within the FCT, but also symbolises our collective aspirations for connectivity, ease of livelihood, and progress. This road will enhance mobility, ease traffic congestion, and spur economic development for residents and visitors alike.
“Infrastructure is an enabler of jobs, economic growth, and prosperity. We are committed to building a world-class capital city, and the completion of this road is a testament to that commitment. Making our citizens the central focus of our development is crucial for Nigeria’s success,” Tinubu stated.
Earlier, Wike noted: “This landmark project is the first amongst nine visionary projects scheduled for commissioning by Mr. President in the coming days. It represents a significant milestone in our collective efforts to enhance the infrastructure and livability of our great capital and her inhabitants.
“As we mark the first year of your transformative leadership, Mr. President, this event underscores our shared commitment to progress, innovation, and the enduring prosperity of Nigeria.”
Yet, the make-for-the-cameras pomp and ceremony, razzmatazz, accolades, hand-pumping and backslapping by politicians in Port Harcourt and Abuja are but a temporary relief or diversion to mask the “real politic” in Rivers, where Governor Fubara’s fighting the battle of his life to cage Chief Wike, and save his governorship and political career heading into the 2027 General Election.
The fourth installment of this article on Monday, May 27, 2024, examined two strategies that Fubara could adopt to handle Wike and his sacked loyal members of the Rivers Assembly, and local council chairmen, whose tenure ends in June 2024, but have vowed to remain in office until “elected officials” were installed in the Rivers local councils. Below’s a recap:
First, Fubara could evict the lawmakers from the Rivers State House of Assembly Residential Quarters in Port Harcourt – where they and their families domicile, and use as a legislative chamber – to deny them the venue and avenue to make laws and/or plot his impeachment.
Second, Fubara could copy his counterparts, and withhold the lawmakers’ emoluments, and allocations to the legislature – as he’s allegedly done to the April 2024 allocations to the councils – to checkmate the legislators, whose seats have lately been redeclared “vacant” by a Rivers High Court.
Let’s now proceed to interrogate the remaining measures, beginning with the Third, as follows: When push comes to shove, Fubara could muscle the pro-Wike lawmakers by physical attacks on them, their homes and businesses, the aim being to overraw, and hound them, to sabotage their plans to make his government ungovernable, and pave the way for his impeachment – the aim of the lawmakers from onset of the Rivers crisis.
Recall Fubara’s declaration about the lawmakers early in 2024: “I think it has gotten to a time when I need to make a statement on this thing, so that they (lawmakers) understand that they are not existing. Their existence and whatever they have been doing is because I allowed them to do so. If I don’t recognise them, they are nowhere. That is the truth.
“I can say here, with all amount of boldness, I have never called any police man anywhere to go and harass anybody. I have never gone anywhere to ask anybody to do anything against anybody.
“Even when I have all the instruments of State powers, I have shown restraint, I have acted as a big brother in the course of this crisis. I have not acted like a young man that may want the house to be destroyed but, I have behaved like a mature young man that I am.
“This is because I know that no meaningful development will be achieved in an atmosphere of crisis. And because our intention for Rivers State is to build on the foundation that had been laid by our past leaders, it will be wrong for me to take the path of promoting crisis.”
Interpreted, the pro-Wike lawmakers – already in the lurch over series of court rulings sacking and re-sacking them, and voiding all legislative actions they took in the course of the Rivers crisis – shouldn’t underrate Fubara’s powers and resolve – if pushed against the wall – to roar like the lion, attack like the hyena and bite like the crocodile!
Barring any “political earthquake” this week in the Rivers crisis, the remaining measures Fubara could deploy to arrest Wike’s alleged hegemonic hold on Rivers State will be interrogated in the next installment of this running header!
- Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria
Sent from my iPad. Ehichioya
Ezomon.
