Tag: governors

Last week on these pages, we talked about Yoruba governors who wear Awo’s cap without imbibing Awo’s character and philosophy. I think they have their parallel all over the country especially in the north where Ahamadu Bello, Awo’s contemporary, with an annual budget of 44m pounds, lower than what each of the 414 LGAs in the north today collects as allocation, according Nuhu Ribadu, “maintained law and order and ensured effective security of life and property, built Ahmadu Bello University, Ahmadu Bello Stadium, NNDC, the largest black-owned conglomerate in black Africa;  built many textile factories, good roads, marketing boards, efficient water supply etc” while the 19 northern  governors sadly  have nothing to show for the N8.3 trillion they  got from the federation account between 1999 and 2010″.

While Awo and Bello as Premiers, stayed  at home,  studied and proffered solutions to the problems of their people, many of today’s imperial governors spend more time in Dubai, Britain, US, Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia purportedly sourcing for investors or shamelessly using taxpayer money to fulfill their religious obligations. Some even chose South American islands as their own destination. But we now know from the Panama papers that some governors use some of the Islands as safe havens to avoid payment of taxes on alleged stolen state allocations badly needed to checkmate the menace of Fulani herdsmen that have turned part of the Middle Belt into a killing field in the last seven years.

Unfortunately, northern governors and their lawmakers believe the federal government is the answer to all their problems. This is probably the only reason why 19 northern governors whose major reason for being in government is the protection of life and properties, will last week disingenuously claim the Fulani herdsmen problem have to be resolved by the federal government. Speaking on behalf of Northern Governors Forum, Kashim Shetima, their chairman insisted ‘the crisis goes beyond Fulani herdsmen and as such, the country must collectively work towards a solution’. He did not forget to introduce an odious comparison between Fulani herdsmen’s atrocities and kidnapping in the South-east  without making a distinction between the target of the latter which are  Igbo victims of the tyranny of their own leaders who made fortunes by bargaining in their names and the target of the former who are victims of state tyranny with an unjust land allocation Act which has reduced them to subsistence farmers in small parcels of land not yet confiscated by government to satisfy the rich.

Now the patrons of Fulani herdsmen, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Associations speaking through Nuru Abdullahi and Ardo Ahmadu Suleiman, their leaders in Plateau and North West Zone arrogantly say the federal constitution which allows land to be taken from the poor for the use of the rich, gives them access to any land in Nigeria. To show there is unanimity of thoughts on the issue by northern politicians, Hon Sadiq Ibrahim (Adamawa APC) on April 13 sponsored the National Grazing Routes and Reserve Bill which seeks the establishment of a commission to control and manage grazing routes and reserves in all parts of the country. The commission will be expected to undertake a physical/geographical analysis of land use in each state in order to ascertain the best and most appropriate place to locate the federal government reserve and route within the state.

Defending the bill during a Channels TV programme, Sadiq warned of the consequences of not passing the bill which include but not limited to the possibility of northern farmers driven by search for water overrunning the south in a matter of decades.  He forecloses the possibility of the north taking its fate in its own hands even after pointing out that Saudi Arabia a desert nation, has the largest cattle ranch in the world.

Sadiq also attributed the mindless killing of farmers and armless children and women by AK47-wielding Fulani herdsmen to the fact that  most children sent out of their homes as early as their ninth birthday to herd cattle not necessarily owned by commercial cattle farmers but by uncles and cousins spend their formative years bonding, not with man but animals.

The fundamental question to ask northern governors and their federal lawmakers, beneficiaries of the foresight of Ahmadu Bello who 60 years ago went round towns and villages of northern cities selecting underprivileged children including President Buhari for schools, is why they have not seen it as a challenge to end the lives of misery of nine-year-olds hijacked from their poor parents and forced to spend the most critical formative years  in the bush looking after cows owned according to Sadiq by ‘uncles and cousins’, who most certainly have their own children in the best schools in and outside the country?

Shetima’s Borno State before the outbreak of Boko Haram insurgency had only about 30% of children of school age in schools. It was not markedly different in many parts of the north where when nine year olds are not uprooted from their families to spend the rest of their lives in the bush, they are roaming the streets of northern cities as almajiris. Until the bold step taken by the former Kano State governor to provide an alternative choice to Kano street urchins and the introduction of ex President Jonathan’s nomadic schools, we have no records of efforts made by other northern governors to stop labourers siring labourers.

But the northern governors don’t have to look far to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Israel where desert regions produce enough food to feed themselves and parts of Europe. Many of the governors who are now in APC should ask Tinubu, Fashola and even newly elected Ambode how they have been able to manage the peculiar problems of their state without federal government support.

While the northern governors exploited the defective federal constitution to unfairly corner more LGAs and more federal allocations, Lagos State went on to create more Council Areas. The state in spite of a vindictive federal government creatively increased its IGR from pre- 1999 N600m to about N16b. The state set up LASTMA to tackle the traffic gridlock associated with urban centres in spite of a vindictive federal government that set up a parallel body made up of political thugs to confront Lagos State officials on federal roads. The state was the first to set up an Independent Power Plant. The pilot scheme took three years instead of three months because of a vindictive federal government fearing ‘Lagos might become like London”. Lagos State wanted state police to address peculiar urban problems as obtained in all federations in the world. The 19 northern governors that equally needed state police to address their own peculiar challenges of porous borders joined the federal government to kill the initiative. Lagos State did not give up. It went on to creatively make use of the same Nigeria Police to tackle the problems of violent crimes in the state. Fashola started the miracle of Oshodi; Ambode has completed it. Today, if you are caught loitering in Oshodi, you will be picked up by the police. And finally to ensure food security as well as prevent jobless immigrants taking on to crime, Ambode went to Osun State to lease land for agriculture. Two weeks back, he signed a Memorandumý of Understanding to establish a commodity value chain that will boost food processing, production, and distribution with Kebbi State.

The 19 northern governors who are busy passing the buck, their lawmakers who are sponsoring bills to shift their responsibilities to others, and Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Associations who are threatening to unleash armed Fulani herdsmen on poor farmers must be reminded that in a federation, states have the constitutional duty of defending their citizens. And states who like Lagos cannot creatively do that through LASTMA or the police are at liberty to employ the services of vigilante groups because states exist primarily to protect lives and properties of their citizens.