Shekarau’s Government in Kano : One year of dashed hopes

By

Muhammadu Tanko Mai-Laya

mutanka007@yahoo.com

Saturday 17^th July 2004 .

The Ibrahim Shekarau/Magaji Abdullahi ANPP Government which came to power after the total routing of PDP’s inhuman machine in Kano last year was the major beacon of hope in the whole electoral madness of 2003, for those of us who sincerely believe in the efficacy of peoples power in Nigerian politics.  We were full of hope and expectation, because the elections could well be likened to a major uprising by the masses against the established tyranny of the political Mafiosi that had held Kano hostage since from tele-tele bifor.

One year of awaiting expectations. Now, one year into the tenure of these two seasoned bureaucrats we are yet to experience anything near our expectations. Governor Shekarau left the public service for politics, after attaining the top service post of permanent secretary and Magaji, his deputy also left for politics, after serving as permanent secretary and then commissioner. The two are busy slogging it out in a telling political duel, with the junior partner obviously suffering most if not all of the bruises, from losing the LG portfolio, to the Hajj portfolio, remaining as no more than a condolence and marriages spare tyre waiting for the mother of all duels in 2007.

Human Development or Starvation. Worse than the tango of death the Governor and his deputy are embroiled in is the starvation of the State being scripted by the Shekarau Government. Yes, STARVATION.  Is it not Shekarau who promised to pursue a Human Development Initiative who ordered 100,000 tonnes of fertilizer which we all initially cheered when we thought it was for our own good? Is it not the same Shekarau who, today, one year since placing that order who is yet to deliver, making us all to begin to believe all those tales that he did the ordering wrongly, illegally for a personal hidden agenda?

N4 billion fertilizer to arrive in 6 weeks. We had been told by Shekarau and his boys that the N4 billion fertilizer will be with us in six weeks. Suddenly six weeks became six months and it is now one year. No fertilizer, no money.

Kano money under arrest in London ? In fact some of the money we now hear has been arrested in London . And that it is feared it may have been the original reason for placing the fantastic order, an order that broke all rules as we now gather from various sources that it may not have been meant to provide fertilizer for last year’s farming season as was the earliest Shekarau tale or for this year as is his new tale, or even for the four years of his tenure as he later claimed in media chats.

Shekarau tries to do a Rimi-Style defence, says Kano fertilizer suffers PDP FG sabotage? Incidentally it was in such media chats that Shekarau says his fertilizer problem was caused by the opposition PDP federal government that has been sabotaging his efforts to provide the stuff for Kano farmers. He refuses to explain how the PDP FG could have stopped his fertilizer that has not been bought at all, that has not come to any Nigerian land or seaport.

He even tried a couple of times to do a Rimi style radical mea culpa and chastisement of the PDP FG claiming his own travails are like ex-Kano Governor Muhammed Abubakar Rimi’s whose CTV (State Television) equipment were refused entry into Kano city from Aminu Kano airport in 1982, allegedly for political reasons.

Rimi’s equipment sabotaged at Kano ; Shekarau’s not yet in Kano . Rimi’s sabotaged/arrested TV stuff were not in dollars or pound sterling but gleaming brand new equipment arrested at Kano airport by a capricious NPN Federal Government, Shekarau’s fertilizer meanwhile is as at now made up of over TTWO MILLION POUND STERLING arrested in London (as confirmed by Shekarau’s former Finance Commissioner Garba Ririwai of the many millions of Naira Bank of the North scandal; now reassigned to Agriculture by Shekarau).

Where is the money?, Kano ’s money? The balance of whatever has been paid out of the N4 billion fertilizer money is itself believed to be unevenly distributed in commissions (ten-percent?) between the accounts of top government men, the contractors accounts and SHARES the CONTRACTOR is said to have BOUGHT WITH some of THE MONEY (in fact MORE THAN ONE BILLION) in a commercial bank; shares said to now be making money for the contractor, not Kano State.

Zamfara’s (cheaper) fertilizer is already here, where is Kano ’s? An interesting aside that further compounds matters for Shekarau’s Government here is that ANPP’s Ahmed Sani, Yariman Bakura, Zamfara’s Sharia Governor has ordered and fully received his state’s own fertilizer following due process. And that the fertilizer ordered was 40,000 tonnes at N 1 billion naira. As such if he were to order 100, 000 tonnes as Shekarau did without following any due process Zamfara would have bought its own at a mere N2.5 billion as opposed to “Malam” Shekarau’s at N4 billion that is yet to see the light of day. No money, no fertilizer, no clear-cut definitive explanations.

Shekarau’s money arrested in London over money laundering? Apparently to satisfy the federal government’s queries, which itself we gather was queried by the international police (InterPol) as to the means to which the Shekarau fertilizer money was being laundered for Shekarau and his boys are now said to be running helter-skelter to pay back the billions siphoned under the guise of plans to import fertilizer. A plan that international money laundering watchdogs now suspect was hatched to send money to some international terror network.

