January 24, 2007
Governor Umar Yar’Adua of Katsina State is one lucky Nigerian who got what others sweated for on a platter of gold. While other presidential aspirants spent fortunes on campaigns and criss-crossed Nigeria for support, Yar’Adua maintained his cool. At the end of the day, President Olusegun Obasanjo swayed the Peoples Democratic Party primaries in his favour. However, soon after he clinched the coveted ticket, issues about his fitness began to surface. He, therefore, chose the opportunity of his recent visit to the Presidential Villa to clear himself.
Challenging those who had doubts about his health to a game of squash, he told State House correspondents: “I am fit and healthy...If they can play 12 straight sets with me, they are welcome.” Yar’Adua’s health is just one out of many issues that his critics raised over his fitness to govern. Matters that border on integrity, performance in office, experience, political antecedents, leadership style and infrastructure also come into play.
Health
During a recent retreat organised for PDP candidates for the 2007 elections in Abuja, President Olusegun Obasanjo described Governor Umar Yar’Adua in superlative terms. He told his listeners that only a Yar’Adua presidency can fight corruption head on and sustain the ongoing reforms of government. Ever willing to paint Yar’Adua as fit, Obasanjo said the Katsina State governor had been miraculously healed of a strange ailment. “I know all about Umar’s ailment and it has disappeared since 2001. It was a miracle. So those calling him sick man are the ones who are sick. After all, only God can tell who is sick or not. I wonder how somebody can open his mouth and say that a human being created by God is a sick man. I am sure he has proven to those who say he cannot stand stress that all that is not true,” Obasanjo thundered.
But many Nigerians believe the Katsina State Governor is not fit to be president. In Katsina, TheNEWS gathered that Yar’Adua is suffering from a kidney-related ailment that makes him a regular visitor at a private hospital, where he undergoes dialysis. The thinking is that if elected president, he may not cope with the challenge of steering the ship of the Nigerian nation. Aside this, his critics say Nigeria needs a president who will remain in the country to lead and not the travelling one troubled by failing health. This position is strengthened by the fact that as governor of Katsina State, Yar’Adua is accused of always travelling abroad for medical treatment. Alhaji Muhammad Balarabe, Katsina-based politician and ANPP chieftain puts Yar’Adua’s foreign trips in perspective. “The governor has some ailments but I don’t know what they are specifically. I also know that between 1999 and 2002, he was always travelling abroad for treatment,” Balarabe said.
But contrary to reports that the governor could not receive visitors during the Eid-el-Kabir celebration, on account of his ill-health, Nasir Abdul, media aide to the governor, said it was untrue. “He (Yar’Adua) received the Emir of Katsina and other guests who thronged the Katsina State Governor’s house. I was with them. He has no problem with his health at all. The Governor also went for durbar at the Emir’s palace before proceeding to Abuja to felicitate with President Obasanjo and the PDP leadership,” Abdul said. Aside renal defect, however, Yar’Adua was alleged to be mentally deranged in the 1970s. A childhood friend of the governor who craved for anonymity told TheNEWS that the Mutawalle Katsina, as Yar’Adua is fondly called, was admitted and rehabilitated at the psychiatric section of the Katsina General Hospital.
He said even as governor, the PDP standard bearer still displays some “abnormal” traits. When TheNEWS visited the hospital to ascertain the veracity of the claims, the authorities refused to grant the reporter audience, but Barrister Ibrahim Shema, the PDP gubernatorial aspirant for Katsina State, affirmed that the governor was never mentally deranged. He said if the governor was not balanced mentally, ‘‘I am sure, a lot of Nigerians would want to be mental, if they can be as decent as him.’’
Even to the ordinary observer, the visible dermatological defects of Yar’Adua, manifest in his face and arms, constitute the boldest hint that all is not well with the Katsina helmsman. But getting information about Yar’Adua’s medical record is extremely difficult, as those who know are unwilling to open up. His aides refuse bluntly to disclose the nature of his ailment, which Obasanjo claimed he had been healed of miraculously in 2001. But the greatest suspicion is renal failure. If this is so, experts caution that he will be unfit to rule the country, as the office of President is very demanding and exerting. According to Dr. (Mrs.) Mabayoje, a Consultant Nephrologist at the College of Medicine, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, “patients with kidney failure are very sick and they have to go on what we call life-supporting treatment or dialysis – a way of using an artificial kidney, like a machine, to remove the toxins that accumulate in the blood from the body and send the blood back to the body of the patient, after it had been filtered of the toxins. When kidneys have failed, even water becomes poisonous to the body because it cannot be got rid of. Can you imagine your drink now accumulates in the body, goes inside the lungs, and stays in the blood causing high blood pressure? The blood pressure goes very high and as the lung is filled with water, they cannot exchange air.”
