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Kano Leadership Style- A Typical Case Of ‘Kashin Dankali’ By Shazali Abdulkadir
Nigeria is a county and a system that is rotten and falling off the seams. It is a country known around the world where most things don’t work, and where anarchy and misrule, do rule. We have almost a total breakdown of law and order. Our institutions are weak and crumbling, public servants no longer obey the rules, criminals don’t obey the courts, religious leaders hardly speak the truth for their lust of associating with the rulers, and even the president disregards courts’ judgments. Nigeria is a country where the oligarchy are busy allotting the nation’s resources to themselves and their cronies. Kano being one of the thirty six states of Nigeria is exactly in the same situation. I feel disturbed and disappointed by the decay of Kano leadership at all levels despite its Islamic and moral heritage, which the present cream of leadership is working hard to make that legacy merely a history.
Kano leaders refuse to accept that they are leaders by the trust of their people. They are to serve the people and not to rule them. No aspect of the leadership of Kano, especially the traditional, show interest in championing the cause of the people of Kano. Although the people recognize and respect the traditional authority the traditional rulers fail do understand that they need to reciprocate the public recognition by working hard to improve the lot of their people, rather than looking at the people as their subjects whose job is only to serve the aristocrats. Our Kano traditional rulers should learn from their southern counterparts who are always seen shuttling between their domains and Abuja lobbying the Federal Government of Nigeria to site projects or support projects for the good of their people. Our traditional rulers go to Abuja only on behalf of themselves, to secure contracts or renew oil block license.
In Kano the political, the traditional, the religious and the business leaders are united and in a kind of a club or may be a cult. They are busy allotting to themselves the states’ resources. The rest of the general public are viewed by them as merely decorative instruments for the traditional rulers, and working tools for the rest of the leadership groups.
The schools and the Government hospitals in Kano state are left uncared for, as most of the schools are over crowded without enough classrooms, desks and chairs, teachers and other essential learning materials. Our hospitals too are only painted but without any operational items and staff required inside the hospitals. Yet it is under this condition the state government considered it a priority to embark on a multi million Naira renovation works of all the Emir’s palaces and houses, putting interlocking tiles every where and replacing the fittings with the more expensive ones. With the pathetic situation of our schools and education generally in Kano State, the state government considered it morally imperative to grant foreign scholarship to the Emir’s son for an ordinary first degree course in the United Kingdom. The Emir himself can afford to sponsor more than 500 students from his personal wealth without feeling a pinch.
The situation of electricity in Kano is terrible. It is clear that the supply of electricity to Kano is inadequate, but there is much to be desired in the manner it is distributed. Our hospitals, schools and the rest of the ordinary people do suffer a lot as a result of lack of electricity supply to them. In some of our hospitals corpses decompose due to lack of electricity. With all this the Emir’ palace enjoy uninterrupted supply of electricity 24hours a day, while his cronies enjoy it for 12hours a day. In order to ensure steady supply to the Emir’s palace and to his cronies the area is divided into three.
First is the Emir’s palace which enjoys electricity supply 24 hours a day. The second is the area covering the south eastern part of the Emir’s palace. The area includes Dan agundi, unguwar gini, Gwangwazo, Chiranchi, Galadanci, Kabara. Residents of this area are mainly Emir’s cronies. They are provided with electricity from 7pm to 7am daily. The third area covers the north western part of the Emir’s palace, which is also mainly occupied by the Emir’s cronies. The area include, Shahuci, Soron dinki, Satatima, Masallachi. This area gets electricity supply from 7am to 7pm daily . Already the government provided a 250kva generator, to the Emir’s palace, which is regularly fueled and maintained with the tax payers money. All this is yet to be enough, because the state government has now embarked on a tens of million of Naira project of providing a 33kv transmission line to supply power directly into the palace. The magnitude of this injustice has made me to further investigate on why these things are happening.
The first thing I was able to discover was that the NEPA zonal manager is a traditionalist, he also holds a traditional title. He views serving traditional rulers, more important, even at the expense of the welfare of the general public and the function of public institutions and facilities. The NEPA zonal manager’s interest of preferring to supply traditional rulers was encouraged by the state government’s unstated approval of preferring the supply of electricity to certain individuals and groups.
My second discovery was that in all areas where a senior NEPA official resides the supply of electricity is always constant, for example in Nassarawa around Tamandu close, Abdullah Bayero way, Racecourse Road, all these enjoy constant power supply because the NEPA manager resides there. Also the area around Sultan Road and Giginyu enjoy constant power supply because the NEPA commercial manager resides there. The same applies to Unguwa uku/ Zaria Road. There are other areas which enjoy constant power supply but not because there is any NEPA official in the area, the reason is that an understanding has been established between residents of the area and the NEPA officials. Example of such areas is Beirut Road/Ibrahim Taiwo Road.
I consider myself a lucky person because my house is at Diso quarters which is within the areas of the Emir’s cronies, and so I too enjoy electricity supply from evening till morning. I have a friend who lives at Gandun Albasa, just after the City wall across the Bayero University road. I frequently visit this friend of mine but almost all the time I visit him I would find him in the dark, without electricity. Three minutes walk from this my friend’s house I could see the houses in Emir’s cronies quarters shining bright with electricity. Last weak when I visited this friend of mine I advised him to organize a group of the residents of the area to meet the NEPA officials with a view to getting some respite. He replied by thanking me for the concern and the advice. He went on to tell me that, they were at NEPA zonal office three times and each time with a letter detailing their complaint. They visited the District Manager at Gidauniya Building twice and once at their Zoo Road office and all with formal letters on the problems. He told me that they had been on this problem with the NEPA officials for five years seven months now. About four months ago they got to know, though unofficially, that NEPA could not improve or even stabilize the supply of electricity to Gandun Albasa area because doing that would temper with the power supply to the Emir’s palace and his cronies quarters. He went further to tell me that the youth of the area organized a demonstration against NEPA maltreatment of the area but the elders intervened and stopped the youth from holding the demonstration for fear of being hijacked by hooligans.
He told me though reluctantly, that the youth have embarked upon a new project on this issue, that is prayers individually and collectively evoking the wrath of Allah on anybody who is involved in creating hardship regarding electricity supply to the area. He finally told me that, “on the contrary we, the elders pray to Allah to enable NEPA officials and any other leader to eschew injustice and hold public trust with the fear of Allah”. At this point both of us went into silence. After about a minute or so I broke the silence by saying, amin.
Shazali Abdulkadir
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