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13-Aug-2002
OBASANJO'S VISIT TO KANO AND HIS OVERZEALOUS SUPPORTERS
by
Ibrahim Ado-Kurawa B. Sc (HONS) M. Sc Zoology (Applied Entomology)
Director Research, Institute for Contemporary Research (ICR) Kano and General Editor Weekly Pyramid The Magazine
Kano, Nigeria
(majekarofi@yahoo.com
)
http://www.kanoonline.com/ibrahimado/
As President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria His Excellency Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is expected to officially visit all the states of the federation and be received by the people of the states as their president. But since we are operating a multi-party democracy with political parties he is also expected to interact with the members of his party while political opponents may show their grudges with decorum. But from the beginning the security men anticipated that there might be protests and it was the greatest security siege that was ever experienced in Kano in my lifetime. Contrary to insinuations by journalists such as Abati of The Guardian who have always preached violence against the people they made their enemies no part of Nigeria is an enemy territory for His Excellency President Olusegun Obasanjo.
There is no doubt that the people of Kano voted for Obasanjo when his tribesmen rejected him. As a gentleman he had always wanted to show appreciation for that gesture but his overzealous supporters most of whom are journalists in The Guardian and Thisday stables have always capitalized on his political failures to deceive him that the Kano people are his enemies. He fell into this trap because of his inability to identify what are his problems in Kano and other parts of Nigeria .
Since Obasanjo came to power base journalists have always peddled the falsehood that Obasanjo’s problem with the “political north” was because he denied them contracts and other “dividends” of power. This is the observation of a leading peddler of this falsehood: “Gone are the days when Emirs used to receive lorryloads of gifts from Aso Rock. He should stand by that. Gone are the days when idlemen in babariga hovered around government offices waiting to receive LPO’s. That is one of the major dividends of democracy. Gone are the days when you needed to have a Moslem name to be able to get on this country. Allah be praised!” (Reuben Abati ‘Obasanjo’s visit to Kano’ The Guardian August 2, 2002 p. 45)
By listening to this kind of lazy analysis Obasanjo and his advisers will continue to have problems with the people of Nigeria. Obasanjo is rejected by most of the people of this country because he has failed in all practical aspects of governance. There is no way the political north would have mobilized the people against him if he does not have shortcomings. People like Abati wrote the above statements because that is the way they think. His solution to Nigeria problems is for Obasanjo to reverse the dividends of power to his Yoruba tribesmen instead of equity in governance and that was what Obasanjo did hence his problems. Instead of the men with “babariga” enjoying the “spoils of conquest” now the men with the “power shift caps” are the ones enjoying the “booty”. Instead of having a Moslem name to be somebody in this country now you must attend the daily sermons in the Aso Rock chapel or you must know a “Prophet” of any of the many Pentecostal or is it Baptist Churches. If you have any problem you now need a Pentecostal or Baptist “Prophet” to intercede for you.
That is why Obasanjo has failed. He has not been able to fight corruption even in the presidency as documented not by the “political north” but by transparency international and USAID. The Economist of London, which is not “political north”, made this observation: “Many government contracts are still awarded dubiously. The conduct of privatization is far from open, as the French government noted this week” (The Economist July 28-August 3rd 2001 p 40). The contracts were not given to “babariga” men but to the “power shift cap” guys. Violent tribalists like Abati will never note this in their efforts to spread hatred instead of accountability and good governance. To them once you promote the interest of their tribe or religion you are the good guy even if you are the most corrupt person on earth. And with this kind of people controlling the “fourth estate of realm” Nigeria is in for more trouble.
Some one does not need to be an economist to know that Obasanjo has failed. He spends more on useless projects such as the national stadium, the national identity card and the space program. The Economist not the political north also observed: “But Nigeria’s economy is not healthy. Money supply, the central bank admits, is out of control, having risen by 43% last year and 27% in the first five months of this year against a target of 12.5%. Much government spending is wasteful: $350m is to go on a sports stadium in Abuja and $93m on a space programme”. These are some of the reasons for the fall of naira, which has depreciated by about 100% compared to the much-despised era of military dictatorship. And worst still instead of curbing wasteful spending the Obasanjo led government refused to pay workers salaries “as and when due” (see Thisday Monday August 5 2002 p. 2) and also refused to implement the appropriation act. The Obasanjo’s government is least committed to human development of this country as noted by The Economist: “Spending on health and education is lower as a proportion of the budget than it was under the two previous military regimes”. So with this catalogue of problems poverty must persist. Abati and other Obasanjo zealots should find his problems elsewhere only lazy analysts would blame political opponents for his unpopularity.
It was in the midst of this economic hardship that Obasanjo visited Kano and he was well received by the people especially his supporters as acknowledged by the nation’s chief information officer, the Honorable Minister of Information. But surprisingly Obasanjo’s tribesmen and the media they control have turned the incident that occurred after he had left the venue of the book launching to be the most important event of the whole visit. Their propaganda is deliberate so that innocent people could be hanged or even killed as clearly stated by Abati that: “If Obasanjo’s security guards have gunned down some people, it would have been scandalous but understandable”. Only an evil person who was not at the venue would have contemplated this action. Because it was clearly unimaginable for anyone to have penetrated the security and even stoned the president. And this guy was writing after the honorable minister of information had spoken to BBC Hausa Service during which he stated clearly that the clash between the police and the youths occurred after the president had left the venue.
