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Nigeria is a very interesting nation. And for sure it is not for nothing that outsiders see the country as a global bastion of unprecedented corruption. If one pays a visit to any of our prisons today, one would find individuals spending time for stealing a loaf of bread, whereas others who stole the nation blind and somewhat rendered their states comatose are being feted and granted bigger access to the corridors of power. This has been our fate from time immemorial.
My honest assessment of the journey so far is that the administration of President BolaTinubu has started on a sound footing. Things were looking very rosy for Nigeria, at least as far as the anti-corruption posture of the administration was concerned, in spite of the pending electoral cases in the tribunal, as well as the controversial removal of subsidy on petroleum that has made life miserable for hapless Nigerians.
While many Nigerians look up to a glorious future and are ready to forgive President Tinubu for some of these inadequacies, he suddenly allowed for some very controversial appointments into his administration. At the moment, there are at the minimum two big appointments that stand to seriously undermine the new administration, unless they are reversed as quickly as possible, a scenario I must admit is not too likely, given our type of politics that emphasizes unmerited patronage.
Those appointments are of the immediate past governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje (appointed as national chairman of the ruling party, the APC), as well as that of the immediate past governor of Zamfara State, Bello Matawalle (nominated by the President and cleared by the Senate to become a minister). Wow!
There are also other formidable issues around Matawalle’s political soulmate and fellow former governor of the backwater state of Zamfara, Senator Abdul’Aziz Yari, that Nigerians need to be reminded about, if we are truly serious about building a just and egalitarian society that we all will be proud of.
About two months ago, I sat down with Fatima, my teenage daughter, to discuss her career choice and the course of study she was going to pursue, as she got set to start university education. From childhood, she had always wanted to be a medical doctor, and it was a dream I supported. But getting admission for her has become an arduous task. And so, in the meeting under reference, I recommended she pursued a course of study in physiotherapy, which she happily accepted. She applied and was offered admission by one of the universities in Kano.
Then something shocking happened last week: a certain Maryam Shetty was announced as a ministerial nominee representing Kano. I am not a politician. Little wonder the name sounded strange to me. But one of the issues for which she was attacked by those who disagreed with her nomination as minister was the fact that the young brilliant woman is a physiotherapist.
Fatima, my daughter, who is also very keen on current affairs, brought this fact to my attention, asking whether there was something wrong with women pursuing a career in physiotherapy. Of course I assured her there was nothing of such. But the young woman’s spirit has been broken. She no longer wants to be a physiotherapist.
Then two days later, precisely last week Friday, a letter signed by the President, addressed to the president of the Senate, shockingly withdrew the nomination of Shetty and her replacement with a certain Maryam Bunkure, another name I also never heard of.
While the nation was left in a serious state of shock as to the reason for this strange action, Abdullahi Ganduje, the new chairman of the APC, obviously basking in the euphoria of being selected to lead the ruling party, granted an interview to some radio stations, during which he made statements that seriously cast doubts about the Tinubu administration that millions of Nigerians still look up to with lots of hope.
Just like the accusations the nation endured when the late Malam Abba Kyari was President Buhari’s chief of staff, when a lot of things were said to have taken place without the President’s knowledge, Ganduje told us probably inadvertently that Tinubu’s administration was the same when he commented on Shetty’s appointment as follows:
“President Bola Tinubu’s attention was drawn to the torrent of criticisms greeting Shetty’s nomination. The President asked whether I had nominated Shetty. I said no. He asked how then her name appeared on the list. I told him I had no idea whatsoever.”
Thus far, no accusation on the Tinubu administration is more damning than this because it casts a lot of doubts as to whether the incumbent President has any control at all over his government or in particular the issue of who emerges as minister in the federal republic. And that is a key appointment recognized by the Constitution.
Ministers determine the success or otherwise of any government. So how come Tinubu, renowned for hiring the best hands, did not know how Shetty’s name made it to the ministerial nomination list? At least, that was what Ganduje revealed to a shocked nation. Till today, apart from tea-joint gossip, there is no answer as to how that happened. And no one has yet been punished for usurping the powers of the President to nominate Shetty as a minister.
While this shocking development continues to leave a bitter taste in the mouth, the same Ganduje told the whole nation that he was responsible for the removal of Shetty’s name from the list and her replacement with another woman known as a close friend of his daughter, who also served as a commissioner in his controversial administration in Kano. But that is not the whole issue. Ganduje had the audacity to tell Nigerians that one of the reasons Shetty’s name was struck off the ministerial list was because of social media attack.
In his words: “We could not appraise her. But suddenly she (Shetty) came under attack on social media. People questioned her integrity and experience, with many of them doubting her credentials to represent Kano at the national level. There were growing disaffections. The dissatisfaction is not from Ganduje, but the people of Kano.”
If Ganduje was known as a drunkard, a lot of people would have excused him for this unprovoked vituperation. So, since he is not, what this means is that the former governor knew everything he was saying, and the reason could be that either he deliberately couched his words to set up the Tinubu administration (very unlikely), or that he allowed his vast political experience to take flight in his celebration of the downfall of a very brilliant woman young enough to be his daughter.
If I were Ganduje, I would refrain from uttering the words “social media” in public, for the rest of my life. The same social media that the new APC chairman cites as the reason Shetty had to be dropped as a minister was ignored by him, by former President Muhammadu Buhari and now President Tinubu to overlook reportedly credible, authenticated videos in public domain, showing him stuffing wads of dollars in his babbar riga, passed to him by a government contractor.
Even recently, the Kano State Anti-Corruption Commission has invited Ganduje to answer charges regarding that dollar video. The former governor had to seek refuge from a court, which granted him injunction from arrest on that score, until the determination of the matter.
There is no social media insult that Ganduje did not endure, and which he will endure for the rest of his life, courtesy of the dollar videos. So negative was the whole thing that he is best known as Gandollar by very many Nigerians. So, if social media account of a man or woman could be the reason to drop the person as a ministerial nominee, then Ganduje would never ever smell a public office in this country. In fact, if it had happened in China, the man may long have been dispatched to the great beyond, given that country’s zero-tolerance for corruption.
The other word Ganduje should be afraid to use, because it will always remind the people of the dollar video, is “integrity.” But the man deployed that word generously in his celebration of successfully bringing down the young Shetty. Hear him:
“When he (President Tinubu) asked whether there was a need to replace her (Maryam Shetty), I answered in the affirmative, because the ministerial slot requires someone with integrity, knowledge, experience and commitment to the party – what one contributed to the making of the Tinubu administration. To satisfy these requirements, we are in the best position to nominate somebody from Kano. Even if someone recommended somebody, we should have been consulted on the matter.”
Ganduje of all people? Wonders shall never end.
(To be concluded next week)
