While the 100-day scorecards of elected leaders at state and national levels since their May 29 inauguration divide opinion, some like Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, deserve mention for the sentimental value they bring to governance.
If there is an award for ‘The People’s Governor’, he would be a frontrunner for the courage, candour and conviction with which he has championed his beleaguered people’s cause in the past four years and more.
President Muhammadu Buhari may set the tone for patriotic leadership, but the governor amplifies it with a series of pro-people actions culminating in a recent appeal to friends, colleagues and associates to shelve media advertisement of 49th birthday greetings in his honour. The governor turned 49 on September 2.
Partly in honour of erstwhile state deputy governor, Alhaji Zannah Mustapha, who passed on his sleep on August 15, the governor pleaded that funds slated for the adverts be channelled to private organisations in Abuja and the state capital, Maiduguri, to support internally displaced people (IDPs) arising from the sectarian conflict in the Northeast.
Shettima’s Special Adviser on Communication and Strategy, Malam Isa Gusau, via a statement released penultimate Monday in Maiduguri, noted that “The restriction is to respect the memory of too many Boko Haram insurgents in recent and previous attacks as well as the utmost need to honour the Deputy Governor of Borno State, Alhaji Zannah Umar Mustapha, who died on August 15, less than three weeks ago.”
Mustapha’s demise occurred in Yola, Adamawa State where he had gone to represent the state government at the convocation ceremony of Modibbo Adama University of Science and Technology, Yola. He was expected to follow up on his earlier visit to Yola in connection with the welfare of Borno State citizens internally displaced as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency.
It is said that Shettima has refused to mark his birthday since 2011 when he became governor because of the insurgency challenge.
Besides its humanitarian value, the governor’s gesture opened a window into his soul. Hardly in doubt, his strength of character, as demonstrated by a willingness to give voice to his people’s frustration at the expense of relations with the immediate past presidency, led by Goodluck Jonathan, resonated.
Following the May 2013 declaration of a state of emergency in three northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, the government deployed troops to arrest the Boko Haram menace. The states shared the orgy of bloodletting and desecration of human and material resources that trailed a military crackdown on the sect in 2009, but the April 2014 abduction of 276 secondary school girls from the town of Chibok heightened Borno’s plight.
Disappointed by the feeble attempt at containment, the governor declared at the end of a meeting with the former president at Aso Rock Villa last February that the sect was better armed than the armed forces. “Boko Haram fighters are better armed and are better motivated than our own troops. Given the present state of affairs, it is absolutely impossible for us to defeat Boko Haram.”
The former president took umbrage at the submission. Before a four-member interview panel during the sixth presidential chat afterwards, a truculent Jonathan suggested that if he withdrew the military for one month from Borno State, the governor would find the state inhabitable and his position untenable. The Federal Government was making efforts to rectify the situation, he added.
The Senior Special Assistant to the former President, Doyin Okupe, stated that Shettima’s position reflected a poor knowledge of military tactics or equipment. But the governor demonstrated better grasp of the situation. While Jonathan skirted the restive region and voided a scheduled visit on ‘security advice’ after his itinerary leaked through the media, Shettima repeatedly braved the front.
Taking flak for screaming the military’s incompetence as attack topped attack, he sustained the call for better arms and never let until hope met change through last March’s nationwide elections and subsequent inauguration of President Buhari and his (the governor’s) second term upon re-election.
After first and second degrees in agricultural economics and careers as university lecturer and banker, Shettima served in various capacities in the Borno State government before winning the 2011 governorship election on the platform of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP). In the 2015 elections of February/March, he returned on the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket.
Sworn in alongside his late deputy by the aptly-named state chief judge, Kashim Zannah, Governor Shettima pledged to lobby the new Federal Government to consider granting amnesty to the militants as some form of solution to the costly problem.
In an articulate tribute published the Sunday before last, the governor betrayed emotion and insight in equal measure, enough to give the reader a fair idea of the psychological composition of the tag team that has charted Borno’s course since 2011. Only the apathetic would ignore the earnestness that ran through the governor’s plaintive ode to his departed partner.
Shettima’s capture of the late Mustapha’s profile seemed acute, just as his personality traits burst through the lines. While the subject, by the author’s admission, was ‘extremely honest, prudent and efficient’, and a goal-getter worthy of the moniker Mazan Fama (Reliable Warrior) bestowed by his boss, the other, by deduction, cultivates discipline, integrity and loyalty.
Two leaders alike, yet so different: one aggressive and vivacious; the other quieter and more reserved. Their complementary attributes clearly forged a union of political soul mates that might have more benefitted the state in favourable circumstances.
Together, they achieved commendable infrastructural progress despite obvious challenges. Besides bringing his passion for the welfare of IDPs to bear, the departed deputy governor helped his principal meet agricultural, health