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Season Of Apolitical Opposition And Blind Hatred: A Critical Examination of The Forces Against Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau By Ahmad Yahya
Kano State was greeted, in this fifth republic, with the administration of Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso. He ruled from 1999 to 2003. Besides few and below standard physical projects his administration was adjudged one of the most scandalous, oppressive and tyrannical governments Kano State has ever seen. In the wake of 2003 elections he was ousted from office by the politically conscious people of Kano. A direct opposite of Kwankwaso, in the person of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, had a land slide victory and became the religious minded governor in Kano State.
The focus of his administration is human development viewed from the Islamic perspective which considers man as a being with material as well as spiritual needs. To cater for the former the administration provided employment to about thirty five thousand people, came to the aid of pensioners, availed the less privileged to governmental support and assistance in medical and other social matters and provided skills to thousands of youth most of whom are now self-employed. The government also incorporated into its programmes a sincere assistance to the disabled, the mentally deformed, the orphans, the widows and victims of other natural disasters such as fire, flood, accidents, etc.
The administration also embarked on physical projects such as construction of state-of-the-art roads, hospitals, schools, etc. in the nooks and corners of Kano State. It also directs its energy towards providing a final solution to the age old water problem in Kano by renovating the Challawa water treatment plant and constructing a new multi-billion naira Tamburawa water treatment plant all of which are hoped to provide about 400 million liters of drinking water on a daily basis.
To cater for the spiritual aspect of human development the government, through the Hisbah board, the Shari’ah commission and A Daidaita Sahu , maintains good relationship with adherents of other faiths by creating and ensuring an atmosphere of peaceful co-existence. The appointment of one of them as advisers suffices as an example. The government also rehabilitated the Muslim missionary organizations as a result of which no less than 8000 people converted to Islam.
Moreover, the Qur’anic students, (almajirai, gardawa, alarammomi) hitherto neglected and branded as hooligans and nuisance, are now fully availed to the services of the state government and attempt is now being made to place their teachers on the state payroll.
While it is not the intention of this write-up to dwell squarely on the achievements of Shekarau’s administration bringing these as a prologue will not be out of place.
Despite the fact that the administration of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau is attested to be one of the most tolerant governments in Kano State, as it provided an unlimited avenue for constructive criticisms, the opposition assumes a dangerous dimension which, if not arrested, may endanger the entire polity in Kano State. What is expected to be a condiment for an enduring democracy has now changed to hatred and political brouhaha which may be destructive to good governance. These combine to constitute the forces against not only the administration of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau but his person as well.
First come the army generals who claim to have made Shekarau what he is today. They expected the governor, as a pay back to what they claimed to have done for him, to become no more than a mere toy under their complete control. These self-acclaimed king makers .also indicated their interest in having direct and uncontrolled access to the state treasury. Adhering to the principles of probity and accountability, Mallam Shekarau refused to do their bidding. The first onslaught they launched against him was to allege that he is at logger heads with General Muhammadu Buhari and longer obedient to him as if the Kano people elected him into office purposely to be the latter. They are yet to explain to the public what are those Buhari's leadership principles which Shekarau has gone contrary to and whether he is duty bound to adhere to them even if they may contradict the Islamic principles or deny him the right to apply his own verdict of good leadership.
They also master minded a campaign of calumny through a sponsored private radio station to such an extent that a free air time is given to whoever is ready to dump any kind of rubbish on the administration, regardless of whether it is true or not. The politically conscious people of Kano State have since smelt the predominant bias and sentimental broadcast replete in the programmes of this media station. In the same vein, some of these military generals, who are expected to be fair and just, have already sided with one party and arrogated to themselves the attribute of Allah, which is ‘giving authority to whomsoever He wishes’. All their actions and statements do no better than prove their sentimental and whimsical stand with regard to Mallam Shekarau and his administration. Resorting to the so-called military solidarity these people connived with the Obasanjo administration to have Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, through the vindictive EFCC, maliciously listed among the indicted candidates. The commission charged the governor with the offence of awarding a four billion naira fatiliser contract without the executive council though its chairman had earlier given his government a clean bill over the matter last year. He was also, based on a publication in Desert Herald newspaper, charged with operating a foreign account and purchasing houses in some countries as if newspapers are constitutionally duty bound to provide a reliable data to EFCC and that whatever they publish is a plain truth. This does not mean that it will end here for only God knows the extent to which they can go in stigmatizing the innocent Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau.
