Opinion
Atiku, El-Rufai, Udenta and the vindication of ‘Esu Odara’

By Tunde Olusunle
Scholars are divided over what the most appropriate description and perception of Esu in Yoruba cosmology should be. The more widely held notion about Esu, is to make it the lexical parallel of Satan or the devil, in the English language. Esu within this context, connotes evil and devilry in all its ramifications. He is the purveyor and conveyor of wickedness, mischief, anguish, grief, even negativity in totality. Esu in popular perception, is mean-spirited, malevolent, devious, vile. The list goes on. This dimension to the Esu persona, considered as a “most controversial mixup” by some scholars, has been ascribed to his portrayal by Ajayi Crowther, the iconic linguist and Emeritus pioneer African Bishop of the Anglican Church. Crowther translated the Bible into Yoruba and also translated Yoruba into English. It has been posited that Crowther, in the dictionary, translated Satan as Esu. Unfortunately, as Christianity and Islam replaced African Traditional Religion, (ATR), the reference to Esu as Satan, gained ascendancy, following Crowther’s precedence.
Yoruba mythology, however, admits Esu as one of the Orishas, mediums and intermediaries between man and Eledumare, God in the Yoruba pantheon. Affiliate Orishas include Ogun, Sango, Obatala, Esu, Obatala, Osun, among several others. But even this classification confers some ambivalence on the essential constitution and endeavours of the archetypal Esu. He is said to be a benevolent spirit who serves Ifa, the oracle who divines the future. He takes sacrifices through him to Eledumare, and brings his commands to men. He acts under his orders and punishes the wicked on his Principal’s behalf. Esu, however, is a multivalent medium, dreaded in his own right, for the vengeful mischief he can perpetrate. In this capacity, he is Esu Odara or Esu Elegbara, the unsparing evildoer.
It is necessary to lay this foundation against the backdrop of the quantum disinformation, misrepresentation, fables, falsehoods serially perpetrated against Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s First Vice President, in the subsisting Fourth Republic. Atiku has been repeatedly profiled for unsubstantiated malfeasance, unsustainable grabbism, primitive acquisition, vandalistic comsumptiveness, and similar labels. Atiku is the hardworking, high-flying presidential flagbearer of the major opposition political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), who is staking a formidable, full-chested claim to succeed the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari. This is Atiku’s fifth shot at the presidency and one in which he is very highly favoured to win deservedly. It has indeed been advanced that he won the 2019 election, by independent forensic accounts.
The respected public engager, scholar and professor Udenta Udenta, indeed advanced in a recent television interview, that Atiku ticks all the boxes in terms of his several attributes, competencies and capacities for the nation’s top job. His words: “The most suitable President Nigeria needs now is someone with a sense of urgency, who is ready in terms of preparation, someone who is fully aware of national expectations. Every candidate comes with some bag, not just of expectations, but talent, assets and skill sets… Atiku Abubakar has been devoted to this quest for long. And for somebody to be devoted in his lifetime, almost the entirety of his adulthood
in pursuit of a dream, means there is something deep in his heart that he wants to give the country. He gave part of it as vice president for eight years, effectively for four years because the second term was very turbulent with his boss.”
Udenta is not emotional about the originating address of Nigeria’s next president. He is objective enough to speak from his own dispassionate interrogation of the country’s sociopolitical situation. He continues therefore by submitting as follows: “Atiku’s undying passion to lead Nigeria, actually means he has the staying power, in terms of persistence, which is very key to unlock the potentials of the nation. And being a vice president for the first term when the country was practically cut adrift from the international community, to restore the country back to the comity of nations with a sense of mission and purpose, I think he did very well. Whether as informal leader of the economic team or someone the president relied on so much to drive the government’s economic agenda, he seems to be best suited for the moment, in terms of who has the adequacy of experience and exposure and the network to get things done.”