Unfortunately Thisday edited by a Yoruba zealot Segun Adeniyi wrote a Sunday comment on “Insensate Attack on the President” after the honorable minister had made his statement. Earlier ENI-B one of the propagandist writers of the paper had connected Obasanjo’s unpopularity in Kano to the case of Mohammed Abacha whom he condemned as a devil because of the charges that he was acquitted of by the Supreme Court. ENI-B wants his gullible audiences to abandon Supreme Court judgment and take his own judgment because he is mister know all. Although it should be noted that one of his Yoruba brothers described him as “the witch columnist” for predicting the outcome of Kano visit as they wanted it. These Yoruba Christian journalists simply want to get at Obasanjo’s political opponents. If not why should they continue to insist that political hoodlums attacked the president even after the statements by the minister and the governor of Kano State to the contrary? As for the governor of Kano I think they are after his neck if not why after all the efforts he made to make the official visit successful Abati their leader will still wrote “shame on Rabiu Kwankawaso”.
But I think it is a shame on Thisday for writing an editorial that the president was attacked after his minister had denied the rumor. It seems they want to put the lives of those arrested in danger as well as the lives of the president's opponents. The Yoruba Christian journalists are not the only overzealous supporters of Mr. President but also the agents of the Kano State government. While preparing for Obasanjo’s visit one of the top officials of the state government instructed his friend from Ungogo village to get him the yan iska (hooligans) of that village so that he can convert them to yan banga (protectors) for use during the visit. It is indeed tragic that the governor of Kano State was reported to have said he was not concerned about fuel scarcity because it offers jobs for the yan iska who sell at the black market. Politicians have always used the hooligans whom they convert to be their protectors against their opponents therefore the terminology changes. A politician calls his own hooligans protectors while referring to those of his opponents as hooligans. This is the main reason why they have turned deaf ear to all suggestions made by many of us against this societal problem posted in www.gamji.com, www.kanoonline.com and www.nigerdeltacongress.com.
After Mr. President had left the venue as confirmed by the honorable minister of information there were clashes between the security agents and state government’s yan banga or yan iska (depending on which party one belongs to) on the one hand and on the other the yan iska and other youths. They might have been dissatisfied because they were cleared off the road from selling fuel at the black market as reported by BBC Hausa service just before the visit. During the fracas before the tear gas explosions I saw through the balcony of my house (about 200m from the Emir’s palace) the police and government’s yan iska (hooligans) or yan banga (protectors) pursuing some youths. In fact one government dan iska or dan banga pointed at me and asked what was I doing watching them? I was lucky because I later learnt they went into many houses and beat up the women and went away with any youth they found. Later after the tear gas I came out and saw a government vehicle smashed and vandalized (about 100m from the area designated VIP parking site). The police and the government yan iska or yan banga continued to pursue innocent youths or their rival yan iska or yan banga. I saw with my very eyes when they were beating with clubs and batons an innocent neighbor after they had striped necked. I later learnt that they broke into his room and brought him out. Most of the listeners of the BBC Hausa service heard the ordeals of those who went into the net of the security men most of whom were innocent as it turned out to be. Nobody will compensate them for the beating, may be when another Oputa is instituted after Obasanjo. I could have been one of them because I was watching without throwing even a piece of paper, one of the state’s hooligans said I should not even watch from the balcony of my house. But never mind we are bombarded everyday that this is a democracy.
Mr. President is the one number citizen of this country and he must be protected against violence. Luckily his information minister and host governor confirmed that he was well received and was not attacked violently as insinuated by Yoruba Christian journalists who are used to violence. The late attorney general of the federation was brutally murdered by some evil people in the Yoruba south-west. A legislator was also murdered in that zone. These evil acts have painted Nigeria negatively at the international level and have conditioned the psyche of the journalists of that zone to think of all Nigerians as violent as those killers. They always think that the northerners who voted for the president when his tribesmen rejected him will now murder him just like the way the former attorney general was wickedly assassinated. This will never happen by God’s grace. Nigerians have to decide the best means of dissent either to allow peaceful protests which may include the use of rotten eggs instead of stones or else many innocent people would continue to be oppressed because some people must protest after the departure of dignitaries no matter the tight security and the innocent will suffer detention and brutal assaults.
The sad aspect of it as usual is that the Yoruba Christian journalists and human rights entrepreneurs always pretend that they like the president more than even his ministers, governors who want to get re-elected by hook or crook and his party men. This over zealousness is not good for democracy. These journalists and human rights entrepreneurs are the greatest sources of problem for Nigeria’s democracy. They scuttled Abiola’s aspirations. When Obasanjo became the president without their votes they surrounded him and refused to allow him work with full spirit of consensus as in all other democracies. Their aim has been to replace the “babariga” contractors with “power shift” ones and the influence of Muslim “names” with the power of “prophets” of Baptist and Pentecostal Churches. The most important agenda of these journalists and their Afenifere masters is to obliterate their greatest political rival- the north. Apart from Mr. President’s failure to execute any meaningful projects in the north, south-east and south-south he launched what their intellectuals scripted as the final blow which is to disenfranchise the north through national identity card and voters’ registration to be conducted in flagrant disregard of the electoral law. No wonder when Karl Mieir interviewed the Yoruba terrorist OPC men and the human rights entrepreneurs they stated clearly that Nigeria is finished if any thing happens to Obasanjo. Fortunately nothing will happen to Obasanjo. He will either be voted out democratically or even if he wins re-election he will go peacefully after another term. All the corruption and human rights abuses of his administration will be investigated as he did to his predecessors and Nigeria will survive despite the doom predicated by “witch” journalists. Obasanjo will leave peacefully without any violence and he will harvest what he has sown.
Brought to you by Kano Online © 2001, 2002, 2003
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