Politicians, both within and outside the ruling party in Kano, come next on the list of forces against the administration of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau. Those within the party are aggrieved because the age old ‘business as usual’ they expected the government to be proved to be the opposite. Some of them even have the audacity to draw a simile between the Kano state treasury and a war booty, claiming that as the latter is only shared among those who participated in the battle, they also should be the sole beneficiaries of Kano wealth. Besides their deliberate failure to execute the various projects awarded to them and sitting on the money they claim to be the only saviors of industrialists and are courageous enough to call the Shekarau administration Khasara! Khasara!! Khasara!!! (loss! Loss!! Loss!!!). They always shout on top of their voices that party members are neglected and that only friends and family members are benefiting. It reached to such an extent that the number two man in the state, who is acclaimed to be the best friend of the Genies, would claim that it is a water tanker which supplies water to his house as a result of negligence to tackle the problem of water scarcity. This is in spite of the fact that as a specialist in water engineering he was earlier asked to handle the issue but vehemently refused, preferring instead having control over local governments.
As for the politicians from other parties, they leave no stone unturned in seeing to it that the government of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau becomes a monumental failure. They make sure that they obstruct any avenue through which the state receives its rightful share of the federal projects. Unlike politicians in the past who never transcended the boundaries of their faith in the name of opposition, these breeds never mind even if it means engaging Allah in a fight. This was translated in their attempt to smear and even cripple the Hisbah, ranging from giving uniforms to hooligans and riff raffs to go and commit atrocities in the name of Hisbah, instigating some segment of commercial motorcyclists to take women when a law banning that was passed down to masterminding the questionable arrest and imprisonment of the commander general and his deputy. The Kano Hisbah was exceptionally declared ‘unconstitutional’, by the inspector general of police, excluding that of other Shari’ah states as if he constitutionally in a better position to say so. They even went extra mile in personally attacking the integrity of the governor as they posted bills which alleged that Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau had extra-marital relations with his third wife and she had delivered just three months after consummation! They also hid behind the free food distribution in the month of Ramadan to give poisonous breakfast to people in order to enrage them against the government. They even exported this blind hatred to the holy land where they tampered with the water supply system of the house in which Kano State pilgrims were accommodated. This was to ensure that the latter nurture a hatred against Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau. In their attempt to incite the Kano business community they had custom officers stationed at strategic places in the state where goods and items bought from there are seized. This exercise affects only Kano State. There may be many onslaughts in the pipeline aimed at destroying the administration of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau.
The third forces against Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau are the pseudo-scholars. To make things clear, it is noted that for a long time Sudan and Egypt have been admitting students from Kano into their tertiary institutions for further studies. There was never an incidence where products of these schools look down on our local scholars or ascribe to themselves perfection in following the Sunnah when they finally find themselves at home. This problem only started to emerge in the early eighties when our students started to gain admission for higher studies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It so happened that most of the products of Saudi schools are noted for groundless and unscholarly extremism and regarding all what is local as rubbish and, in some instances, even unislamic. Some segment of such graduates immediately assume a dictatorship of opinion, labeling whoever holds a different view as either unbeliever or heretic. As soon as they reach home they crown themselves as scholars and compete with one another in leading prayers and having a total control over mosques. They derive pleasure in controlling and monopolizing views in matters of faith. Such are some of the characteristics of these self acclaimed scholars who are bent on tarnishing, willy-nilly, the image of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau.