Dr. Mabayoje concluded that it will be quite difficult for a failed-kidney patient to cope with busy routines. “If a person is on dialysis, it is going to be extremely difficult, because the artificial kidney, the dialysis method, is not like what God built. It only does like 10 to 15 per cent of the removal of the toxic substances that the kidneys normally get rid of,” she explained. Dr. Mabayoje concluded that in such situations, the patient’s system becomes loaded with poison, resulting in damage to the brain, heart and other organs in the body, until the patient eventually dies.
Integrity/Transparency
Yar’Adua’s integrity is also questioned by many Katsina State indigenes, especially members of the opposition. They allege that the governor approves monstrous sums of money for inflated contracts to friends, relations and in-laws. He is also accused of directing illegal deductions from allocations to the 34 local government councils in the state and making payments for contracts through irrevocable payment orders (IPOS), which are hardly subjected to competitive bidding. One of the alleged fronts used by Yar’Adua to execute projects in the state is Alhaji M.T. Usman, the governor’s uncle, who is the Chairman of LODGIANI Nig. Ltd. The company constructed the multi-billion Naira State Secretariat complex; part of the College of Legal Studies, Daura and many other projects. This magazine gathered that the contract for the secretariat was first awarded in 1991 by the Governor Saidu Barda administration at the cost of N350 million. When Navy Captain Emmanuel Acholonu was appointed military administrator of the state, in 1996, he reviewed the contract upward to N450 million. The original plan of the complex, TheNEWS learnt, was to make the secretariat a two-storey building. But one year after he assumed office as governor, Yar’Adua reviewed the contract to N943 million. Though the government distorted the masterplan of the secretariat by doing away with the storeys, still the complex was completed in 2005 at N5 billion. An accountant with the state civil service, who specialises in project analysis and costing said the contract was over-invoiced. “Katsina State is not a coastal state that gulps much money in laying a foundation. I don’t agree that such a hefty sum could be expended on a secretariat that is not automated,” he opined.
Besides, some Kastina indigenes wondered why such a gigantic contract was awarded to LODGIANI without competitive bidding or tender process. Alhaji Iro Dan Musa, a PDP board member, is one politician who is nettled by the indiscriminate award of contracts in his home state. He told newsmen in Kaduna that the state Tenders Board only exists on paper, as no major contract is advertised on radio or television. He argued that all the governor does is sit in his office and award contracts by fiat. Most road projects are handled by Borini Prono Nig. Ltd, a company in which Yar’Adua is said to have some interest. The most scandalous of all the contracts it has handled remains the construction of a roundabout on IBB Way/National filling station/ Kofar Kwaya Road in Katsina. TheNEWS learnt the Akaagerger military administration had awarded the roundabout contract to an indigenous contractor through direct labour at N5 million before the regime slipped out of power. But on assumption of office, Yar’Adua allegedly revoked the contract and re-awarded it to Borini Prono Nig. Ltd in September, 2002 at a cost of N14.5 million. Expectedly, the contract was not advertised. Alhaji Dauda Aliyu, Secretary, Katsina State Tenders Board merely wrote a letter to the company and copied the relevant ministries that Borini Prono had bagged the contract. “This is to inform you that, the Board during its last sitting on 9th September, 2002 approved the award of contract for the construction of roundabout at IBB/National Filling Station/Kofar Kwaya Road at the cost of N14,504,920.53,” he wrote.
Similarly, the Yar’Adua administration expends millions of naira on the numerous gates criss-crossing the state. The most controversial is that located at Kofar Kaura which cost was given as N9 million. Again, the opposition believes that even Kano State, which the Kastina State government is copying in mounting beautiful gates, does not spend close to N9 million on a gate. Alhaji Balarabe sums it thus: “Take the construction of a roundabout ...along Kofar Kwaya Road. The contract was awarded to Borini Prono at the cost of N14.5 million in 2002. Even in Nigeria of today that is threatened by hyper-inflation, N5 million can construct that roundabout, especially through direct labour. The excess is over N9 million. Equally, how can a gate cost N9 million. This is pure stealing,” Balarabe fumed. Borini Prono is not the only company accused of fronting for the governor. AFDIN Construction, owned by Alhaji Dahiru Barau Mangal, handled the Katsina High Court complex, Katsina and Funtua township roads, part of the College of Legal Studies, Daura and many link roads in Katsina metropolis. Critics allege that each kilometre of road constructed by AFDIN gulps about N70 million, as against a kilometre of federal roads in the state, which cost between N45 and N60 million. Though there were no cases of abandoned road projects by AFDIN, the roads are of lower quality to federal roads constructed by Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, which have superior asphalting and wider drains that can stand the test of time. The contention in some quarters, therefore, is that the state government should not have awarded major road projects to AFDIN, which lacks a big name in the construction industry.