The unfortunate narrative out there in the public sphere about Atiku, however, is of one whose hands are soiled in the lucre of state assets and resources, appropriated to self and cronies, while he was in office. These fabrications preclude the fact that Atiku, by his responsibilities as vice president, as spelt-out in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic, was actually and practically, severely constrained. The office and position, is an appendage to a president, and a strong one at that in Olusegun Obasanjo, on whose desk the buck stopped. Convoluted street talk in places, is of a man who desires the presidency as a personal laurel for the prosecution of an agenda for self-enrichment and personal aggrandisement.
Phantom figures have been concocted in relation to the manner of giveaways Atiku made of some highly prized national assets, under his watch as Chairman of the National Council for Privatisation, (NCP). The Ajaokuta Steel Complex in Kogi State; the National Aluminium Smelting Plant, Ikot-Abasi and the Nigeria Newsprint Manufacturing Company, Oku-Iboku, both located in Akwa Ibom State, among others, were allegedly auctioned to Atiku’s imaginary associates, going by the thread of these conjectures. Yet, government’s legally constituted agency entrusted with the responsibility of disposal of the assets was the Bureau for Public Enterprises, (BPE). Nasir El-Rufai, outgoing governor of Kaduna State, was the Director-General and Chief Executive.
Every electoral cycle, so long as Atiku is on the ballot, these tales are recycled and fed into our ears. Yet Atiku has serially submitted himself to public inquisition to authenticate the veracity of the unfounded aspersions regularly cast on him. Till date, none, out of the Code of Conduct Bureau, (CCB), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFFC), or the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, (ICPC), have invited Atiku for a chat since he lost his immunity 17 years ago! Atiku has always desired to be clinically examined. He is in “a townhall, different from” the balablu blublu bulaba of his major challenger Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), on this score. Tinubu, reportedly, has held his affluent state in his pocket and his vice grip into its 24th consecutive year! He is the ultimate, a godlike figure, the chess-master who determines if his constituents breathe or not. He actually wants to sneak into Aso Villa without facing the minimum request and expectation of Nigerians, for his participation in a question and answer engagement. As I type this, the social media is abuzz with a picture of Tinubu sleeping and snoring away, at a meeting of party leaders and presidential candidates, with the National Peace Committee, (NPC), in Abuja. Abdullahi Adamu, Chairman of Tinubu’s APC, participated on his behalf.
In an old short video clip dated August 11, 2011, which is making the rounds, El Rufai dismisses reports and allegations of Atiku’s interference or complicity in any form, with the privatisation exercise. According to him: “I swear to God, I am under oath, except for one time the vice president called me and said: Look, I’ve got calls from A and B requesting we help this guy win this. And I said: “Mr Vice President, you know the rules. Tell the guy to bid the highest price, because the highest price wins. And he said I know, in case they contact you, I don’t want them to say I didn’t pass on their message. That was the only time. Nobody tried to interfere with my work.” This is very germane to our thesis in this piece, about the eventual vindication of the much maligned Esu Odara.
Nigerians will yet come to appreciate the single-minded commitment to, and pursuit of rule of law and due process in governance and party administration, of Atiku Abubakar. This is the kernel of the negative and revisionist stereotypes that have been encased around him. Like Udenta noted in a section of his interview cited above, Atiku truly had a bumpy second term with his Principal, Olusegun Obasanjo. There was indeed a concerted attempt to unlawfully remove him from office in that government. The beef between Atiku and Obasanjo, we are told, derived largely from Obasanjo’s desire to contest for a third term in office. Atiku is said to have cautioned against any form of constitutional breach. Atiku we are told, reminded Obasanjo on that occasion, that since both of them were inaugurated the same day, they should disengage from office on the same day. Atiku indeed requested Obasanjo to support him as his successor so he could consolidate on whatever foundations they had both laid.