As soon as the government came into office they thought it to be the product of their own effort only. They expected to be placed at the leadership positions in all the commissions. They wrongly assumed that Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau must do only their bidding and must adhere strictly to their version of Shari’ah. They see Shari’ah implementation in superficial (even if erroneously) application of Hudud and giving cash donations to religious organizations at the expense of the Shari’ah based human development. Because their view of Shari’ah and its implementation was not considered by the more knowledgeable scholars they tagged the government as not only a semi-Shari'a one but anti-Shari’ah. This is despite the fact that Kano has enough scholars that can compete anywhere in the world and are among the scholars who are unequalled in piety, erudition, and humbleness. It is natural that people with such kind of expectations get annoyed if they are not realized. They regard themselves too big to be just ordinary members in the Shari’ah, Zakkah and Hubsi commissions and Hisbah Board. Even though they hardly attended any meeting they signed and took the sitting allowance. Some of them reportedly attended only three out of more than sixty sittings. Ironically enough they have the audacity to declare that Shari’ah is not implemented at all and that Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau never heeds to advices. They renounced their membership in the various committees in the media in order to smear the name of the humble and tolerant governor. They even went to the extent of doubting the faith of the governor in a Friday sermon! Their sympathizers in various government establishments decided to retaliate on behalf of their mentors by scuttling government’s laudable programmaes in many ways. Some of them even refused to hand over offices when they were made acting officers and they real officer resumes. A clear example is what happened in the Hisbah Board when the commander general was released from prison and came to assume duty.
These pseudo-scholars make the best use of pulpits to shower as much insinuations as they can afford on Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau and his government. They always faulted all government programmes in one of the private radio stations based merely on whims and caprices. In spite of all these when the law banning mixing of sexes in commercial buses and cars and taking women on commercial motorcycles came to be enforced and people became recalcitrant, not a single word was ever heard from them either in their various sermons or in the media calling people to desist from such acts. It was reliably gathered that their favoured gubernatorial candidate is now being smuggled into villages and portrayed as the only hope for Shari’ah governance.
The fourth category of these forces are the advocates of indigene/non-indigene and birni/kauye dichotomy. In this age of openness and trust in diversity, in this age of pluralism and multi-culturalism; in a state that acquired its name and fame as a result of its optimistic and positive attitude towards strangers; in a state which is a mother to millions of strangers and is making millions of sons out of them; in a state which predominant religion frowns at any segregation based on tribal, racial or geographical grounds and which is universal in nature; in a state which none of her traditional rulers, religious leaders and elders has ever given a dint of his time or energy to this myopic view of a society, some few elements still fail, either by commission or omission, to fathom the present social, economic and political realities and want to drag people to primitive times. Never in the history of Kano was there any time when a stranger was not welcome and accorded equal treatment.
They insist, in their attempt to nurture hatred against the government, that all appointments be given to what they call’ true Kano people’ even though they are yet to come out with a criteria for determining who is a true Kano man from who is not. They begin by saying that the governor himself is not originally of Kano, even though throughout the 35 years he spent serving Kano nobody has ever raised an eyebrow. We are yet to hear from these people whether it was ever scientifically proven that good governance lies in being an indigene and that bad governance is synonymous with being a stranger
As for the advocates of the birni/kauye dichotomy, they seem only to be satisfied if all positions are apportioned equally among those of the rural and those of the urban areas. They see Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau as representing only the so-called urban oligarchy. However the question is that of parents and their children. While the rural people are the former the urban ones are the latter. Despite weakness in their opposition, they still carry on with the hope that they will succeed.
These are the major forces that combine and seem to co-ordinate their activities in order to ensure that the administration of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau is enlisted in the black book of Kano history. However, their only problem appears to be the teeming population of Kano state whose votes can make and mar and whose psyche no body can make fool of. They seem not willing to give even a minute attention to such clumsy oppositions, let alone hearkening to it. Their admiration and unflinching support for coupled with their unshakeable confidence in the administration of Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau are manifest in many instances. The notable one was the hero welcome they accorded the governor when recently he came back from Abuja, talk less of the support he was shown on the eve of the Hawan Daushe during the Id al-Kabir celebrations some weeks ago.
We wait and see what will unfold, goes the popular Hausa saying ‘Ma ji ma gani, an binne tsohuwa da rai’ .
Ahmad Yahya Department Of Islamic Studies Federal College Of Education, Kano
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