The Polio Politics of Kano

The Polio Politics of Kano's Governor Ibrahim Shekarau

Muhammadu Tanko Mai-Laya

TUESDAY 20TH JULY 2004 . Polio has provided Kano State 's Governor Ibrahim Shekarau wonderful political mileage for eleven months. Only yesterday, 19th July did Governor Shekarau drop the polio gimmick after milking it dry for eleven good months.

Now that he is done with it, he told the people of Kano that, at last he has seen the light. In a fair sized Radio and TV broadcast, the great politician that he is, Shekarau employed all the sophistry of his hero and namesake, IBB, yesterday to meander his way through a well rehearsed speech saying Kano parents should forget all the hype and allow their kids to be given the polio jabs or shots or whatever.

What is most amazing in the whole thing is that Shekarau now says even the claim that some agents in the vaccine cause infertility in females is not a problem anymore. He says, Yes, those agents are there but now he is convinced that they are not harmful, just as we had earlier on been told by administrators of the vaccines.

What could have made Shekarau to see the light you might ask? Let me hazard a guess. That a little pressure from the Federal Government, that now has a thing or two on His Excellency. After all, a serving public official in Nigeria can fail to be tempted by the enormous powers of an executive office, and more particularly the mouthwatering Naira that only his signature can confer on whosoever he wills.

So, it is not too surprising to find that Shekarau, one year into his tenure, after his N4 billion fertilizer magic, after a few other funny-funnies he may have been involved with, to find that His Excellency is somewhat more mellow and "amenable to reason". Stories are that at a time some of Shekarau's friends in his government have already been to answer questions at economic and financial crimes commission (EFCC).

It is said that anytime now some such Kano State Government officials are going to face Justice Akanbi of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) over some financial misdeeds. With all these Shekarau certainly can't have enough in him to stand up to his betters in the business of governance, up there, in Abuja .

What never fails to amaze one in the anti-polio activism of the Kano State Governor is his earlier obviously deliberate refusal to acknowledge the reality that our population has been rising and multiplying geometrically. Despite the polio vaccines we and our kids have been exposed to all these decades we have been having it.

Yet again one never seizes to amaze one is the failure of such political polio activists to acknowledge that polio vaccine or not if the vicious West had wanted to exterminate us there are a million and one ways to do so without recourse to such inane suggestions that these conspiracy theorists rely on. We eat rice that they sell to us, we drink milk that comes from Europe and the West, we use their table salt, we drive cars that they make, we ride motorcycles that they manufacture. And what is more we enjoy medicines that they make. So is it any big deal at all if they want to wipe us out? They have the means they don't have to engage in such open subterfuge.

The polio controversy was merely used by a budding demagogue in Kano State, Governor Ibrahim Shekarau, to turn attention waya from his inadequacies and sundry misdeeds, focusing the masses' attention on his "pious" sermons to protect and promote their religion. And now the bubble has burst. One year on, millions of Naira expended on media campaigns, on foreign experts trips and we are back to it. And the vaccine is here with us. Just as it was initially brought in. Behind the scenes I'm sure you will find Shekarau claiming hew was arm-twister by the PDP Federal Government. Just ask any of the stakeholders who were at Shekarau's stakeholder meeting at Africa House, Government House Kano last week.

My hope and prayer is that Shekarau has now learnt his lessons well. And more particularly the people of Kano . I hope they have had their eyes opened to the tricks of their governor.

I sincerely hope, the good people of Kano will begin to ask their House of Assembly members to ask their Governor more seriously to tell them what has happened so far to Kano 's billions in the past year. Mark you, N50 billion or more has so far been spent by the various tiers of government in Kano . Of the amount, about N4 billion is to all intents and purposes lost to a contractor who lucked into the first sweetheart deal of the Shekarau government, for the purchase of fertilizer. Even when he has no factory and is not a recognized manufacturers representative. The many misfortunes that befell this money and contractor included the arrest of some Two million Pound Sterling from the contractor, believed to be money smuggled out illegal, for other than the fertilizer contract needs.

Other misfortunes include the reality that to-date the contractor is yet to deliver. But his good luck now is that his good friend the Kano Governor has found another means of providing some fertilizer from other sources. Not the 100,000 tones initially ordered from this contractor. With other deals struck. It is alleged that the fertilizer contractor is being assisted by the Governor to pay back Kano state's money, about N3 billion of it. It is alleged by some mischief makers that the good Governor is even now working on Aliko Dangote, yes the famous Dangote, to assist his contractor friend pay back. Obviously for some return deal. That is business, No?

Anyway Kano voters should ask their MPs to ask with all seriousness what Shekarau has been doing with Kano people's money, all the N50 billion of it, that Kano State has received in the past one year that Shekarau and his polio politics had kept away from the public eye.

We should all ask him collectively to remember to account to us before he goes before God for the mother of all accounts. And our House members should equally remember they have their individual accounting to make in the Hereafter too. So they'd better beware, lest they allow there smart alec governor drag them down a no-return alley. Especially considering the possibility of a Plateau type treatment heading or Kano should the foreign powers prove their suspicions on Kano Governor's money laundering and where they suspect it was meant for.

Could it be true the millions of pound sterling wrongly routed to London from WAPA ( Kano 's black-market HQ) were initially headed for some foreign terror network? The Kano Governor's Islamist activist rhetoric, his polio politics, his Mullah filled government surely point towards that in the eyes of foreign intelligence networks. They don't care much for local activism, but international activism, to them is like the drug wars. So Shekarau and friends should watch it lest they drag their state and all its political structures down with their palavers. Everyone here supports Islam, But no one in Nigeria , not even in Kano , is ready for an Iraq type or Afghanistan type attention from the wicked Western world.