In all aspects of development, Kano State could not come up to scratch, many local and international indices show. Kano State under this demonic grip is a state in stasis, which metamorphosed from shariah state to pariah state. Lawlessness takes the center stage. Thuggery, forgery and a battery of hungry beggars scurry in the street. Profligacy has become a recurring decimal of his administration. The state is: Economically backward. Spiritually and politically corrupt. Pervasively insecure. These captured the clear picture of the state, photogenic-ally so, and became the seal of Shekarau’s uneventful tenure.

Despite the extra-princely sum the state receives monthly, yet the state is in acute state of dilapidation and disrepair. We thought the lush cache of cash the state receives monthly may slash its way into developmental projects, but alas, it was, to our downright chagrin, (mis)applied elsewhere. We were promised roads, water and independent power plant but none is forthcoming. And like poisoned mice, our dire misery, they promise, might soon meet its demise. But it didn’t – it is like water off a duck’s back. Shards of broken promises are malignant enough to have inflicted on our minds deep mental lacerations that make the masses mistake a fiend as friend and enmity as amity. The mental wounds preclude the brainwashed credulous folks from thinking rationally. Only a few who have amulet against the torment of the demons may appear to see the monster behind that scarified orator.

To gain the votes of the beggars (who are more than the total votes cast in the state’s gubernatorial election) they legalized and “formalized” the almajirci system and told the beggars, half in jest, “you are our children” (when their children are flown abroad to study). As I have always said, if almajirci system is such radiant under Shekarau and is really part of Islam, I want the champions of the tsangaya system to each allow just one of their kids to test the nectar of their transformed, formalized and revolutionized almajirci system. Or, if I may ask, are there tsangaya schools in Europe and America where they take their children for study? You can see the plain reason why certain Yemeni (who ratifies the butchery of our commonwealth) chooses to only award oversea scholarships to his chubby light-skinned kinsmen and the children of the members of the elite-studded Inuwar Jama’ar Kano. A clear case of what is known in Hausa as kashin dankali, (loosely translated as bigger ones sitting against the smaller), one writer once quipped in his incisive piece. Despite the hundreds of millions spent on the much celebrated tsangaya programme, whether they like it or not, it became a flop, for it failed to take the scavenging herds of almajirai off the streets and failed to attract the children of the tsangaya exponents. It pains me every time I hear the buzz of the cliché: “Kano State government has tackled the menace of almajirci” in my ears. They say they have high principles, but they do not seem to act up to that.

Whoever fervently loves Kano would be dismayed when he understands that there is no single traffic light that functions in Kano State today (I challenge them to show me just a single functioning one). But when they cannot fix simple things affecting our lives in place, they want those who have voice to keep mum – a clear case forcing us eat sakwara with miyar kuka and be forced not to grimace or complain.

Yet again, you will be furious to know that quite a few streetlights glow in the state today. What are only noticeable are the mangled poles of the lights drooping in obeisance to the failed leader. I tend to, on several occasions, query the governor’s raison d'être for his failure to fix them. The limpid reason they always give, though indirectly, is: it is not part of “human development project” (as if demons not humans will take over if repaired). For crying out loud, fixing traffic lights or streetlights is as easy as building extension in the Government House for somebody’s bride! It is not as ‘gargantuan’ as building water treatment plant which seems like eternity.

Take another look at Bata, Naibawa, Kofar Nassarawa areas for God’s sake; any progressive leader worth his salt would have built flyover bridges to decongest the eternal flow of traffic and tame the attendant recurrent accidents that result in the lost of lives and limbs every minute. Our less endowed next-door neighbour, Kaduna State, has built one in an area near Mundo Park, which is relatively low in traffic flow (whenever I saw such projects in other states, a mixed feelings of envy and anger overwhelmed me). The misshapen reason why we can’t get even a single flyover in Kano is, as usual, such project is not human development. We are not ripe for that because if built, the demons in our midst would simply use it – for astral traveling.

I don’t know the importance of having retrogressive-minded persons as leaders (like certain governor) in this 21^st century. I tossed a coin mentally but could get neither heads nor tails. (I pray to Allah, the Mighty and Sublime, not to give me the lowest political office in our land if I would perform abysmally like Shekarau). Many an irritant might however irritate every rational indigene of Kano, who really loves the state that is. The way the governor embezzles our funds and mismanages our affairs makes me to willingly come to the conclusion that Shekarau does not at all love the state’s progress.

