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Between Dangiwa Umar And Governor Sani By Suleiman Ahmed
Vituperations have been pouring out against Abubakar Dangiwa Umar especially from Zamfara State quarters over his published opinion in the media about the current face off between president Obasonjo and the Northern elders with regards to the ongoing confab.
The so-called elders now found their voice to cry out marginalization against the Muslims.
But Dangiwa, in his opinion, stand by the truth. No one can accuse him now of siding with Obasanjo because Nigerians cannot forget his famous “letter to Obasanjo” too soon.
I think the retired colonel is once again only being himself- a man of truth and character, who always hit the nail on the head. And definitely he has once again spoken the minds of majority of the northern masses.
From the sponsored rejoinders that I read so far, it seems to me that Zamfara State governor, Ahmed Sani (Yariman Bakura) feels offended with Dangiwa Umar’s warning to him that he should tread the path of using religion for selfish political ends cautiously.
But what is Dangiwa Umar saying? Simply that the Northern leaders lack the moral right to now cry out marginalization against the Muslims, not to even talk of issuing threats, after all, the generality of the northern Muslims have always been marginalized over the years by these same so-called Muslim leaders. What else can be truer than this fact? What have the northern leaders (majority of them Muslims) done over the years with their power to better the lot of the northern masses (Majority of them Muslims)?.What have they done about agricultural sector that at one time used to feed the entire nation? What steps have they taken practically to empower the northern Muslims educationally and economically? What have they done to make hope visible to the northern populace, especially the youths who only stare he lplessly as their future is mercilessly hacked down and thrown to the pit? Other than living in stinking wealth and questionable opulence, oppressing us, what private investments have they made in the North to make employment to our teeming unemployed graduates accessible? What have they done to ease poverty that is ravaging the land? These are some of the questions that our northern leaders never answer. In fact they hate to hear them, because these questions boldly remind them of the reality that Obasanjo only inherited the absolute negligence of social and economic justice upon the North from the nation’s past leaders who happened to be northern Muslims.
These so-called leaders cry wolf only when their own selfish political interests is put at stake. They cry blue murder only when they sense that they are denied positions or political appointments in places where they can feel free to practice their kleptomaniac habits to fatten their foreign bank accounts.
We wonder why since the present democratic dispensation from 1999 to date these Muslim leaders have never converged to ask the Northern Governors what they do with the billions of naira they received as monthly allocations meant to develop their States. And to think that some of these governors claim to be implementing shariah in their states is even more disheartening.
I think this is more the reason why Dangiwa Umar cautions the Zamfara State Governor, Ahmed Sani (Yariman Bakura)
Governor Sani, with his usually reckless gab always appears to be eager to arrogate to himself the power to represent the northern Muslims. He is the one Governor that is adamant on using religion to achieve political aims, while in truth he is nothing but a complete failure and an embarrassment to Islam and Muslims.
We cannot forget too soon how the Yarima started his shariah advocacy. How he was embraced by the Muslims like a long awaited messiah. How we turned our face the other way from the fact that he indirectly caused the Kaduna shariah mayhem. Even when he commented that the crisis was politically motivated since Zamfara state where the seed of shariah had taken root did not record any violent disturbance, we nodded our heads in agreement, ignoring the fact that it wouldn’t have been possible for the State to witness such crisis since Muslims constitute 99.9% of the State population.
The Zamfara governor enjoyed popularity in every northern State so much that whichever State he visited, he would outshine its governor. For a long while Yarima had succeeded in fooling the massive Muslims who though were only giving him the benefit of the doubt.
But alas, by now Nigerians need no magnifying glasses to see how the shariah governor is not different from the old dirty politicians and selfish egocentric leaders that usually fill the nation’s political arena. If anything, the Bakura Prince is even worse, because he is the only executive in Nigeria’s political history that ever wears a political gown painted with full blown color of religion. And the governor seems to believe that introducing the shari’ah legal code alone is an end in itself. Perhaps we should blame our Muslim clerics who failed to educate him that introducing shariah, no matter how high the huddles is only the beginning. Its success story can only be told by how positive it fares. Only a foolish leader exults in the glory of the foundation of a cause.
For Islam as a complete way of life reaches its present zenith because our beloved Prophet (S.A.W.) and the Caliphs after him led the Muslim Ummah strictly by example, and by practically adhering to Allah’s laws. They did not lead the Ummah under pretentions, deceit and corruption. The prophet, in a Hadith says “if a ruler who has the authority to rule Muslim subjects dies while he is deceiving them, Allah will forbid paradise for him”.
No doubt if Ahmed Sani implements shariah the way it should be, Zamfara state by now would have become a rare model in the whole Nigerian Federation. And I believe he would have achieve such feat with close to Six billion naira that he had collected as Federal allocation, not to talk of the billions he regularly borrows. We know it is possible because Zamfara’s sister state, Sokoto is a good example. Governor Bafarawa of Sokoto State is doing it, and without borrowing a single kobo from any Bank or institution. But instead, he shouts “Allahu Akbar!” while he mismanages the trusts put upon him by Allah, and by Zamfarawa’s mandate.
The nauseating manner that governor Sani squanders Zamfara State treasury is as unbecoming of a leader as it is alarming. If he is not busy making his incessant, unjustifiable trips abroad at the expense of the state, he is busy demolishing his private abode and reconstructing it to a much higher and costlier tastes. If he is not busy presenting Greek gifts of N50 million naira worth of 406 peugeot cars to members of Federal legislatures from the state, he is busy cutting deals with KIA motors and other motor vehicle companies. If he is not busy politicizing every government policy, he is busy corrupting Islamic Malams all over Northern Nigeria with the aim of anticipating their support for his presidential ambition by 2007.
For a governor who only in 1999 declared that he had not more than N3 million naira, and in 2003 told the world that his assets declined to less than N300,000 naira, isn’t there a big question mark hanging over his investments in Zamfara state alone worth an estimate of a billion naira?
It is sad indeed that only in Nigeria, you find leaders without conscience parade themselves as religions zealots.
In justifying why school fees had been introduced for children of non-indigenes in the state, the governor thundered “the revenue allocated to Zamfara is meant for the indigenes of the state, it is not for people of other States. All States are given money, so why should we take our money and service some other people? It does not make sense”. But ironically the Yarima did not see anything wrong with dashing out brand new KIA cars, worth almost N2 million each to quite a number of Islamic clerics that spread across Northern Nigeria. We all see them driving around with them.
And moreover, most of these malams are even said to be enjoying huge sum of monthly allowances(ranging from fifty to a hundred thousand naira each)from the State government for absolutely nothing, since last year.
And now that he is poised at enlisting in the jokers of 2007, his unnecessary father Christmas gestures are seemingly taking the better side of him. There is this talk that the shariah governor has purchased thousands of motorcycles meant to be distributed to all States of the federation. Each State will get about 150 motorcycles of this unfortunate largesse. And this is just a tip of the iceberg. Many organizations across the country (political and religious), real and fake, now scamper over themselves to reach Gusau government House and get their pieces of the cake.
I heard somebody saying that there are but three types of governors in Nigeria: those that steal and work(for their people); those that steal and fail to work; and those that steal, fail to work, and pile up mammoth debts on their States. God help Zamfara State and its people, but I am afraid Yariman Bakura falls in the last category. So how could such a man who reeks of corruption tell us (Muslims) that he cries for us, if not to manifest the true saying of the prophet (SAW) that “when a servant (of Allah) becomes totally corrupted,&nbs p; he masters his eyes and can make them cry whenever he wishes”?
Suleiman Ahmed Garki, Abuja,
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