This may not be untrue. Mangal, a popular car dealer, was until the dawn of the Fourth Republic, importing cars from Cotonou to Nigeria. He was also said to have contributed to the governor’s campaign fund in 1999. It was, therefore, not surprising to political analysts that Mangal became a key beneficiary of Yar’Adua’s contract awards. The influence of the AFDIN boss in Katsina politics is glaring even to those visiting Katsina State for the first time. His Katsina home is a Mecca of sorts to favour seekers and government functionaries. Close to Mangal in influence is Alhaji Abdulazeez Maigoro, owner of ABIB Ventures. The company won the contract for the building of primary schools, renovation of existing primary and secondary schools, and miscellaneous repairs in the state. Though there is no evidence at the Corporate Affairs Commission, Abuja linking Hajia Turai Yar’Adua, the governor’s wife, to ABIB, some Katsina indigenes claim Maigoro was planted as the company’s chairman to front for Turai.
Kayalawa Primary School on the popular Nagogo Road, Katsina was one of the schools renovated by ABIB. When TheNEWS visited it, there were about 100 pupils in each classroom, with many of them sitting on the bare floor. Though the renovation was jointly financed by the state government and the Education Trust Fund (ETF), the school still lacks basic social amenities like potable water. Aside this, the school lacks teachers in the core sciences as stipulated by Universal Basic Education scheme. The case of the School of Basic and Remedial Studies, Funtua is more worrisome. In 2002, the state government approved N40 million for the award of contract for the supply of furniture to the school. The entire contract sum was paid to A.A. Hamzat and Brothers Ltd., the firm that handled the supply. But as at the time of going to press, the furniture was yet to be supplied. When the magazine visited the school, there was no sign of new furniture. In fact students were seen in crowded classrooms struggling for seats. Audu Usman, a student of the institution said some students come to school with stools from their homes.
Performance In office
Although Governor Yar’Adua has initiated and implemented some ambitious projects in the past seven, Katsina State cannot boast of any functional industry. The Katsina Flour Mill is moribund, while the federal government-owned Steel Rolling Mill allegedly folded up, among other reasons, because the state government failed to carry out its statutory obligation in form of counterpart funding. Consequently, the federal government sold it to an Indian firm. Even at that, industrialisation analysts argue that the Yar’Adua administration should have acquired some shares in the company to boost its “sleeping economy”. The story is not entirely different in the agricultural sector. Though the state is blessed with dams, food production is still very low. But Special Assistant to the Governor on Media, Malam Nasiru Abdul said the state had invested massively in fish farming as a way of reactivating the ailing agricultural sector.
Curiously, too, Katsina, the state capital, still suffers from acute shortage of piped water. In most parts of the state, water vendors make brisk business selling water in jerrycans to residents. This situation, many experts say, does not justify the N97 billion in statutory allocation from the Federation Account the state has received between June 1999 and December 2005. This figure is without prejudice to ecological fund, internally-generated revenue and the 2006 statutory accruals to Katsina, fondly called the State of Hospitality. The belief of development experts and the opposition is that the statutory allocations were enough to provide the people with potable water and other social amenities that have continued to elude the state. “When people say Governor Umar Yar’Adua is performing, I laugh at their ignorance because no society develops in the absence of social amenities that make life worth living. In Katsina State, the people are suffering because there are no jobs, no basic amenities, no industries, and above all, our hospitals are not working.
“All we have is an ambitious secretariat complex and posh cars which are of no relevance to the people,” Comrade Tukur Sani, a political analyst told TheNEWS. But Yar’Adua’s supporters say no responsible government empties its wallet in the attempt to develop the state. According to the materials sourced from Governor Yar’Adua’s website, the Katsina State government as at December 2006, had saved N6 billion in its coffers for the rainy day.
Sport
Equally surprisng is the indifference the Yar’Adua administration demonstrates towards sports development. TheNEWS gathered that for the past seven years of his governorship, Yar’Adua’s government has not hosted any worthy sporting activity. It is also alleged that the Ministry of Youth Development has no budget for such activities. Even football that has become a money-spinning game all over the world has received no attention from government. It is against this background, according to sources, that the state stadium in Katsina town remains dilapidated and abandoned. Even the gigantic ultra-modern stadium project initiated by a military administration in the state was abandoned by Yar’Adua, apparently because sport development is not a priority of his administration. The implication of this is that the state has no venue to host major sporting competitions, even if the need arises. The governor’s antipathy to sports has pitted the PDP presidential candidate against youths in the state.
