Kano and Obasanjo’s Fate

By

Paul Mamza

mamza@gamji.com

 

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