Opinion
Who endorsed President Buhari ‘s “APER” Forms? Part 2
By Tunde Olusunle
At no time in Nigeria’s socioeconomic evolution has the economy been on the free fall and downward slide, as has been witnessed under Buhari’s watch. Nigeria survived two recessions under the incumbent administration, and was in the throes of a third affliction. One of these was evidently self-inflicted, while the second was a fallout of the global COVID-19 economic meltdown. Buhari’s tardy handling of his assumption of office processes in 2015, which held up the appointment of ministers and similar functionaries for six months, instigated the first experience. It meant there were no ready-to-run drivers of policy and governance, following Buhari’s May 29, 2015 inauguration, which adversely impacted socioeconomic growth. The Nigerian Chambers of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, (NACCIMA), earlier this year, raised fears of a possible third recession in the outgoing year, on account of the economy’s poor performance indexes.
The nation’s inflation rate ascended the highest in nearly 20 years, posting a record 21%. Nigeria’s computational ombudsman, the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, (NBS) in its most recent report, observed that increases in the food index emanated from the rise in the prices of consumer items like bread, cereals, potatoes, yams, oil and fat. The NBS equally noted that increases in the prices of gas, liquid fuel, air transport, road travel and solid fuel, accentuated the inflationary figures. The NBS observed further, that soaring food prices, disruptions in food supply chain, rise in import cost due to currency depreciation, and increase in the cost of production, collectively account for the galloping inflationary trend. All of these are playing out, when salaries and earnings of Nigerians have remained static for several years now, purchasing power eroded by skyrocketing inflation.
Arising from the above, it is no surprise that Nigeria presently ranks number 103, out of 121 countries in the “Global Hunger Ranking Index.” This position, according to the survey, signifies that Nigeria “has a level of hunger that is serious.” The report which ranks countries by “severity,” ascribed a score of 27.3, a hunger level which places Nigeria in the category of “serious” cases. Sadly, the current assessment is the second consecutive year in which Nigeria’s position has remained the same. Hitherto, Nigeria had been decorated with the ignominious medal of the “poverty capital of the world.”
Nigeria of the Buhari milieu is a curious socioeconomic paradox, against the backdrop of the country’s robust earnings from crude oil sales within the period under review. According to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OPEC), Nigeria realised $206 Billion, between 2015 and 2019. This works out at an average of $50 Billion per financial year. Yet, the country has been a serial borrower from several global lenders, piling up debts and commitments for generations unborn. As at June 2022, Nigeria’s foreign debt was $40.1.3 Billion. Elsewhere, the Debt Management Office, (DMO), has suggested that domestic debt was $63.24 Billion, as at September 2022.
Under Buhari, Nigeria has recorded its worst ever unemployment rates which has witnessed the addition of 17 million more people, to the unemployment market. The World Bank has noted the sharp upward swing of out-of-job people since the 2015-2016 economic recession. According to the report, the unemployment rate in Nigeria was at least 33.3% in the last quarter of 2020. Tied to this according to the report, is the rate of Nigerian asylum seekers in other countries, including professional and skilled people, questing for better opportunities, elsewhere. The report estimates that as at 2019, migrants from Nigeria had risen to about 1.5 million people, from about a third of the number 30 years earlier.
Conflicting figures suggest that Nigeria has lost between 6000 and 9000 medical doctors and paramedics, to the USA, United Kingdom, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, (UAE), under Buhari’s superintendence. The Kaduna State chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association, (NMA), has put the figure at over 10,000 in the last seven years. Information technology experts are also moving out in droves. The “brain regain” which democratic governance offered during the Olusegun Obasanjo regime and which witnessed the homecoming of many Nigerians, has been reversed under Buhari, into a biting brain drain. People are fleeing harsh economic circumstances at home, where desperation has driven many to explore dangerous routes like stowaway travel on the seas and oceans.
Mental health disorders have become more rampant under this government. Suicides in various forms have become more rampant than ever before. The social media is replete with instances of distraught and despairing Nigerians jumping into rivers or lagoons as the case may be. In other cases, people put a rope around their necks and hang themselves, while others wilfully consume poisonous substances, desiring to punctuate their earthly traumas. The Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria, (APN) had reason in the immediate past, to exhort President Buhari to give assent to the “Mental Health Bill,” as passed by the National Assembly.
Buhari must have posted a new record in the length of industrial action, by university lecturers in Nigeria. Under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU), university lecturers embarked on a strike on February 14, 2022, to press for better working conditions. They sought a review of their remuneration and advocated better teaching facilities. A typically reticent and introverted Buhari could not as much as engage the scholars himself, leaving floundering members of his cabinet to dialogue with the university teachers. The subsequent intervention of the federal parliament brokered a truce which witnessed the reopening of universities, eight full months after they were shut. This is the kind of non-committal leadership Buhari has availed Nigeria.
Nepotism and cronyism have never been as obscene and pronounced over the years like we’ve witnessed in the past seven and half years. A disturbing slant to this practice is the blatant privileging of people who subscribe to the same religion as the outgoing helmsman, in consideration for appointments, deployments, even patronage in business dealings with MDAs. References have been made to appointments to the headship and critical hubs of the intelligence and security system for instance. The figures read like 80% to the North, and 20% to the South. Vacancies in the public service are almost always filled by candidates from the President’s geocultural catchment. It is that bad.
The battle against corruption was one of Buhari’s cardinal campaign pledges, but the malaise has very evidently prospered under his watch. Several so-called poverty alleviation programmes and initiatives of the Buhari regime have been virtual cesspools of graft. From the dubious “school feeding programme,” through the fictitious poverty mitigation “palliatives,” humongous quantums of our commonwealth have ended up in private pockets. What has become of the tradermoni programme for instance? Open-ended, freestyle initiatives by ministries like that of Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs meant to reach the poor and needy, have made billionaires of many government officials and their fronts.