Welfare
The Governor is equally not popular among public servants of the state-owned tertiary institutions and other categories of civil servants. Their grouse with the governor is three-fold. Staff at the state university and other tertiary institutions complain that the new salary scale (Harmonised Tertiary Institution Salary Scale, HATISS 5) enjoyed by both teaching and non-teaching staff of tertiary institutions nationwide is yet to be implemented by the state government, yet public servants in the institutions, like their counterparts in the state civil service, groan under heavy taxation. Secondly, Katsina State pays the least minimum wage of N5,500 in the country. The workers who spoke to TheNEWS reason that the numerous taxes imposed on them have made their take-home unable to take them home. Besides, they accuse government of not motivating them to perform optimally. “For the past seven years, many of us have been stagnated. Government refused to send many of us out on courses. Even when we applied, they refused to approve our educational advancement on the grounds that the state has no money to grant scholarship or leave with pay to us,” one civil servant said.
The civil servants also questioned why, on assumption of office in 1999, Governor Yar’Adua withdrew state fund from Bank of the North, the official banker of the state government, and kept it in Habib (now Bank PHB) in which the Yar’Adua family has vast shares. The thinking among the workers is that the governor took that decision to profit his family. Alhaji Balarabe captured the frustration of the public servants thus: “Shortly after Yar’Adua was sworn in as governor in 1999, he transferred state money to Habib... for pecuniary motive. Is this not greed? Umar Yar’Adua was partly responsible for the distress in Bank of the North. “But I am surprised that in spite of this and the brazen looting of the public purse, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has not visited Katsina.”
Leadership Style
If workers cry blue murder over his insensitivity to their plight, politicians in the ruling party frown at the governor’s dictatorial tendencies in handling party affairs in Katsina State. This magazine’s checks showed that between 1999 and 2000, the governor sacked two state chairmen of the party in quick succession. Their sins, according to sources, was that they refused to be the governor’s stooges. The two politicians who fell out with the governor are Alhaji Musa Musa and Senator Abu Ibrahim. Yar’Adua’s unwillingness to tolerate dissent, analysts reason, is not strange in the PDP, which has seen President Obasanjo hounding national chairmen of his party that refuse to do his bidding. It will be recalled that in less than six years, the party produced four national chairmen in controversial circumstances. “Obasanjo and Yar’Adua are two of a kind. Both of them brook no opposition. The President removed Chief Solomon Lar and Chief Audu Ogbeh because both men were their own men. He has peace now because he has an errand boy in Ahmadu Ali as chairman. Similarly, the governor sacked Alhaji Musa Musa and Senator Abu Ibrahim from PDP and imposed Kabir Daudu on us as chairman for six years now because he is his (Yar’Adua’s) extension,” Alhaji Gaskiya Katsina told TheNEWS.
With such anti-Yar’Adua sentiments thick in the air, it did not exactly surprise political watchers that his emergence as presidential candidate was received with a cold shoulder in Katsina State. In fact, a select group of politicians led by Alhaji Lawal Kaita in Katsina State, under the auspices of Katsina Elders Forum, has come together to oppose Yar’Adua’s candidature. The thrust of their campaign is that Yar’Adua is inexperienced and sick to be entrusted with national leadership. They also said a vote for Yar’Adua is an indirect way of returning Obasanjo to power. As an alternative to Yar’Adua, the group is galvanising support for General Muhammadu Buhari, ANPP presidential candidate and Vice President Atiku Abubakar, his Action Congress counterpart at the 2007 polls. Members of the forum include Alhaji Lawal Kaita, Alhaji Iro Dan Musa, Alhaji Bello Masari, Dr. Usman Bugaje, Senator Abu Ibrahim and Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie.
Professor Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate, shares the sentiment of the Katsina elders. While describing Yar’Adua’s candidature as “a terminal kiss from a moribund regime,” Soyinka said if Yar’Adua wants to win the confidence of the people, then he must repudiate his party, PDP, dissociate himself from his party’s past and “pledge to reverse its menacing future.” But the PDP presidential standard bearer and his supporters would not budge. The PDP has inaugurated the Yar’Adua National Campaign Organisation with Bode George, PDP Deputy National Chairman, South, as Director-General. Godwin Daboh, PDP chieftain and staunch supporter of the Katsina-born presidential candidate, dismissed the rumoured sickness of Yar’Adua with a wave of the hand. “Every human being can be sick at a time and recover. Yar’Adua was sick five years ago, but is now hale and hearty. If he is suffering from psychiatric problem, he would not have been able to turn Katsina State around,” Daboh said.