Opinion
Nemesis as a short distance runner

By Tunde Olusunle
When he flung Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, (SLS) out of the window of the Emir’s palace in Kano four years ago, Abdullahi Ganduje would have least imagined what is playing out today. Ganduje was the “Lord of the Manor” in Kano State, the all-powerful chief executive. Recall video clips of Ganduje allegedly stuffing wads and packs of crisp, mint-fresh dollar bills into the bottomless pocket of his babanriga ahead of the 2019 general elections. They were reportedly gifted to him by some contractor ally of the erstwhile Kano governor who was repaying a good turn. Graphic and unassailable as that short motion picture was, former President Muhammadu Buhari who rode into office on the camelback of now suspect integrity in 2015, volunteered a baffling defence for Ganduje. He swore Ganduje was most probably participating in a Kannywood movie, the way the film industry up North is described. Buhari who has never been known to operate a tablet, nay a notepad, suggested that advanced technology could actually simulate what we all saw in that short clip!
Ganduje was the prototype alagbara ma m’ero as we say in Yoruba. This interpretes as the “maximally muscular, minimally reasonable.” He fought a few other prominent Kano leaders during his heydays in Government House. Recall he carried his unabated squabbles with one of his predecessors, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso to the State House, Aso Villa, during the early weeks of the Bola Tinubu government. Told on one occasion that Kwankwaso was in a particular section of Aso Rock same time as he was in the complex, a vexed Ganduje said Kwankwaso should consider himself fortunate. He said he, Ganduje would have slapped Kwankwaso if he sighted him in the Villa! That would have caused a scene in Nigeria’s seat of power. I’m now just imagining how Tinubu would be trying to restrain Ganduje, in the forecourt of the office of the President, while Vice President Kashim Shettima will be pulling at Kwankwaso’s agbada in a bid to manage the situation.
Ganduje reportedly considered Sanusi too independent-minded and outspoken for a natural ruler. Sanusi was governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), before being appointed Emir in 2014. He had always had a radical streak about him which culminated in his suspension as CBN head in 2014 for blowing the whistle on the theft of $20 Billion in accruals from crude oil sales. As Emir he considered aspects of the religious and cultural practices of his emirate repugnant. He opposed the “ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam” in some parts of northern Nigeria, which discouraged girl-child education, family planning, even inoculation against potential healthcare afflictions. He had reservations about the style of Ganduje as governor and didn’t put a veil over his dislike for the return of Ganduje to Government House in 2019.
He believed Ganduje shouldn’t have made it back if the poll was fairly and transparently conducted. March 9, 2020, Ganduje upended Sanusi. He was accused of negatively impacting the sanctity, culture, tradition, religion and prestige of the Kano emirate, and disrespecting the governor’s office. He was also alleged to have disposed of property belonging to the state and the misappropriated of the proceeds. It was a case of digging several manholes for a prey in a bid to ensure he falls into one of the several traps. He was summarily banished to Nasarawa State for effect. Sanusi sought reprieve in the courts which ruled it was an overkill to fling him to a remote community faraway from his family and more accustomed home in Lagos. Within a few days, Nasir El Rufai, Sanusi’s longstanding friend who was governor of Kaduna State, personally enforced the evacuation of Sanusi from Awe local government area in Nasarawa State.
For whatever his contributions were to the emergence of Tinubu as president after the 2023 polls, Ganduje believed he would be compensated with a ministerial slot in the former’s regime. Like Nyesom Wike, David Umahi, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, Atiku Bagudu, Simon Lalong, former governors of Rivers, Ebonyi, Jigawa, Kebbi and Plateau states, Ganduje dusted his curriculum vitae to pitch for a slot on Tinubu’s federal executive council. His five colleagues in the “2015 – 2019- 2023 class of governors” made the cut, not Ganduje. Tinubu spontaneously made him chairman of the All Progressives Congress, (APC], the vehicle which delivered him as president. Abdullahi Adamu his predecessor and former governor of Nasarawa State was, as has become standard practice in Nigeria’s notorious political rule book, schemed out and compelled to resign from office.
