Kano and Obasanjo’s Fate
By
Paul Mamza
Kano,
an ancient and cosmopolitan town is strategically positioned both in location
and politics at the North Western part of Nigeria. since time Immemorial Kano
had made fame in radical politics, one of recent can recall the contribution to
this fame by politicians like Late Mallam Aminu Kano, the leader of the
Talakawas (the poor, oppressed and down-trodden). The icon of Mallam’s
struggles ignited high profile in political radicalism that represented the
trends of Kano politics. Even after Mallam’s exit to the great beyond an
emerging paradigm revealed an inheritance as manifest in the Fire-brand Alhaji
Abubakar Rimi, the former executive Governor
of Kano State and a Presidential
aspirant under the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and
Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’Aba, the speaker of House of Representative in the
present political dispensation. But even more radical is the momentum of
perpetual flux generated as exemplified by the generality of the people to
absolutism of bad leadership which is a clear indication that it is impossible
to wade through the trenches without ending up as a hostage. The other day Vice
President Atiku Abubakar suffered a traumatic blow in the hands of an irate mob
of disenchanted captive-subjects. The President himself had to contend with
angry protesters whose ill-feelings are beyond mere rhetorical demonstration
because for every event there’s always a gingering un-event. The people’s
reactions has an underlying hope against an anti-autocracy disincentives and
encouragement of the state of hopelessness. However, history cannot deny that
President Olusegun Obasanjo develop his fame from Kano, the home state of Late
General Murtala Ramat Muhammed, it was through the back of General Murtala’s
reign that then General Obasanjo rode to the helms of power. It is from the same
Kano that now President Obasanjo will entertain shadowy decoys for apparent
political infamy for humiliating the Abacha family which is widely believed as a
vengeance mission, the mass protest by people of Kano for the release of Alhaji
Mohammed Sani Abacha, son of the Late Head of State, a Kano indigene is an
illustration of this fact. Most of the prominent agitators for Obasanjo’s
second coming with the exception of probably the likes of Chief Solomon Lar,
Alhaji Musa Musawa and his Noah’s Ark in the North were from Kano. They
massively campaigned for the actualization of Obasanjo’s second coming. This
may not be unconnected to the earlier wide belief that he is a detribalized
leader and assumption that he is forgiving. But Obasanjo’s penchant for
vengeance against the Abacha’s family and the generalization of the North as
responsible for Abacha’s alleged offence against him and his people has
ignited Northern people especially of Kano origin’s response against his
unpopular policies. One may conclude that the Northern people’s trust in
Obasanjo’s candidature is fast diminishing if not totally lost.
Let
no one be left in doubt for this dramatic and traumatic transformation such as
the mutual separation of trust between the President and his early enforcers,
the concomitant dispersal had naturally tendered an inevitably unfathomable
equations, which the President who suppose to be a leading authority in solving
complexities of permutations lack the fire-power to match the state’s
organizational prowess. The greatest human tragedy of this fall-out is the act
of reducing the incompatibility to a fight between North and South, and between
the ordinary Hausa man and the average Yoruba man. This epic gridlock had since
sharpened the subduing routes of pervasive centrifugal forces. The knackered
relationship has suddenly kindled an insurmountable perversities and the nation
was left grumbling to itself; its earlier hopes coupled with gusto have
descended into unending rancor and disfiguring while the man responsible for
this hopeless mismatch of political events is bold enough to seek an extension
of time to perpetuate the seemingly political disorder. It is a legitimate call
in a democratic culture but more legitimate is the power of the electorate
(masses) to dislodge an unpopular candidate from the political stage. The
Kano’s episode represent the manifestation of this re-organizational ordering,
you may call it a reformation process in democracy. Obasanjo’s fate is just
following a natural cause because there’s a time to be born and a time to die
and hence, his political might got its initial root in Kano and it is in Kano
that the demise of his political fortunes appears to show its ugly face. Kano is
therefore setting a pace for his reformation process.
The
travails of the Abacha family under the Obasanjo’s leadership has enabled the
reformation process to take place with ease. With this development therefore, if
the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) being the only viable opposition party
in the country (Not minding the newly registered parties) can put it’s acts
together and adopt a viable presidential candidate like General Muhammadu Buhari
it will be apparent that the ANPP is sure of grabbing power from the embattled
ruling party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) if PDP insists on fielding-in
Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as it’s Presidential flag bearer come 2003.
- Mamza wrote in from A.B.U,Zaria