Describing him as a man of integrity, the maverick politician dubbed Yar’Adua the most prudent governor in Nigeria. “There is no governor I have visited that has given me less than N1 million. When I visited Yar’Adua in 2004, he gave me N200,000 even though we have been friends since his days as lecturer,” he said.
Challenging those who had doubts about his health to a game of squash, he told State House correspondents: “I am fit and healthy...If they can play 12 straight sets with me, they are welcome.” Yar’Adua’s health is just one out of many issues that his critics raised over his fitness to govern. Matters that border on integrity, performance in office, experience, political antecedents, leadership style and infrastructure also come into play.
Health
During a recent retreat organised for PDP candidates for the 2007 elections in Abuja, President Olusegun Obasanjo described Governor Umar Yar’Adua in superlative terms. He told his listeners that only a Yar’Adua presidency can fight corruption head on and sustain the ongoing reforms of government. Ever willing to paint Yar’Adua as fit, Obasanjo said the Katsina State governor had been miraculously healed of a strange ailment. “I know all about Umar’s ailment and it has disappeared since 2001. It was a miracle. So those calling him sick man are the ones who are sick. After all, only God can tell who is sick or not. I wonder how somebody can open his mouth and say that a human being created by God is a sick man. I am sure he has proven to those who say he cannot stand stress that all that is not true,” Obasanjo thundered.
But many Nigerians believe the Katsina State Governor is not fit to be president. In Katsina, TheNEWS gathered that Yar’Adua is suffering from a kidney-related ailment that makes him a regular visitor at a private hospital, where he undergoes dialysis. The thinking is that if elected president, he may not cope with the challenge of steering the ship of the Nigerian nation. Aside this, his critics say Nigeria needs a president who will remain in the country to lead and not the travelling one troubled by failing health. This position is strengthened by the fact that as governor of Katsina State, Yar’Adua is accused of always travelling abroad for medical treatment. Alhaji Muhammad Balarabe, Katsina-based politician and ANPP chieftain puts Yar’Adua’s foreign trips in perspective. “The governor has some ailments but I don’t know what they are specifically. I also know that between 1999 and 2002, he was always travelling abroad for treatment,” Balarabe said.
But contrary to reports that the governor could not receive visitors during the Eid-el-Kabir celebration, on account of his ill-health, Nasir Abdul, media aide to the governor, said it was untrue. “He (Yar’Adua) received the Emir of Katsina and other guests who thronged the Katsina State Governor’s house. I was with them. He has no problem with his health at all. The Governor also went for durbar at the Emir’s palace before proceeding to Abuja to felicitate with President Obasanjo and the PDP leadership,” Abdul said. Aside renal defect, however, Yar’Adua was alleged to be mentally deranged in the 1970s. A childhood friend of the governor who craved for anonymity told TheNEWS that the Mutawalle Katsina, as Yar’Adua is fondly called, was admitted and rehabilitated at the psychiatric section of the Katsina General Hospital.
He said even as governor, the PDP standard bearer still displays some “abnormal” traits. When TheNEWS visited the hospital to ascertain the veracity of the claims, the authorities refused to grant the reporter audience, but Barrister Ibrahim Shema, the PDP gubernatorial aspirant for Katsina State, affirmed that the governor was never mentally deranged. He said if the governor was not balanced mentally, ‘‘I am sure, a lot of Nigerians would want to be mental, if they can be as decent as him.’’
Even to the ordinary observer, the visible dermatological defects of Yar’Adua, manifest in his face and arms, constitute the boldest hint that all is not well with the Katsina helmsman. But getting information about Yar’Adua’s medical record is extremely difficult, as those who know are unwilling to open up. His aides refuse bluntly to disclose the nature of his ailment, which Obasanjo claimed he had been healed of miraculously in 2001. But the greatest suspicion is renal failure. If this is so, experts caution that he will be unfit to rule the country, as the office of President is very demanding and exerting. According to Dr. (Mrs.) Mabayoje, a Consultant Nephrologist at the College of Medicine, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, “patients with kidney failure are very sick and they have to go on what we call life-supporting treatment or dialysis – a way of using an artificial kidney, like a machine, to remove the toxins that accumulate in the blood from the body and send the blood back to the body of the patient, after it had been filtered of the toxins. When kidneys have failed, even water becomes poisonous to the body because it cannot be got rid of. Can you imagine your drink now accumulates in the body, goes inside the lungs, and stays in the blood causing high blood pressure? The blood pressure goes very high and as the lung is filled with water, they cannot exchange air.”
