Breaking the Jinx

Breaking the Jinx

Engr. A. A. Maishanu

IT must have dawned on Malam Ibrahim Shekarau shortly after his victory as governor of Kano state in the 2003 gubernatorial polls that he would spend the entire four years stretch of his mandate under the mighty shadow of the ANPP presidential candidate General Muhammadu Buhari. It must have been clear to him that the hyped impression of him (Malam), being a newcomer in the murky waters of politics and a pure bureaucrat whose life was spent either in the classroom or administrative offices and therefore mischievously misconstrued to be incapable of gathering the required momentum to win an election for the coveted seat of a governor, would continue to hover around his stature for a very long period of time.

Just as expected, Shekarau managed to keep his cool even at the height of the underserved tongue-lashings from the opposition PDP politicians consistent as they always are in their orchestration, which reads that Malam won the election on a platter of gold. The line of argument that the day Buhari held his hands up in the historic ANPP presidential rally at the Kano Race Course on the eve of the 2003. The shadow of Buhari was not only inimical to the construction of reliable political constituency which Shekarau could really count upon as veritable base for future political projects, but was becoming a weak point that was constantly exploited by adversaries to unjustly portray Malam as a someone that has abandoned his mentor or bites the very fingers that fed him. This particular weak point was exploited in the crudest manner by the notorious Kano TBO (The Buhari Campaign Organization) members who fell out with the government not long after the election on account of dissatisfaction with the “low prominence” they claimed Malam’s government was according them. In every policy evolved by the government, the TBO members saw nothing more than fallibility. They quarreled vehemently and used every opportunity to fuel the growing suspicion that Malam had in principle and action parted ways with General Buhari, which in politics they want the gullible to believe is tantamount to an unpardonable betrayal.

The Malam -- Buhari scenario was climaxed by the ANPP convention that saw the failure of all Buhari-sponsored candidates at the party leadership polls; a situation that was said to have been a bye-product of a grand plan spearheaded by Malam Shekarau and his ANPP governor colleagues. Malam’s adversaries held that the aim was to ensure that Buhari does not install party executives of his choice, who could assiduously scheme his election as presidential candidate of the party in 2007.

All these fabrications have been overcome, nay subdued by Malam without any dent on his standing as a humble and credible politician.

The media in Kano, from then on, became laden with an awesome declaration of war between self acclaimed loyalists of General Buhari and the supposed anti-Buhari ANPP government and party leadership in Kano state.

The funny side of the war, if at all there was any, was that the barrages of attacks were audible from one side of the divide. Whereas the TBO section of the ANPP constantly spoke of its feud with the ANPP government, the government on its side said little, and where it did, it was no more than absolute denial of any fracas with the General or his cohorts. Wise stance! One, for the fact of admittance of soar relationship with the General would have been a disastrous political miscalculation. The large followerships of both Malam and Buhari in Kano, whose support it requires would have been upset. Two, Malam opponents within and outside the ANPP would have secured a sharper tool of attack, and would have been proved right in their claim that Shekarau is a political Judas.

Shekarau had a multifaceted fight with all kinds of interests in the run-off to the 2007 right from day one of the declaration of intent to run for the second term. Most intriguing was the vociferous animosity with dissidents ranging from his deputy, decampees among stalwarts and those members of the ANPP in the state assembly eluded by the orchestrated campaign of calumny mostly perpetrated in the media, but in real fact without any grassroots’ backing.

Then came the emergence of disagreement with supposed heavy weights in the party including some popular retired generals erroneously considered to be in charge of the political key board of the party’s massive followership in the state. At a time, one was tempted to harbour pity for the governor looking at the sheer size of his opponents. At the heat of it all, the Shekarau’s bloc was portrayed as weak and incapable of coping with the onslaught.

Major headlines on the front page of the gazette of charges against Shekarau handy at all times of the day with his adversaries included the so-called a N4 billion fertilizer contract, the irrelevance of projects like “A Daidaita Sahu,” the “Tsangaya” programme, Sharia implementation, control of the party machinery, appointment of friends and associates as commissioners and key government positions and the general performance of the government in comparison to that of the uprooted PDP that ran the state between 1999 and 2003.

Amidst all these was heralded on to the centre-stage the old jinx that in Kano, no one governor has ever ruled twice! The belief had actually become an accepted phenomenon in some circles, purely based on historical antecedents. First, former governor of Kano state, Alhaji Muhammad Abubakar Rimi, did not succeed in returning to power after abandoning his seat in 1983 to join the deposed NPP. Second, Alhaji Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya failed to complete even his first term after the truncation of the political transition under Babangida which saw him elected as governor of the state between 1993 and1994.

Thirdly, Engr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso who ruled Kano between 1999 and 2003 could not secure re-election into the coveted office in the 2003 gubernatorial election despite the injection of enormous resources and the deployment of all conceivable instruments of coercion with the tacit approval of the PDP controlled federal government.

The jinx was also connected to a deposed emir of Kano who was said to have made effort to return to the throne in futility till he died in a town some 44 kilometers away from Kano.

Turn of events continued to point to the direction of the jinx being maintained, especially with the apparent smoothness with which the Shekarau vilification project went. However, detractors of Shekarau had all along been blindfolded. They made a grave omission! They skipped few basic facts, which in the end gave the man the upper hand.

Malam Shekarau had over the years perfected an art, which had never been learnt by his predecessors. That is the art of sensitivity to popular demands. In the past no one had performed the careful balancing act in government like Shekarau did.

Take for instance, few of the programmes that endeared the governor to the public:- The Tsangaya programme which provided support to local Islamic scholars in a state which has a highly religious population; the creation of Hisbah aid group considered as integral to the successful implementation of the Sharia law; provision of transportation system to women; Ramadan (iftar) feeding for the less-privileged; regular payment of pension benefits to retired civil servants; support services to NGOs and women groups; Ramadan Sallah bonuses to civil servants; vocational training and provision of support materials to youths; constant monetary and related support to various categories of citizens at the lower ladder of the society.

In quantum, if you want to value Shekarau’s performance in his first tenure, greater portion of the constituent indices would be found on the ladder of support in the direction of human development. This is however not to say that you will not find his landmarks on the health, education, water supply and road construction sectors. There are quite a number of projects that stand out as befitting legacies of the government with a clear demonstration of emphasis on quality. In a nutshell, he had been able to balance the need for infrastructure and the quest for absolutely spiritual and social demands of the people. This is perhaps the key to the massive exhibition of support by voters to Shekarau in his second term bid, during the general elections conducted on the 14 of April, 2007. The anti-Buhari orchestration, the non-performance gimmick and the hyped vilification effort all failed.

To end this piece, I recall a small chat I had with a friend prior to the election. My friend believed the case of Shekarau was concluded on the side of failure. I made a small calculation for him: I said he should add up the following obvious votes of Shekarau and see if they meant anything to him: 12,000 Hisba votes plus that of their families; 1,000 “A Daidaita Sahu” tricycle votes and their families; 30,000 pensioners votes and their families’; at least 50,000 votes from Islamic scholars and their followers’ 50 per cent conservative estimate of votes of civil servants and their families’ plus whatever, Shekarau gets from other forms of support in the circle of ordinary citizens. My friend appeared aloof and did not say anything afterwards. I received his call after Shekarau’s declaration as the elected governor in the April 2007 polls only to hear the line “The jinx is destroyed.”

ENGR. A.A. MAISHANU resides in Kano.