Dan Agbese seems to capture the apt image of politics as he once wrote in the 80s. “[Politics] is about making people feel good enough to want to be fooled.” The governor’s supporters are mesmerized by his word not work, his largesse not legacy. It is also not because he built roads, hospitals and supplied water, but because he is – to put it mildly – a master in the art of deception. He has an uncanny talent of wrapping boxes of lies in gilded foils of oath and palms them off, as truth, on his audience (mainly those he willfully kept without good education for the hay day). To bolster many of the points raised, I need to fly off at a tangent to produce what an angry reader recently wrote to crow over me because Governor Shekarau, to borrow his words, “has gotten (sic) reelection.” Getting reelection, I must remind him, does not mean a leader performs well. It is never a yardstick for measuring a leader’s performance. If I ask you why President Obasanjo gets reelected in 2003, your answer would be: “The election was rigged.” But if I may argue you round, ask the politically matured Americans why did one of the worst American presidents, the late Ronald Reagan, get reelected in the mid 80s? No good reason, many Americans believe. “The Americans love him (Reagan),” an analyst proffered the reason, “partly because he has managed, in 8 years, to make competence in government look like dirt pushed through a sewer and partly because he managed to convince them that life is a mélange of tomfoolery and comedy.” Governor Shekarau, by and large, is a Reagan’s incarnate.

While commendations were almost overflowing my inbox, many other readers (most of them government officials) wrote to tell me that I criticize Shekarau because I am paid to do so. Pray, what in God’s name do I stand to benefit in criticism? What on earth can an individual give me that government can’t give me manifold? Please ask yourself!!! It is in sycophancy, bootlicking, image making that one gets rich before you can say Jack Robinson. I am principled enough to distance myself from the lure of filthy lucre inherent in government and choose to remain in my tiny critical abode while seeing others who mortgage their conscience living a bountiful lifestyle. My grouse about them is for my state, nothing else. Yes I may be angry with them not because they are only looters but because they mismanage our resources and stunt our growth.

Here comes another one from my elder brother of the National Press Centre, Abuja. Anyway, great as is the respect I have for him as a commentator of repute, author, publisher and my seniour in many respects, I must show my astonishment at his misrepresentations. I was taken aback, I must confess. I wonder why my brother takes preference in attacking my person to giving answer to the issues raised therein. Omitting a letter ‘a’ off my name for obvious reason, my brother could not but let fly at my person because I questioned the rationale behind the reinstatement of his friend. He said a lot that made me to read the piece in gaping wonderment. ‘Not you,’ I contrive to reply him, ‘my brother.’ Though I managed to compose myself not to take issue with him on this matter, I have to make my position clear and bid the whole issue farewell.

I want to make my position clear here that I can not be jealous of whatever any mortal gets in this ephemeral world. There’s still no iota of green in my eyes because I know, deep inside me, I can’t do his friend’s job – forgery. If I am good at concocting reference numbers and coining out seals, perhaps I could have been different person today. It’s not for poetic justice, I wrote in the controversial piece, but for obvious justifiable grounds. Surprisingly, however, none of the appointed – and self-appointed – publicists of the governor who responded to my piece, The Return of the Napoleon of Spin, tells me how the forged clearance letter came into the Government House. Did the letter fly, like bird, from the commission’s headquarters and perch onto the palm of the elated governor? Did they make public, the full text of the recommendation of the ‘panel’ that ‘investigated’ his friend? Why, despite the said ‘suspension’ was he still carrying out his official duties? Did the government make the culprit, even if sacrificial lamb, public? When answers to the foregoing questions could not be given, nothing could call forth smearing mud on a clean slate. For me, tricks of forgery seem to be trickier than pronouncing the name of the Zimbabwean opposition leader, (Morgan) Tsvangirai.

I hope, before my series continues, a series humanistic projects, like fixing traffic lights, would come in earnest.

Jaafar resides at 319 Warshu Hospital Road, Kawaji, Kano.