Dr. Mabayoje concluded that it will be quite difficult for a failed-kidney patient to cope with busy routines. “If a person is on dialysis, it is going to be extremely difficult, because the artificial kidney, the dialysis method, is not like what God built. It only does like 10 to 15 per cent of the removal of the toxic substances that the kidneys normally get rid of,” she explained. Dr. Mabayoje concluded that in such situations, the patient’s system becomes loaded with poison, resulting in damage to the brain, heart and other organs in the body, until the patient eventually dies.
Integrity/Transparency
Yar’Adua’s integrity is also questioned by many Katsina State indigenes, especially members of the opposition. They allege that the governor approves monstrous sums of money for inflated contracts to friends, relations and in-laws. He is also accused of directing illegal deductions from allocations to the 34 local government councils in the state and making payments for contracts through irrevocable payment orders (IPOS), which are hardly subjected to competitive bidding. One of the alleged fronts used by Yar’Adua to execute projects in the state is Alhaji M.T. Usman, the governor’s uncle, who is the Chairman of LODGIANI Nig. Ltd. The company constructed the multi-billion Naira State Secretariat complex; part of the College of Legal Studies, Daura and many other projects. This magazine gathered that the contract for the secretariat was first awarded in 1991 by the Governor Saidu Barda administration at the cost of N350 million. When Navy Captain Emmanuel Acholonu was appointed military administrator of the state, in 1996, he reviewed the contract upward to N450 million. The original plan of the complex, TheNEWS learnt, was to make the secretariat a two-storey building. But one year after he assumed office as governor, Yar’Adua reviewed the contract to N943 million. Though the government distorted the masterplan of the secretariat by doing away with the storeys, still the complex was completed in 2005 at N5 billion. An accountant with the state civil service, who specialises in project analysis and costing said the contract was over-invoiced. “Katsina State is not a coastal state that gulps much money in laying a foundation. I don’t agree that such a hefty sum could be expended on a secretariat that is not automated,” he opined.
Besides, some Kastina indigenes wondered why such a gigantic contract was awarded to LODGIANI without competitive bidding or tender process. Alhaji Iro Dan Musa, a PDP board member, is one politician who is nettled by the indiscriminate award of contracts in his home state. He told newsmen in Kaduna that the state Tenders Board only exists on paper, as no major contract is advertised on radio or television. He argued that all the governor does is sit in his office and award contracts by fiat. Most road projects are handled by Borini Prono Nig. Ltd, a company in which Yar’Adua is said to have some interest. The most scandalous of all the contracts it has handled remains the construction of a roundabout on IBB Way/National filling station/ Kofar Kwaya Road in Katsina. TheNEWS learnt the Akaagerger military administration had awarded the roundabout contract to an indigenous contractor through direct labour at N5 million before the regime slipped out of power. But on assumption of office, Yar’Adua allegedly revoked the contract and re-awarded it to Borini Prono Nig. Ltd in September, 2002 at a cost of N14.5 million. Expectedly, the contract was not advertised. Alhaji Dauda Aliyu, Secretary, Katsina State Tenders Board merely wrote a letter to the company and copied the relevant ministries that Borini Prono had bagged the contract. “This is to inform you that, the Board during its last sitting on 9th September, 2002 approved the award of contract for the construction of roundabout at IBB/National Filling Station/Kofar Kwaya Road at the cost of N14,504,920.53,” he wrote.
Similarly, the Yar’Adua administration expends millions of naira on the numerous gates criss-crossing the state. The most controversial is that located at Kofar Kaura which cost was given as N9 million. Again, the opposition believes that even Kano State, which the Kastina State government is copying in mounting beautiful gates, does not spend close to N9 million on a gate. Alhaji Balarabe sums it thus: “Take the construction of a roundabout ...along Kofar Kwaya Road. The contract was awarded to Borini Prono at the cost of N14.5 million in 2002. Even in Nigeria of today that is threatened by hyper-inflation, N5 million can construct that roundabout, especially through direct labour. The excess is over N9 million. Equally, how can a gate cost N9 million. This is pure stealing,” Balarabe fumed. Borini Prono is not the only company accused of fronting for the governor. AFDIN Construction, owned by Alhaji Dahiru Barau Mangal, handled the Katsina High Court complex, Katsina and Funtua township roads, part of the College of Legal Studies, Daura and many link roads in Katsina metropolis. Critics allege that each kilometre of road constructed by AFDIN gulps about N70 million, as against a kilometre of federal roads in the state, which cost between N45 and N60 million. Though there were no cases of abandoned road projects by AFDIN, the roads are of lower quality to federal roads constructed by Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, which have superior asphalting and wider drains that can stand the test of time. The contention in some quarters, therefore, is that the state government should not have awarded major road projects to AFDIN, which lacks a big name in the construction industry.