Defying his constitutional immunity as a sitting vice president, Atiku hosted a three-man “Board of Inquiry,” (BOI), made up of three serving ministers in that government, emplaced by by his boss. They asked him to show cause why he should not be unseated, brandishing a “charge sheet” of simulated breaches. Atiku, a due process adherent, resisted the move and challenged it all the way to the Supreme Court and won. Maxwell Gidado, SAN, (now Chief of Staff to the Adamawa State governor, Ahmadu Fintiri) and Chudi Ojukwu, LLM, co-edited an authoritative compendium on the Atiku litigations in the quest for justice. Titled Landmark Constitutional Law Cases In Nigeria: 2004-2007: The Atiku Abubakar Cases, it was first published in 2013. The 300-page book is “in memory of the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and others who died for the cause of democracy and constitutionalism in Nigeria.” The book is a must-read for genuine lovers of democracy, justice and rule of law.
The serving aviation minister at the time, at the very climax of the fiesty acrimony between Obasanjo and Atiku, by accounts, dropped a bomb, during a meeting of the Federal Executive Council, (FEC). We are informed he averred that Atiku should be barred from attending or participating in FEC meetings! This was an unelected appointee of the Obasanjo/Atiku ticket attempting to humiliate the Vice President in public. Atiku was in attendance, we are also apprised, by the way. It emerged that that minister was prompted by the President to fly the kite. There was eerie silence thereafter, we are briefed. The president, read the unpopularity of his subterfuge and moved on to other issues on the agenda paper.
Here therefore lies the reality of the relentlessly wrong, cruel and misleading depiction of Atiku Abubakar as a devil reincarnate, the essential Esu Odara, which in truth is unsustainable. Or how do we corroborate his recurrent demonisation, with the many positive inventions and initiatives he brought forth, towards the success of his erstwhile Principal and their joint ticket? Who headhunted El Rufai, a first class degree holder in quantity surveying from the Ahmadu Bello University, (ABU) and convinced him to serve in the Obasanjo/Atiku administration? Arguably, El Rufai has been one of the bright lights of the Fourth Republic, whose imprimatur is to be found everywhere he has treaded. Who discovered Chukwuma Soludo, governor of Anambra State, a first class economist? His landmark consolidation of banks and financial institutions, has been one of the most perspicacious achievements of this democratic milieu.
Did we listen to the recent testimony of Akinwumi Adesina, a first class degree holder in agricultural economics and former agriculture minister, the incumbent President of the African Development Bank, (AfDB), about Atiku? He noted in a public lecture, that Atiku is a “destiny enabler.” Atiku held his hands and flew him in his private jet, (Atiku’s airplane), from Abuja to Cape Town, in 2015. This was before the inauguration of the Buhari government. Atiku took him to seek former President Jacob Zuma’s endorsement of Adesina’s bid for the AfDB presidency. Nigeria and South Africa are very key members of the ownership structure of the AfDB. Atiku and Zuma have had a blossoming relationship, since their days as vice presidents to Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki. Atiku was a private citizen at that time and remains one. But here is a global citizen, the foremost bridge builder, whose tentacles traverse the infinite span of the world. Fortuitously, Tinubu was on that Atiku-Adesina shuttle to South Africa and witnessed first hand, the bonhomie and camaraderie between Atiku and Zuma.
Very instructively El Rufai, Soludo and Adesina trained locally in Nigerian universities, notably: ABU, University of Nigeria Nsukka, (UNN), and the University of Ife, (Unife) which has been rechristened Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU), respectively. They each represent Nigeria’s three major ethnic groups: the Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba. This speaks volumes about Atiku’s cosmopolitanism and confidence in the broad-spectrum intellectual and technocratic assets of Nigeria and the country’s homegrown quality. Atiku was not interested in the religious or ethnic backgrounds of these juggernauts before embracing them. He has tremendous capacity to appreciate and encourage scholarship and professionalism. Atiku’s over-arching global goodwill, among other endowments and qualities earlier enunciated by Udenta Udenta, recommend him as Nigeria’s most preferred, come Saturday February 25, 2023.
Tunde Olusunle, PhD, poet, journalist, scholar and author, is Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, GCON
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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