Last year, Buhari’s regime declared wanted a certain “Aboubakar Hima” from Niger Republic, who “defrauded” Nigeria of $400 Million, N400 Million and €10 Million, respectively. This adds up to about N200 Billion supposedly frittered by officials of the Buhari government. The said Aboubakar Hima, was allegedly availed the sums, for the procurement of armaments for the military. Despite this singular heist which is larger than the annual budgets of many states, Buhari, the Commander-in-Chief, has not moved against his intelligence and security apparatus. Till date, not one head has rolled. Rather, those who were directly involved, have been decorated with national honours and rewarded with ambassadorial appointments. Should we allude to the ding-dong in the Niger Delta Development Commission, (NDDC), an organisation which has been deployed as an “automated teller machine,” (ATM), by successive interim managements?
The reward system under this government leaves much to be desired. The list of honorees at the recent National Awards event, was a decoration of aides and allies of the President in most instances. The real contributions of several awardees to national development, or indeed their professional callings, is best imagined. How do we explain the beatification of the Education Minister, Adamu Adamu for instance, when he could not resolve a strike by university lecturers, over a stretch of eight months? Residents of the Federal Capital Territory, (FCT) in some districts were bearing protest placards berating zero governance, when the Minister, Mohammed Musa Bello was being honoured. Buhari’s family members and personal aides, featured prominently on the list, underlining the wholesale bastardisation of the process. The question therefore should be asked: What parameters were deployed in the consideration of beneficiaries of the awards?
Buhari’s insensitivity to topical issues bothering on national angst, is legendary. Within the last one month, floods have overrun several states in the country. Six hundred and thirty lives have been lost, property valued at billions of naira have also been washed away by the deluge. Over one million Buhari constituents have been displaced and herded into camps for internally displaced persons, (IDPs). The new King of England, Charles III among other foreign dignitaries, has sympathised with Nigeria. While commissioning a “flood prevention plan” to be articulated within 90 days, however, Buhari travelled to South Korea for the first edition of the “World Bio Summit!”
Directly linked to this is his record for impulsive foreign travel and gross absenteeism since his inauguration on May 29, 2015. Not even Obasanjo, an acknowledged global statesman, came any close to Buhari’s achievements in worldwide excursions. And they are mostly wrong-headed, without concomitant accruals to the nation’s socioeconomy. As at the first week of August 2021, Buhari had spent 200 days in the UK for medical reasons. Indeed, a few weeks to the expiration of his first term in office, he had grossed 404 days, (one calendar year and 39 days), on intercontinental voyeurism, to 33 countries on four continents! Not even the biker- journalist, Moshood Olabisi Adisa Ajala, celebrated in the song with the title Ajala, by the revered juju music exponent, Ebenezer Obey, came any close.
More recently, the President grossed 12 foreign trips within the first six months of this year, raising concerns about the looming inadequacy of the budgetary provision for foreign travel, for the year. This was followed by the September jamboree to the US by Buhari in the guise of participation in the 2022 United Nations General Assembly, (UNGA). Government offices in Abuja emptied into the streets of New York, as hundreds of public servants floated around the iconic city, bearing bulging shopping bags. Instructively, Buhari’s trips almost always, coincide with moments of national challenges requiring minimum concern and empathy from a leader. But he has consecutively failed on this score, underscoring his trademark nonchalance and chronic insensitivity.
For all his pre-election pretences as a “newborn democrat,” Buhari has failed in the development of democratic institutions. The homes of senior judges were invaded in the dead of night by agents of the state supposedly tracking phantom proceeds of corruption. In the same vein, Buhari watched with arms akimbo, as a sitting Chief Justice of the Federation, (CJN), Walter Onnoghen, was framed and disgracefully ousted from office. His successor, Ibrahim Muhammad Tanko, would voluntarily retire, in a hail of accusations and allegations of corruption. The parliament remains attached to the apron-strings of the executive, rarely dissenting, customarily conceding to the bidding and demands of its “benefactors.” While the incumbent legislature has self-adulated as a “performing” one, vis-a-vis the number of bills it has passed, the same assembly has been fingered in “budget padding” and collusion with ministries, departments and agencies, (MDAs). BudgIT Nigeria, a civic-tech organisation early this year announced its discovery of about 460 duplicated projects valued at N378.9 Billion.
It is not in the place of Buhari to festoon himself with medals and accolades celebrating his perceived achievements and successes. No. It is indeed most uncharitable, wrong and absolutely presumptuous for him to be both the student and the examiner, the prosecutor and the adjudicator in a matter which directly concerns him. With the benefit of hindsight, Nigerians have been practically robbed by a President and the platform which granted him leverage. He was elected to serve Nigeria and Nigerians. The responsibility for how his appraisal and acquittal as the case may pan out therefore, lies squarely with the people, the electorate, who put him in office. Our scientific isolation of various strands of governance and administration and their interrogation thereof, unfortunately situates the President in the negative column of the assessment model.
An annual template could well have been applied as the research instrument as with the well known “APER” form, in checking out the President’s endeavours. A more broad-based analytical device in the mould of an Aggregate Performance Evaluation Report, also shortened by the APER acronym, could also have been deployed. Either way, Buhari’s performance is small comfort. His APER forms have not been endorsed both by his immediate supervisors, nor does it have the imprimatur of higher authorities, metaphorically. Nigerians have never wished for a faster denouement to their lachrymose of several years, like they wish for February 2023. They wish for that day like yesterday.
CONCLUDED
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, poet, journalist, scholar and author is a Member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, (NGE).
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.
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.
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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