This may not be untrue. Mangal, a popular car dealer, was until the dawn of the Fourth Republic, importing cars from Cotonou to Nigeria. He was also said to have contributed to the governor’s campaign fund in 1999. It was, therefore, not surprising to political analysts that Mangal became a key beneficiary of Yar’Adua’s contract awards. The influence of the AFDIN boss in Katsina politics is glaring even to those visiting Katsina State for the first time. His Katsina home is a Mecca of sorts to favour seekers and government functionaries. Close to Mangal in influence is Alhaji Abdulazeez Maigoro, owner of ABIB Ventures. The company won the contract for the building of primary schools, renovation of existing primary and secondary schools, and miscellaneous repairs in the state. Though there is no evidence at the Corporate Affairs Commission, Abuja linking Hajia Turai Yar’Adua, the governor’s wife, to ABIB, some Katsina indigenes claim Maigoro was planted as the company’s chairman to front for Turai.
Kayalawa Primary School on the popular Nagogo Road, Katsina was one of the schools renovated by ABIB. When TheNEWS visited it, there were about 100 pupils in each classroom, with many of them sitting on the bare floor. Though the renovation was jointly financed by the state government and the Education Trust Fund (ETF), the school still lacks basic social amenities like potable water. Aside this, the school lacks teachers in the core sciences as stipulated by Universal Basic Education scheme. The case of the School of Basic and Remedial Studies, Funtua is more worrisome. In 2002, the state government approved N40 million for the award of contract for the supply of furniture to the school. The entire contract sum was paid to A.A. Hamzat and Brothers Ltd., the firm that handled the supply. But as at the time of going to press, the furniture was yet to be supplied. When the magazine visited the school, there was no sign of new furniture. In fact students were seen in crowded classrooms struggling for seats. Audu Usman, a student of the institution said some students come to school with stools from their homes.
Performance In office
Although Governor Yar’Adua has initiated and implemented some ambitious projects in the past seven, Katsina State cannot boast of any functional industry. The Katsina Flour Mill is moribund, while the federal government-owned Steel Rolling Mill allegedly folded up, among other reasons, because the state government failed to carry out its statutory obligation in form of counterpart funding. Consequently, the federal government sold it to an Indian firm. Even at that, industrialisation analysts argue that the Yar’Adua administration should have acquired some shares in the company to boost its “sleeping economy”. The story is not entirely different in the agricultural sector. Though the state is blessed with dams, food production is still very low. But Special Assistant to the Governor on Media, Malam Nasiru Abdul said the state had invested massively in fish farming as a way of reactivating the ailing agricultural sector.
Curiously, too, Katsina, the state capital, still suffers from acute shortage of piped water. In most parts of the state, water vendors make brisk business selling water in jerrycans to residents. This situation, many experts say, does not justify the N97 billion in statutory allocation from the Federation Account the state has received between June 1999 and December 2005. This figure is without prejudice to ecological fund, internally-generated revenue and the 2006 statutory accruals to Katsina, fondly called the State of Hospitality. The belief of development experts and the opposition is that the statutory allocations were enough to provide the people with potable water and other social amenities that have continued to elude the state. “When people say Governor Umar Yar’Adua is performing, I laugh at their ignorance because no society develops in the absence of social amenities that make life worth living. In Katsina State, the people are suffering because there are no jobs, no basic amenities, no industries, and above all, our hospitals are not working.
“All we have is an ambitious secretariat complex and posh cars which are of no relevance to the people,” Comrade Tukur Sani, a political analyst told TheNEWS. But Yar’Adua’s supporters say no responsible government empties its wallet in the attempt to develop the state. According to the materials sourced from Governor Yar’Adua’s website, the Katsina State government as at December 2006, had saved N6 billion in its coffers for the rainy day.
Sport
Equally surprisng is the indifference the Yar’Adua administration demonstrates towards sports development. TheNEWS gathered that for the past seven years of his governorship, Yar’Adua’s government has not hosted any worthy sporting activity. It is also alleged that the Ministry of Youth Development has no budget for such activities. Even football that has become a money-spinning game all over the world has received no attention from government. It is against this background, according to sources, that the state stadium in Katsina town remains dilapidated and abandoned. Even the gigantic ultra-modern stadium project initiated by a military administration in the state was abandoned by Yar’Adua, apparently because sport development is not a priority of his administration. The implication of this is that the state has no venue to host major sporting competitions, even if the need arises. The governor’s antipathy to sports has pitted the PDP presidential candidate against youths in the state.