If Ganduje ever thought his chairmanship of the APC was going to be a walk in the park, he was thoroughly mistaken. Indeed, he’s grossed sufficient experience in his present office to know that there are sharp differences between wholesale insulation in Government House, and the inevitable overexposure of party leadership. Last April, a faction of the APC in Ganduje’s primary “Ganduje ward” in Dawakin Tofa local government area of his home state, Kano, suspended him from the party. Haladu Gwanjo, legal adviser of Ganduje’s ward led some party leaders to pronounce the suspension. They advocated the return of the national chairmanship of the APC to the north central zone, where Ganduje’s predecessor, Adamu, hails from. The young Turks canvassed due process in party administration, consistent with the “renewed hope” mantra of the APC. Ganduje made a hurried recourse to the law courts for momentary reprieve.
Thursday May 23, 2024, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi was reinstated as Emir of Kano by Ganduje’s successor in Kano State, Abba Yusuf. His cousin and successor, Aminu Ado-Bayero, was unceremoniously removed from office. The splinter emirates created by Ganduje in his bid to whittle down Sanusi’s authority as prime monarch in Kano, were similarly dissolved. The edifice which Ganduje built four years ago was apparently built of straw and spittle. Governor Abba Yusuf is a product of the Kwankwasiya political tendency in Kano politics, a creation of Rabiu Kwankwaso. Those who know a little about Nigerian politics will recall that Kwankwaso’s emergence in our politics, predates the fourth republic. He was an ardent student of the talakawa political orientation, pioneered by the venerable Kano-born leader, Aminu Kano. Kwankwaso was Deputy Speaker in the House of Representatives of the Ibrahim Babangida political experimentation of 1992 to 1993.
Whereas the Kwankwasiya movement had long been entrenched, it was not until the run-up to the 2023 elections that Kwankwaso adopted a new platform, the Nigeria National People’s Party, (NNPP), on which he is espousing the populist philosophy of the Kwankwasiya brigade. Abba Yusuf rode to office on the back of this invention. It was the same way Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu the famous Biafran war lord, established the All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA) in Anambra State. The party has remained a force in the politics of the state and indeed the south east. It has produced three Anambra governors in succession, notably Peter Obi, Willie Obiano and the incumbent Chukwuma Soludo.
Abba Yusuf has made no pretences about his disdain for Ganduje and everything he represents. Much as some of Yusuf’s early actions in office were generally perceived as wasteful, he nonetheless brought down as many edifices in Kano as bore the imprimatur of Ganduje. The “Kano golden jubilee roundabout” built to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the creation of Kano State and structures built inside the filin sukuwa, (Kano race course), were hewn on Yusuf’s orders. The hajj camp which was reportedly bastardised by Ganduje who allegedly parcelled parts of it to his friends and associates was equally felled. There were suggestions that the value of the demolitions carried out by Yusuf could be in excess of N200Billion. Such is the anti-Ganduje sentiment in contemporary Kano State.
The way and manner the legacies of Abdullahi Ganduje are unravelling in Kano State should serve as a lesson to the shortsighted, incapable of seeing beyond the bridges of their nose. History is replete with the deconstruction of many leaders after their rulership and indeed keeps repeating itself in our sociopolitical experience. Those who are not circumspect, however, are too distracted by the allure and bliss of their immediate office, to think. They continue to drift, blunder and flounder, unmindful that time is their ultimate nemesis. Ganduje is just one year out of office, yet many of the decisions he made while in power for eight years are being unmade and thrown at his face like rotten tomatoes.
Until I joined him on the table he was seated at a wedding reception we both attended in Lagos a few weeks back, Rotimi Amaechi, governor of the oil-affluent Rivers State for eight years and Transportation Minister for another eight years was a lonely man. It turned out we flew back to Abuja on the same flight same evening after the event and sat not too far from each other. He opened the overhead locker atop his seat to bring out his luggage himself. Is anyone following the Yahaya Bello saga? He mindlessly trampled upon the hapless heads of his constituents in Kogi State for eight unbroken years? He left office last January and life has not been the same again. He has been declared wanted by at least one anti-graft agency. He will be arraigned in the rectangular, wood-panelled cubicle of the courtroom in a fortnight. A lesson for all.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, is a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA)
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