IN a bid to save their embattled Rivers State counterpart, Rotimi Amaechi, from more trouble, Governors Babangida Aliyu (Niger) Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Sule Lamido (Jigawa) and Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano) stormed Port Harcourt recently.
They also, in the company of their Sokoto State counterpart, Aliyu Wamakko, visited former military President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida and former defence minister, General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma. They also visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta. Aliyu, chairman of Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF) did not, however, made that particular trip.
The governors, who never hide their support for Amaechi’s faction of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) have called on the Inspector General of Police to hearken to the voices of reason and immediately redeploy and discipline the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mbu. According to them, his action smacks of unprofessionalism and political partisanship.
This approach is about the first, when state executives would speak up blatantly in support of one of their own, especially against federal authorities.
Curiously, all the four governors are of the same political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), like Amaechi as well as the President Goodluck Jonathan-led government at the center.
Even more instructive, the four governors are from the Northern part of the country, which has not hidden its desire to occupy the presidential villa in 2015; one is from the North central (Aliyu), one from the Northeast (Nyako) and two are from Northwest (Kwankwaso and Lamido).
However, political watchers seem to have been left wondering if the governors approach was borne out of genuine desire in ensuring practice of true federalism, where the state exercises considerable power and relative autonomy from the the government at the center. Or could their actions be fuelled directly and distinctively by the race towards 2015? Or could they just be playing to the gallery, considering that each of them currently faces daunting challenges, of varying proportions in their states?
GOVERNOR Kwankwaso, for example, is yet to put to rest the dastardly acts of suspected Boko Haram members, which rattled Kano State when the group on two occasions attempted to assassinate the revered Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero. The attacks, which claimed several lives, proved to be a child’s play when suspected terrorists, also twice, attacked Kano metropolis in a ferocious bomb and gun duel, including an attack on a luxurious bus loaded with passengers for a journey southwards. Hundreds of people were exterminated.
Kano is therefore not the sort of paradise that Kwankwaso could shove aside to seek peace in Rivers. He has enough trouble at home, especially with the opposition parties.
LAMIDO, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, who first came into national prominence as the General Secretary of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the early 90s, nurses the ambition to become president.
Lamido’s Jigawa is about the poorest state in the country by all development indices, but with a vast agrarian landscape where citizens struggle to eke subsistence living.
Using the Talakawa template, Lamido has turned around the fortune of the state. A new Dutse, in all ramifications seems to have emerged under Lamido. For example, the three arms-zones: Judiciary, the bureaucracy and civil service all located within the same district compete favourably with Abuja’s three-arms zone.
The district is paved with good road network and streetlights. Flowers in their infancy are sprouting up and of course, the Aminu Kano Arena is within the area. There is a big difference between what the Saminu Turaki administration was doing and what Lamido has put on ground.
Lamido is one of the few governors that have a welfare programme for less privileged persons, with a N7, 000 stipend for each disabled person as well as seed money for small-scale enterprises.
The opposition in the state does not think Lamido has done enough. Lamido’s chief headache may, however, be the unfinished story about some discrepancy in his academic papers. The opposition wanted to use it against him, but apparently did not have the staying power to go the whole length. The balance of that story may have to be fully explained if Lamido goes to pick nomination papers for a presidential race.
As for his son, Aliyu’s financial misdemeanour when he was caught on December 11, 2012 with an undeclared sum of $50,000 there is now some respite from the prosecutors, but more explanation will be required of Lamido should he decide to seek higher responsibility.
FOR Nyako, controversy sits well with the Adamawa State governor. The retired Vice Admiral is powerless when it comes to addressing insecurity challenges in his state, a situation that caused the federal government to declare a state of emergency in Adamawa. He is also unable to manage the political family under his domain. The PDP under him is most restive and disorganised
He is involved in several face-offs with party leaders in his state. He has fallen out with the key stakeholders of Admawa PDP, such as former vice president Atiku Abubakar, former minister Jibril Aminu and now the PDP national chairman, Bamanga Tukur. His opponents accuse him of wanting to take over the party machinery in the state.
There are parallel PDP state executives operating in Adamawa, one loyal to Nyako and the other taking instructions from Abuja. A committee was set up to look into the face-off but there seems no end yet.
The opposition stands to gain from this and Nyako does not seem to care. He was reported as saying that they (governors) would help bury the PDP. Consequently, come 2015, the opposition may easily displace the PDP. Even when the PDP presented a united front during the February 2012 governorship elections, the party could only narrowly defeat the ACN with just 60,000 vote margin, which the latter claimed was due to over-voting. And the current situation could even be worse for the PDP in view of the emerging All Progressives Congress (APC). What a way to be a party man!
OF the five travelling trouble-shooting governors, Babangida Aliyu appears to be most vocal. Aliyu has not hidden his lust for power at the centre and has chosen every opportunity to push that fact.
His views seem riotous because they are not always consistent with the realities on ground; he wants a reduction of the funds and powers available to the federal government because according to him, the federal government has no business in the provision of health, water, agriculture and education. Yet, he wants to be president.
Hear him: “There is too much money at the centre for the Federal Government to spend and that is why they are creating problems for the states.”
He accused President Jonathan of signing an agreement to do one just one term and warned that there are cracks in the PDP which must be mended so that no one will be forced out of the party.
In a an attempt to tone down north’s quest for the presidency, Aliyu said the northern part of the country would negotiate with those seeking to be elected as the nation’s president in a bid to safeguard the region’s interests.
He denied advocating that only northern candidates should clinch the presidency, but stressed the need for the promises made to the region were fulfilled. A lot of doublespeak!
WAMAKKO recently suspended and “forgiven” by the PDP, for allegedly refusing to pick telephone calls from the national chairman of the party does not appear to have shown any repentance. He was also said to have refused to respond to a query sent to him, but instead asked the secretary of the party in his, Bello Sokoto, to reply on his behalf. What impudence!
Abuja deemed Bello Sokoto too junior for such task. They also argued that it was improper for Bello Sokoto to have used the official letterhead of the state government in his reply.
Wamakko is yet to distinguish himself in terms of good governance, instead his administration has been accused of wasteful expenditure like that of budgeting an astonishing sum of N772million for a new perimeter fence at the government house, which the government said was necessitated for security and other reasons.
In terms of priority setting, many doubt the importance of this project in a state that can hardly boast of any functioning industry, in spite of its long tradition of traditional leadership in the country.
Are these the sort of men to troubleshoot, when they have enough trouble at home?
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