February 6, 2009
“My ambition is to be the president of Nigeria. So unless I find out that it is not going to be possible for me to go for the presidency and change my mind, for now my plans and interest is to run for the presidency, God willing”. Ahmad Sani Yarima
Two stories are very relevant to this piece and they might even be apocryphal; but what is important, is the indication they give about the persona of the Senator from Zamfara State. A well-known Northern Nigerian politician of the radical tradition was said to have visited Zamfara, when Ahmad Sani Yarima was the governor. As the story goes, on noticing the man, the governor approached and showed deference: “Ranka ya dade”! But what he got in response is the story here: “You are ranka ya dade”, said the well-known politician, “in my entire political career, I have only deceived the people; but you even deceive Allah (SWT), gaba daya”! The other one is said to be related to the inability of the governor to provide water to the people of the state, leading to anger; the governor induced the Ulama who in turn reminded the people that it was true that the governor has not provided water, but has facilitated access to water in the Hereafter, with his implementation of Sharia!
As I stated at the beginning of this piece, the stories might very well be apocryphal, but they present us a profile of Ahmad Sani Yarima, one of the most interesting politicians of the transition to civil rule in our country in 1999. As governor, he probably would not have been very much noticed on the national scale, but for his decision to implement Sharia. It became a political master stroke, in the hands of a very ambitious politician. Ahmad Sani had a controversial career in Nigeria’s Central Bank, and his exit from the apex banking institution has continued to be shrouded in as much controversy as his subsequent political career. The introduction of Sharia was a very popular move, especially amongst the mass of poor Muslims in Northern Nigeria. The period of military dictatorship had decimated the living condition of the Nigerian people; modernity was not working and appeals to Islam, as the solution to all problems became increasingly popular amongst Muslims. By introducing a supposedly Islamic regime based on Sharia, Ahmad Sani, could swim on the crest of a wave of genuine popular support.
Ahmad Sani Yarima even grew a very bushy beard to look the part, and his action in Zamfara, threatened the legitimacy of the regimes in neighbouring states sufficiently, for their governors to announce copy-cat implementations of Sharia. They had to stave off the wrath of their people, even when they really did not believe in Sharia themselves. Ahmad Sani, Yariman Bakura, had let lose a cat amongst the pigeons of the political elite of the Muslim states of the country! The implementation of the religious codes led to a vicious anti-Muslim campaign in sections of the Nigerian press and it also deepened suspicion between Muslim and Christian communities. Ahmad Sani lapped up the popularity which he enjoyed with Muslims and seemed able to take in his strides, the controversy which his decision generated around the country and even beyond, culminating in the amputation of the hand of a local thief. It was on that basis that he consolidated his political stranglehold on his state and it was a platform to earn a second term almost without hassle, in 2003.
But Ahmad Sani always betrayed a disturbing incompetence or irresponsibility or both, in the process of governance. The rhetoric about Sharia and giving money to the Ulama was one thing; while the inability to meaningfully affect the lives of the people in the provision of water, health care facilities or provide the social justice regime at the heart of Islam, became Yariman Bakura’s albatross. As the years rolled by, people became less convinced about the supposedly pious man who could whip people into a religious frenzy, but was incompetent in basic issues of good governance. As a member of the opposition ANPP, Ahmad Sani spent far more time trying to appease Obasanjo and the PDP, than to help present an alternative platform, despite his posturing to the contrary. And it was often stated in ANPP circles, that whenever their governors met, he immediately went to give a complete account to Obasanjo! It is the role of agent provocateur which has become a favourite among elements within the ANPP, who do far more damage to their own party in the interest of the PDP.
Yet it must also be acknowledged that Ahmad Sani Yarima was the only governor who handed over to his deputy, but unfortunately, tried to make life impossible for the man. The reason seemed to be that his successor was notching up a modest success in provision of infrastructure, which the eight years of Sharia rhetoric did not allow Yariman Bakura to achieve. It meant a frontal indictment of his regime. By picking up quarrels with his successor, despite denials on both sides, Ahmad Sani was hoping to shift the focus of Mahmud Shinkafi from governance. On the other hand, Shinkafi felt politically vulnerable, for as long as he remained in the ANPP, which was controlled by Ahmad Sani; that explained his defection to the PDP. The defection exposed the political underbelly of Ahmad Sani Yarima: the ANPP is far too compromised as a platform of politics; the PDP will defend their new member and ensure that he wins a second term, while Ahmad Sani Yarima needs political vengeance in whatever manner that it can be secured! This is the background to his recent interview with SUNDAY TRUST.