Welfare
The Governor is equally not popular among public servants of the state-owned tertiary institutions and other categories of civil servants. Their grouse with the governor is three-fold. Staff at the state university and other tertiary institutions complain that the new salary scale (Harmonised Tertiary Institution Salary Scale, HATISS 5) enjoyed by both teaching and non-teaching staff of tertiary institutions nationwide is yet to be implemented by the state government, yet public servants in the institutions, like their counterparts in the state civil service, groan under heavy taxation. Secondly, Katsina State pays the least minimum wage of N5,500 in the country. The workers who spoke to TheNEWS reason that the numerous taxes imposed on them have made their take-home unable to take them home. Besides, they accuse government of not motivating them to perform optimally. “For the past seven years, many of us have been stagnated. Government refused to send many of us out on courses. Even when we applied, they refused to approve our educational advancement on the grounds that the state has no money to grant scholarship or leave with pay to us,” one civil servant said.
The civil servants also questioned why, on assumption of office in 1999, Governor Yar’Adua withdrew state fund from Bank of the North, the official banker of the state government, and kept it in Habib (now Bank PHB) in which the Yar’Adua family has vast shares. The thinking among the workers is that the governor took that decision to profit his family. Alhaji Balarabe captured the frustration of the public servants thus: “Shortly after Yar’Adua was sworn in as governor in 1999, he transferred state money to Habib... for pecuniary motive. Is this not greed? Umar Yar’Adua was partly responsible for the distress in Bank of the North. “But I am surprised that in spite of this and the brazen looting of the public purse, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has not visited Katsina.”
Leadership Style
If workers cry blue murder over his insensitivity to their plight, politicians in the ruling party frown at the governor’s dictatorial tendencies in handling party affairs in Katsina State. This magazine’s checks showed that between 1999 and 2000, the governor sacked two state chairmen of the party in quick succession. Their sins, according to sources, was that they refused to be the governor’s stooges. The two politicians who fell out with the governor are Alhaji Musa Musa and Senator Abu Ibrahim. Yar’Adua’s unwillingness to tolerate dissent, analysts reason, is not strange in the PDP, which has seen President Obasanjo hounding national chairmen of his party that refuse to do his bidding. It will be recalled that in less than six years, the party produced four national chairmen in controversial circumstances. “Obasanjo and Yar’Adua are two of a kind. Both of them brook no opposition. The President removed Chief Solomon Lar and Chief Audu Ogbeh because both men were their own men. He has peace now because he has an errand boy in Ahmadu Ali as chairman. Similarly, the governor sacked Alhaji Musa Musa and Senator Abu Ibrahim from PDP and imposed Kabir Daudu on us as chairman for six years now because he is his (Yar’Adua’s) extension,” Alhaji Gaskiya Katsina told TheNEWS.
With such anti-Yar’Adua sentiments thick in the air, it did not exactly surprise political watchers that his emergence as presidential candidate was received with a cold shoulder in Katsina State. In fact, a select group of politicians led by Alhaji Lawal Kaita in Katsina State, under the auspices of Katsina Elders Forum, has come together to oppose Yar’Adua’s candidature. The thrust of their campaign is that Yar’Adua is inexperienced and sick to be entrusted with national leadership. They also said a vote for Yar’Adua is an indirect way of returning Obasanjo to power. As an alternative to Yar’Adua, the group is galvanising support for General Muhammadu Buhari, ANPP presidential candidate and Vice President Atiku Abubakar, his Action Congress counterpart at the 2007 polls. Members of the forum include Alhaji Lawal Kaita, Alhaji Iro Dan Musa, Alhaji Bello Masari, Dr. Usman Bugaje, Senator Abu Ibrahim and Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie.
Professor Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate, shares the sentiment of the Katsina elders. While describing Yar’Adua’s candidature as “a terminal kiss from a moribund regime,” Soyinka said if Yar’Adua wants to win the confidence of the people, then he must repudiate his party, PDP, dissociate himself from his party’s past and “pledge to reverse its menacing future.” But the PDP presidential standard bearer and his supporters would not budge. The PDP has inaugurated the Yar’Adua National Campaign Organisation with Bode George, PDP Deputy National Chairman, South, as Director-General. Godwin Daboh, PDP chieftain and staunch supporter of the Katsina-born presidential candidate, dismissed the rumoured sickness of Yar’Adua with a wave of the hand. “Every human being can be sick at a time and recover. Yar’Adua was sick five years ago, but is now hale and hearty. If he is suffering from psychiatric problem, he would not have been able to turn Katsina State around,” Daboh said.
Describing him as a man of integrity, the maverick politician dubbed Yar’Adua the most prudent governor in Nigeria. “There is no governor I have visited that has given me less than N1 million. When I visited Yar’Adua in 2004, he gave me N200,000 even though we have been friends since his days as lecturer,” he said.
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