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How Kano Electorates Ignored Anti- Shekarau Forces By Hassan S. Indabawa
Mindless opposition leaders tried their worst in the countdown to the April 14 gubernatorial election in the hope of stopping Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano State from getting a second term. We said then that he would get the second term and that the self-centered opposition would be shamed. We said the surest way for Kano politicians to slip into oblivion was to go on fighting Shekarau, popularly called Malam, because he is a rare statesman destined for victory.
In making the predictions, we consulted no oracles; we relied on no special spiritual powers either. We merely read the political plane, Malam's antecedents, and the obvious love the masses have for him. We thank Allah and are grateful to the people of Kano for bringing to pass those innocent predictions that we made.
Never in Kano's political history has a governor been re-elected to lead the people a second time, a history Malam broke on April 14 when he, flying the banner of All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), got re-elected for another term of four years after he was first elected in April 2003.
As the nation prepared for the April 14 and 21 general elections, political enemies have risen from within and outside the ANPP to challenge Malam's bid for a second term. Matters came to a head in February when Malam had to name some of the people he was sure were planning and executing the campaigns of calumny against him. Some of the named and unnamed antagonists include The Buhari Organization (TBO) as a group and as individuals, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state (especially kwankwaso and his loyalists), Sule Yahaya Hamma, Gen Bashir Salihi Magashi (rtd), Ahmadu Haruna Zago and his field men, Naja'atu Muhammed with her opportunistic tendencies, among other persons.
These are the fellows who once believed that Malam could not get anywhere without them. They planned for Malam’s fall. But Allah stood by him and gave to him the second term they believed could only come from them. What a reversal of fortunes! Today, Malam is up. The antagonists are down, good only for political dust bin!
The TBO, led in Kano by AVM Mukhtar Mohammed (rtd), fought tooth and nail to discredit Malam in the eye of the people and to foul his relationship with Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd). Buhari who was preparing to go in for the Presidential election under ANPP is highly respected in Kano and touted to have influenced Malam's election, in 2003. The TBO which hated Malam for selfish reasons calculated that without Buhari's endorsement, Malam, who had already secured ANPP's gubernatorial flag at the time, could not win a second term. The group therefore did all within it to put Malam and Buhari at loggerheads.
To some extents, TBO's influence over Buhari worked. Surprisingly, Buhari did not seem to see beyond TBO's mischievous and hypocritical postulations. He allowed himself for quite a while to be separated physically and otherwise, from both those who needed him for support and those he needed for support.
The result manifested in defections from the ANPP and drastically reduced human and financial resources from which Buhari could have drawn the strength that could well have won him the presidential election or at least give him a most gallant contest.
Happily, both Buhari and Malam showed, as the elections approached, that they were after-all partners working for the victory of ANPP. Buhari has not become president but Malam and his followers take solace in the meaningful contributions they made in getting Kano people's maximum votes for presidential and national assembly elections of April 21.
The first major sign that the sleaze campaigns against Malam were not working emerged on March 11 when he flagged off his campaign and it looked as if the whole of Kano poured into the Sani Abacha Stadium where the event started. Much of the huge human and vehicular crowd later thronged into major streets of Kano into the warm welcome of the masses who openly expressed their joy for the man of diligence and integrity, Shekarau.
All that was despite the smear campaign against him. The ignoble roles which Malam's desperate opponents played in their concerted efforts to get him down may not have been obvious in the beginning. At least, not to many, because they were quite discreet.
Many wondered, for example, why Freedom Radio, a private electronic media house expected to be objective in its broadcasts, should have become so partisan, and so decidedly anti-Shekarau that it became fashionable for it to attract people who go there to assault Malam in as dirty a language as they could muster. The radio house threw out professionalism through the windows as it opened its doors to those in the gang-up against Malam. The reason is this: AVM Mukhtar, TBO kingpin with particular reference to the fight against Malam, is the board Chairman of Freedom Radio!
Self-styled principled woman politician, Naja'atu Muhammed got so obsessed with her desire to ruin Malam's chances that she changed overnight from being a harsh critic of president Olusegun Obasanjo and his government to being a friend, just for a chance to get into the administrative panel which trimmed down a controversial list of electoral candidates, including Malam. However, she failed woefully in getting the panel to indict Shekarau. All is history now because truth prevailed and Malam today is governor–elect of the ANPP in Kano. How bitter Naja'atu must be feeling now.
Malam's supposed deputy, Magaji Abdullahi, who believed he could beat Malam at an electoral contest tried to do so at the state ANPP primaries. He ended up embarrassing himself. Instead of seeking to reconcile with Malam and become the loyal deputy he ought to be, he resorted to anti-government activities and flirted with the opposition to truncate Malam's second term project. How sad for him that the people of Kano ignored him and his types and gave Malam his second term.
Indabawa lives in Kano
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