Ahmad Sani Yarima has been in mortal fear of indictment by the anti-corruption agencies and that explained why he was ever ready to do the biddings of PDP regimes from Obasanjo to Yar’adua. The ANPP leadership which entered the GNU, was imposed by Ahmad Sani Yarima, and despite the protestations of leading members of the ANPP like General Buhari, took positions in government which destroyed whatever remained of the reputation of the ANPP as a political party. Ahmad Sani Yarima and the tendency which he represents, has become a clear danger to the consolidation of democracy in Nigeria. The question now is why the new effort that he is making for a rapprochement with General Buhari? I think he is being clever by a half really; he wants Buhari to believe that he has suddenly rediscovered himself as an ANPP party man, willing to work for the interest of the party. He even went as far as stating that one of his own sidekicks, Saidu Kumo, has agreed to abandon his position in Yar’adua’s GNU, to go back to the ANPP.
It is important for General Buhari to remember that his interest is better served today by becoming a part of a national movement of progressive forces and patriots interested in digging Nigeria out of the morass which the incompetence of the PDP regimes has led us into, since 1999. Buhari must refocus his politics beyond the TBO to a nationwide commitment to an ideological politics based on the principles of social justice for all our people: North or South; Muslim or Christian. Let us be clear about it, Nigeria is in real trouble and things can only get worse under the PDP regime in power. That is why it is important to expose the peculiar politics of Ahmad Sani Yarima for what it really is: less-than-noble and unprincipled! Ahmad Sani Yarima’s ambition is not to become Nigeria’s president; what he craves is not to be demystified by the EFCC and to cut his successor, Mahmud Shinkafi, to size. And to achieve these, he will continue to play the politics of no principles.
THE EL-RUFAI SPIN OVERDRIVE
A visitor from another clime will be convinced that Nigeria has embarked on the persecution of a certain Nasir El-Rufai, on the basis of the well-orchestrated media campaign of the past one week. All of a sudden, El-Rufai’s spin doctors are presenting their man as a persecuted underdog in the hands of a vindictive National Assembly. But not all of us will fall for spin. We still remember the years of reign of the diminutive Nasir El-Rufai. He carried on in a gung-ho manner, as if life began and ended with Obasanjo! I recollect the pride with which he announced that he sent policemen to tear gas a group of politicians who had visited him early in his tenure as Minister, to urge him to organise local elections in the FCT. El-Rufai did a number of good things in his period in power, as I have always acknowledged and he should be entitled to due process, in the investigations being carried out into his controversial tenure as Minister. This is without prejudice to the fact that he denied thousands of Nigerians the same due process. We must situate El-Rufai within the context of the shock therapy capitalism which he fervently believed was the way to bring Nigeria to modernity. I think that he and members of the Obasanjo team ruined our country, handing over our national assets to a bandit bourgeoisie while also becoming fabulously rich themselves. It is on this ideological ground that I oppose El-Rufai. If the National Assembly has incontrovertible facts against El-Rufai, let them be presented in the open in a transparent manner, without vindictiveness. In the same manner that El-Rufai should not insult our sensibility with spin. If he is man enough, let him come home to defend himself; didn’t he use to brag when he had Obasanjo’s covering fire to perpetrate his excesses?
THE PRESIDENT’S BOOKLIST
It was heart-warming to read that President Umaru Yar’adua will spend two weeks of holiday re-discovering the joy books. The ancient library of Antiquity, in Alexandria, Egypt had inscribed on its walls the slogan: “Books, Nourishment for the Soul”! If the president is able to fend off party matters; the lobbying for appointments or enquiries about oil block allocations or even those seeking the hands of remaining daughters, I want to add two other titles to those on his reading list. How about USUL SIYASA? It was a small book written by Sheikhu Muhammad Bello, for Umaru Dalaji, the first Fulani Emir of Katsina or the memo written by Sayyidina Ali b. Talib for Malik E. Ashtar, on his appointment as governor of Egypt. They should offer some useful lessons in governance; mister president, Nigeria needs you to really govern. Shhhhh silence! Please don’t disturb; President Yar’adua is truly engrossed! Happy reading sir!
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