The Interpol it was that coordinated the tracking and arrest of the Kano Government’s fertilizer contractor when he lugged physical cash amounting to over Two Million Pound Sterling to London . And the contractor, known to be quite conversant with banking procedures, knew that it was illegal to cross international borders with such huge sums of money.

EFCC wades into the matter. Alongside Kano State Government officials, the contractor has been answering queries unsatisfactorily at the economic and financial crimes commission (EFCC), working in league with other international money laundering agencies to unravel the truth on the “laundered” Kano money.

It is said that the authorities suspicion that the arrested Kano money is money meant for some international network is further supported by the fact of the preponderance of members of some radical Islamist groupings found critically located in the Shekarau government.

There are scores of Islamist activists given top public appointments by Shekarau, himself known to be a key activist of two well known radical Muslim intelligentsia groups, the Hudaybiyyah which runs an educational institution and the Ummah or Muslim Brothers linked to the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria (MSSN) and the Shi’ite sub-groupings first given life by Ibrahim El-Zakzaky who rose to prominence after the Iranian revolution.

More good money goes after bad; LG’s money buys more local fertilizer for Kano Government. To save face, after buying fertilizer with Kano State Local Government money, the Governor is said to have pledged to retrieve all of the State’s outstanding monies from the contractor. Rumours have it that a very top government man personally struck a deal with the new suppliers of this season’s fertilizer whereby out of a supply of 220 trucks the Lagos suppliers it is alleged, have given out some N18 million as a token of their gratitude to the big man; and that out of a total of N350 million paid for another set of 264 trucks of the goods from one GONA Fertilizer, or GOLDEN Fertilizer depending upon who is telling you the stories, the Indian owners of the goods donated some 10 per cent of the total to the big man, as a Thank You Sir, for patronizing us.

What is more, it is claimed that each of the 264 trucks was to be ferried to Kano at Government expense; each truck hired at N250,000, thus giving the lucky haulage company owned by one Kano Alhaji, a sweet heart deal of well over N60 million.

Shekarau sources money to pay back fertilizer money! Where does Dangote come in? Now to pay back the state’s monies, rumour has it that Shekarau is working on a deal with Aliko Dangote, whom it is said he is pressing to loan him (or his N4 billion contractor) the sums earlier paid out to him to pay back to the state’s coffers so as to have a breather from the EFCC and allied international agencies snooping around him. Whether Dangote will be so kind as to help save Governor Malam Shekarau’s neck or not we will get to know from the next batch of news we get from the evry active Kano rumour mills.

Assassins in Kano ? Na lie! What for? Incidentally it is these same mills that appear to be working very hard to keep the Kano Governor and his deputy at each other’s throats. Because only recently, the Sunday Independent (of 11^th July 2004) published an authoritative story that alleges a threat to the Kano Deputy Governor’s life, a threat the newspaper seems to indicate may have come from the Deputy’s boss. It was claimed that Chadian assassins have been hired for the dirty job. True or false, this claim said to have been made in the first instance by the Deputy in a report to the Police, certainly goes a very long way to confirm that in Kano we have jumped from frying pan to fire by voting in these two seasoned bureaucrats, whose matching egos apparently stop them from working well together for our collective good.

Kano burns up N50 billion in one year! Where are the results? For God’s sake when will we have true democracy dividends from these chaps? In one year the Shekarau/Magaji Government has already burned up about N50 BILLION of Kano people’s money so far with very little to show for it.

This is made up of an average of at least N4 BILLION  Kano State and its Local Government’s receive every month for the past thirteen months. Local Government money is managed by the state, since no LG is allowed to spend more than N1.5 MILLION unless it gets prior approval of the State Government, even with the elected councils and councillors now in place.

Local Governments bear all the financial burden. Already the LGs even now have to bear the burden of not only fertilizer bought by the State government with their money, but also that of motor cycles bought for them, and tractors, and Peugeot 406 saloons for their chairmen, and more recently three tractors each. And they even have no idea of who chopped the traditional (?) 10 per cent for these huge purchases.

Purchases galore for Kano LG’s. Each of the 406, rumour has it was bought for N4.1 or N4.7 million depending upon your rumour source, while each of the tractors, minus the implements was bought with an extra N450,000 added as commission for the lucky fella who struck the deal on behalf of the Government.

Ex-Speaker Ghali Na’abba and his boy, Barau’s connections to Shekarau. True or false, it is equally rumoured that the motor cycles were bought to compensate ex-Speaker Ghali Na’abba and his boy, ex-House of Reps member, Barau of Tarauni, with each allegedly costing N150,000 for the LGs. Each LG it is claimed has had 50 bought for it. What could be between the two, Barau and Ghali on the one hand and Shekarau on the other only God knows, since they even have key representatives in the Government.