Two governors, two elders. As the two governors gut own houses, the two elders haul back-up buckets of petrol into the blaze. Some governors! Some elders!
In Fela-speak, “wahala sleep, yanga go wake am, na palaver e de find.”
That street pidgin best captures Kano Governor, Abba Yusuf, and his Kano double-trouble: the inchoate sack of Emir Aminu Ado Bayero as 15th Emir; and the inchoate return of Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II, as 16th Emir, after his earlier sack as 14th Emir.
That has set Kano on tenterhooks, and left a muscle-flexing Abba red-faced! Under his nose, two Emirs contest the throne; and there’s little the governor can do about it!
“Wahala sleep, yanga go wake am!”
But even as the first set of court verdicts worsted Governor Yusuf — that Kano should pay Emir Ado Bayero N10 million for breaching his human rights; and that the second coming of Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II was null and void, because the Kano Emirate Council (Repeal) Law, 2024, was badly applied — Yusuf has thrust own comic verdict interpretation: clear delusion that executive baulking would turn a court loss into a win.
As first, he barked at the police to arrest Ado Bayero, for landing in Kano to press his rights. Now, after the verdict, he growls that the police evict the 15th Emir from the Gidan Nasarawa mini-palace, and after, demolition. Neither has happened.
When will Governor Yusuf and aides get it that you cannot under democracy, even with awesome gubernatorial powers, criminalize a citizen with mere whims? Imagine state Police under such an intemperate governor! Wouldn’t Kano have been in flames by now?
Still, few follies and foibles can’t cancel an idea — state Police — whose time has come! We just must make the enabling law rigorous enough to withstand abuse.
In Rivers, in his brash Nyesom Wike face-off, Governor Siminilayi — Sim — Fubara has made belligerence the fundamental principle of his day-to-day governance.
With his much-touted Ijaw “youth” street army, and uncritical Ijaw “elders”, it’s one-day, one-threat; one-day, one-roar, from the boisterous Sim camp, while the governor probably gyrates — and merrily too! — to his political doom.
If the governor is not showing off as some scary Leviathan, taking one last sinister look before demolishing a newly inaugurated legislative quarters complex, he’s publicly wailing over how some local potentates disrespected him by leaving out his picture — and his deputy’s — out of their official almanacs: an uncouth, reckless act, to be sure.
If he doesn’t wail directly, not a few proxies moan for him — as battle-tested Ijaw rights activist, Ann-Kio Briggs, decrying the blatant rudeness of a local council boss who, in public, seized Sim’s phone and stamped on it — gubernatorial mystique be damned! Ah!
Of course, Madam Briggs’ Ijaw radicalism is well storied. She, in 2012, pushed that the Ijaw pull out their oil from Nigeria, if Goodluck Jonathan was no longer good enough as president — and that bang on the virtual anniversary of the abortive Isaac Adaka Boro 12-Day Revolution (from 23 February 1966, when Boro’s Niger Delta Volunteer Force declared a Niger Delta Republic) — just because then President Jonathan couldn’t have his way in removing fuel subsidy.
But as Sim and Bellicose Orchestra drone on and on, they have failed to notice that the no-less belligerent Wike has suddenly ceased space!
For a five or six-day cluster around May 29, Wike, Abuja minister, had grabbed national attention, cementing his reputation of “Mr. Do It” in penetrating infrastructure.
If Wike is, 24-7, in Fubara’s head, how would Fubara maintain, talk less of improve, upon Wike’s Rivers rich infrastructural legacy, which by the way, romped Sim in as governor, before his rabid, newfound Ijaw kith-and-kin?
Was Briggs even there, though a Rivers Ijaw native, when Wike was shutting down everyone and slamming down everything to, willy-nilly, make Fubara governor?
Still, as Ripples always maintains, no tears for Wike. Whatever Fubara does to or with him, he himself did to Rotimi Amaechi, both his predecessor and benefactor.
So, let him bake in the crucible of ingratitude! The snag though, is that Fubara is nurturing his own future kiln of Karma, with his present devil-may-care bellicosity!
But Madam Briggs is not among the “elders” this piece announced in its headline. Old man Edwin Clark is.
Since the Rivers crisis broke, Chief Clark, though from Delta, has jumped into the fray with uncritical support for Fubara, his Ijaw kin.
Then, he wrote a long and ringing treatise to condemn the presidential compromise wrought early to contain the crisis. Unlike Dr. Peter Odili that Wike’s lack of tact has unfortunately boxed into the Fubara corner, Clark from day one always saw a treaty stacked against Fubara.
And now that Fubara acts as one possessed, Clark is tracking Rivers succession history, from his sweet, one-track prism! Does he even have the facts?
Meanwhile, Fubara blunders from one desperate error to another: passing the 2024 budget, vetting his Attorney-General and commissioner for Justice, and passing his nominees for caretaker council chairs — all through a three-man state legislature!
By the way, that last action — caretaker council chairs — is a double-whammy in open and transparent constitutional crimes: while unelected caretaker council chairs are unknown to law, it’s doubtful if a three-man legislature (from 32 members) can pass the muster of both law and common sense.
These are low-hanging fruits of Fubara impeachment which neither his Ijaw “youth” street army; nor his thunderous “elders” can prevail against, when the chips are down.
Yet, these were exactly the basic stumbles the Abuja accord tried to avert by asking Fubara to re-present his 2024 budget to the Rivers parliament though, in fairness, it’s unclear how fairly the Wike-backed majority would have dealt with that.
This parting shot on Rivers: let Fubara, galloping from crisis to crisis, know that this same Clark, as famed presidential godfather with unbridled Ijaw nationalism, pushed Jonathan to losing a second term. But when he did, Clark left Jonathan to rue his loss.
But the saving grace: though Jonathan is far younger, he has, in his post-president days, proved far more seasoned in state matters, than his self-named presidential godfather! If you doubt, compare and contrast the duo’s Rivers interventions!
Back to Kano; Governor Yusuf and aides often behave more like gangs to pounce and crack down on anyone, democratic rights be damned.
When Yusuf lit the small fires — railroading the new Emirate law, shunning a clear court order — his godfather, Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso, played dumb: he had no idea. Yes, their campaign promised to revisit the Kano Emirate matter, but it’s specific form was Abba’s sole decision.
Now, with the Kano government’s judicial hara-kiri cropping adverse court rulings, Dr. Kwakwanso now blames the federal authorities for “importing” crisis into Kano! Yet, that comes from a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives (December 1992 – November 1993), two-term Kano governor, a former senator and minister of the Federal Republic, and a former presidential candidate!
Two governors! Two elders! Where did Nigeria miss the road on the leadership map?
