Even the loquacious foot soldiers of Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’adua have accepted the fact that the past two years have been another locust years in the annals of Nigerian state. It has been two wasted years arguably comparable to the locust years of the Ibrahim Babangida military misrule the number one General of fortune in Nigeria. The PDP, Party of the deceptive people is the first foot soldier to acknowledge the fact that their Principal did not perform because he has been distracted by the Niger-Delta militant? I beg your pardon PDP. A lazy man will always quarrel with his tool and will always advance all the excuses he can muster.
First and foremost, Alhaji Yar’adua was never prepared for this job, and therefore he had no idea of what leadership in such big capacity is all about. Running a state like Katsina where the level of literacy is 8% cannot be compared to a vibrant and ‘‘great’’ country like Nigeria. To make matters worse for himself, he surrounded himself with incompetent persons as his ministers. Tell me while Obasanjo was crude and probably intellectually deficient, he surrounded himself with intellectuals reputed worldwide for their positive contribution to making our world a better place. This is attested to by the fact that virtually all of them have been employed by the World Bank and the IMF immediately they left the OBJ government. But you start asking me but who are they, where is Dr Oby Ezekwesili? Where are Dr Ngozi Iweala and many others? All at World Bank and IMF offices in America.
But when you have people like Adamu Aliero, Shamasudeen Usman, Rilwanu Lukman, Abba Ruma and even Shettima Monguno as ministers, for God’s sake what do you expect? These are people who ruined Nigeria in various other capacities in the time past. School drop outs like Ibrahim Kazaure and Dasuki Nakande are ministers. Let me digress and tell you joke we use to crack about the late Sabo Bakin Zuwo while we were in the university. The story goes like this, during the short lived administration of Bakin Zuwo in Kano, his then Deputy I think his name is Sani has a diploma in sharia law from God knows where. As the story was told then, there was this proposal to build and allocate a low cost housing in Kano during Bakin Zuwo’s time. I know he was famous then for his Danta cola and Afri cola minerals in Kano. When the document was brought to Sabo Bakin Zuwo to sign as the Governor, it was reported then that he signed the document and minuted on it in Hausa language ‘’Na yarda nima a ajiye mani guda goma’’. Meaning, he has accented pleas allocate and keep ten for my person. I believe that may be what is happening in this Yar’adua circus.
For this past two years there is nothing the Yar’adua government can point to as an achievement or accomplishment. It is simply good in blaming others for its woes. He is either blaming the Senate for lack of implementation of the budget or the Niger-Delta freedom fighters for his woes. There is rumours going round that he wants to appoint another Kano man as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria as if Nigeria belongs to Kano with their sharia despite the fact that they contribute nothing to Nigeria but trouble and unnecessary killing of patriotic and real peace loving Nigerians. In my article on Sharia Police in Kano state published in the Guardian newspaper of Friday 15 May, 2009, I had intimated readers of the key ministries being manned by Kano people in addition to the key Army positions. It was the same Hausa Muslims who accused OBJ of being anti-Muslims even when the Vice President was a Muslim. Chief of Defence Staff Ibrahim Ogohi was a Muslim. Inspectors General of Police Musulmi Smith and Tafa Balogun were all Muslims respectively. Even chief of Naval Staff was a Muslim from Kwara state. Obasanjo never appointed his tribesmen as Chief of Army Staff, Minister of Finance, Minister of National Planning, Minister of Agriculture. His chief of Staff, Central Bank Governor and the FCT minister like Yar’adua has done know. We only witnessed this abuse of power during Babangida’s military misrule apart from his dragging Nigeria into the OIC.
As a regime devoid of the so-called "federal character" principle, northernors are still the Director general of NTA, Group Managing Director of NNPC, MD of the almost dead PHCN which I prefer to call NEPA, because when it was NEPA it could still give us electricity for four hours every other day.
In addition to the above anti federal character or anti quota system appointment , rascals like Ibn Na Allah and Kabiru Mato ‘PhD’ who grew up on the streets courtesy the almajiri system and therefore lack home training and have no value for human life is calling for the total annihilation of the over 30 million Niger-Delta people for simply asking for their rights in the Nigerian Federation. Do we still wonder why there is always incessant religious crises in Northern Nigeria? Sponsors and promoters are gradually showing their true colours even in the so called National Assembly. Otherwise how can people who are suppose to make laws for the good governance of the state vote to promote anarchy and the total extermination of a section of a country for the sake of possessing their fuel? Would Ibn Na Allah or Kabiru Mato support the total destruction of Kano state which is notoriously well known worldwide for religious riots and zero tolerance for other religions except Islam?
Apart from the Key appointments mentioned earlier, Kano state and Katsina state have more local governments than all the oil producing states put together.
While Kano state has 44 local governments, Bayelsa state has just Eight (8), while Cross River has just 18 local governments, Katsina state has 35. While Jigawa state has 27 local governments, Delta state which produces the wealth of the nation has just 25.
We have all agreed that military regimes were an aberration especially the Babangida/Abacha regimes which were epitome of corruption, nepotism, fascism, self centeredness and aggrandizement. They just behaved true to the above characters in creation of states and local governments and they deliberately inserted those states and local governments in the constitution to look to make them sacrosanct. Thank God that we have equally all agreed that that constitution is deficient, one sided and undemocratic and a travesty of justice and need to be radically amended to suit all Nigerians if we still want to stay together as one Nigeria.
The plausible and most reasonable way to resolving the Niger-Delta crisis is a sovereign national conference where we can define a new Nigeria through consensus and mutual agreement that will usher a new dawn in our Federalism.
It is not by unnecessary blood bath as is being witnessed now. The Niger-Delta issue is a constitutional issue that can be sold by a sovereign national conference but certainly not by warring or ethnic cleansing.
Isaac Boro was murdered in 1964 because of this issue. Ken Saro-wiwa was judicially murdered for the same reason, yet crop of young men and women still take it upon themselves to fight for their rights. Justice can only be delayed but surely it cannot be defined.
Isn’t it time for somebody in the National Assembly to move a motion for convening of the much sought after sovereign national Conference and be a hero like George Washington? Is there no body there that will bell the cat?
We have had two wasted years, do we still wait to have another two precious years wasted?
Ndiameeh Babrik, can be reached on
[email protected]
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