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Why Would Shekarau Resign? By Hassan S. Indabawa Kano, Nigeria.
Rumours spread on Monday February 20, 2006 that Malam Ibrahim Shekarau had resigned his position as governor of Kano State.
The rumours advanced no sensible reason for such a far reaching action but guesses were soon made that it could be connected to the governor’s aversion to the third term project ascribed to the presidency. An evidence of the back door pressure on the governor to change his atitude towards the third term campaign, analysts have added, is the arrest recently of leaders of the Kano state’s watch dog on the implementation of Shariah, the Hisbah Board by authroities of the Federal Government.
To stop further spread of the rumours, Governor Shekarau’s spokesman, Alhaji Sule Ya’u Sule, had to issue a statement to say Shekarau not only remained the governor, he actually had no intention at all to relinquish the office.
Sule said: “it is not true that Malam has relinquished or intends to resign his position as the governor, it is the work of mischief makers and should therefore be disregarded”.
Common sense sides with Sule that someone somewhere is behind the rumours, but that someone has not managed to convince any logically minded person. Why should Shekarau desert those who elected him as their governor over his principled stand against the unconstitutional third term agenda?
If and whenever Shekarau comes to any open combat, so to say, with those angling for third term, he will not be alone. The people of Kano state who overwhelmingly elected him in 2003 and whom he has served diligently so far will stand stoutly by him. He will have no cause to resign, as his political enemies would wish, unless the pople say so. And there is nothing to suggest that they will ever say so.
Shekarau’s decision to disown the third term dream is not his own as a person. The humble Malam is merely echoing the mind of the average Kano citizens who are not blinded by political motives to what is right and reasonable.
And we are not talking about only Shekarau or only Kano state choosing to stand clearly away from the third term anomally. Governors Abdulkadir Kure of Niger State, George Akume of Benue State and Uzor Kalu of Abia state are just few of the other governors who have been very open in their condemnation of any form of extension of term of office for political office holders. Why will it be Shekarau who should resign? The only possible reason in the circumstances, unjustified as it is, is that some albeit powerful persons exists who are uncomfortable and have remained increasingly so with Shekarau remaining, by the grace of God, Kano state number one citizen.
Try as you may not to mention names in reaction to happenings in Kano state, you find you simply have to if you are to situate things in their definite perspectives.
Take this statement, as reported by New Nigerian of May 12, 2005, for example: “The people of Kano will never forgive Malam (Shekarau). Despite the huge amounts of money from the federation account to the state in the last two years, there is nothing to show for it. Where did he put our money in just 18 months? This administration has receieved about 83 billion Naira but there is nothing to show for it. Let the so-called Malam come and explain to the teeming people of the state how he spent this money. There is scandal in the so-called Shariah oriented regime of Shekarau”.
Who said this in May 2005? Who descended to this name calling over political differences? Engr. Rabiu Kwankwaso, governor of the state between May 1999 when the present dispensation at all levels began and May 2004, when he suffered a monumental defeat and so dropped out of office by the incumbent governor Ibrahim Shekarau. That was not all. He made a similar pedestrian allegation when on July 11, 2005, he said that Hisbah corps are “terrorists.”
Defeat is bitter. But one would expect Kwankwaso to be grateful to God. And to also be remorseful by the way and manner he lost the coveted seat. Other governors who suffered deafeat in their various states have slipped into obscurity. Kwankwaso should be content with being appointed Minister by his godfather, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a position he holds today as Minister of Defence. That he can still nurse so much hatred to make a sweeping and direct allegations against Shekarau while still holding a public office shows how much bile the former Governor has in him.
It is all right to ask Shekarau to make himself accountable to Kano people, although Shekarau is an embodiment of transparency and accountability. But how can anyone justifiably say that there is nothing to show (emphasis mine), for the money the state has received in two years? How could it possibly be that the governor would receive, even if it is one billion Naira, and not do anything with it? Critics should be a little bit more intelligent, realistic and concede a few truths because members of the public are capable of reasoning and do reason out things for themselves. Except of course, one is blinded by envy!.
As for the Hisbah corps, those who now see it as a weapon against Shekarau need to know beyond doubt that Kwankwaso started it when he was governor.
Under Kwankwaso, the centre for the Hisbah Committee, as Kwankwaso called it, could not hold. It was, and it is, meant to faithfully implement the Islamic Shariah legal system which the people clamoured for. The Hisbah men under the Kwankwaso government could not even act as one unified body. Two factions in the committee worked at Cross-purposes, making a mockery of the devine instrument of religious legal life.
Shekarau was quick in taking a close look at what he inherited and coming up with the more effective Hisbah Guards, whose functions he explained plainly while inaugurating them on July 3, 2005. “The Hisbah guards are not state police”, he said, “they are only a group of people who should guide people to do the right thing, to steer people away from bad habits”.
A patrol order handed to the Kano state’s 44 local government Hisbah commitees makes this clear. Section two of the order reads: “2.1. The patrol supplements the efforts of the other constituted authorities (the police and other security agents); 2.2. It shall be carried out 24 hours daily with emphasis on night patrol as the targetted crimes are mostly committed in the night; 2.3. The assigned teams shall regularly, book with the Police Division in their respective areas. They shall consistently acquaint the police with the patrol activities and request for formal re-enforcement where and when necessary...”
But the federal government Monday February 20th arraigned the chairman of the Hisbah corps, Malam Yahaya Farouk Chedi, and his deputy Malam Abubakar Abdulkarim Rabo before the Federal High Court for “running a parallel police force”.
The Hisbah corps leaders were arrested close to three weeks ago by the police in Kano and taken to Abuja for questioning on activities of the Hisbah Corps. The Kano state goverment had responded by taking the federal government to the supreme court to stop government from rendering the Hisbah Corps ineffective, contending that the hisbah corps were rendering useful services complementary to those of the police, especially in preventing, detecting and reporting offences.
Not much more can be said on this now. The courts are there to decide the points for and or against the corps, if any, but it need to be stated that the Kanawas who are the beneficiaries of the ideals of the Hisbah corps have nothing to worry about. The courts will vindicate them.
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