Remembering Inuwa, the Kambari governor of Niger State

To many political analysts in the 1992 gubernatorial election, Inuwa’s emergence as governor would have played itself in their ears as a badly composed song as the physician took the political stage by storm, a feat unknown to come from minority ethnic groups in the state.

A physician by profession, Inuwa was born into a Muslim family in the year 1948 in the busy town of Kontagora, Niger State. He grew up with the position of a go-getter who stops at nothing to achieve his mindset once he gets the conviction to do so.

As little Musa picked his way through the dusty streets of Kontagora, no one would ever have believed he would one day leave the confines of his birthplace, let alone become the governor of the state from a minority extraction. What the former Niger State governor, however, had in abundance were will and patience, which he equipped with probity and servitude as would be revealed in his call to duty.

Many of his friends believe these qualities of his may have pulled him from a place known for its educational backwardness as at that time to blaze the trail as one of the first graduates from Kambari extraction. His journey through the archives of history began in the year 1955 when he enrolled for his primary education at Kontagora Central Primary School, passed out in 1962 to attend the Abuja Government Secondary School between the years 1963 and 1967.

Not deterred by the fact that he was among the few persons from his minority ethnic group of Kambari to go to school, young Inuwa did not settle for less but gunned his way to the topmost level of admission to study medicine at the FNMSC where he did his parts one and two from the year 1977 through to 1984.

His first practice as a cardiothoracic surgeon began in Ahmadu Bello University Hospital where he was on attachment representing his state for a period of two years between the 1982 and 1984. As an excellent surgeon, his profession took him beyond the shores of Nigeria as he served in several hospitals in Europe, which endeared him to the people in his state who called upon him to come back home and use his wealth of knowledge to develop the state.

That was when Dr Inuwa was appointed as Commissioner for Health in the year 1994, a position he held until he took a swing at Uthman Danfodio University where he lectured in its medical school. Oblivious of what was coming at him after doing a stint in bureaucracy as commissioner, he got another call to serve the state as governor during the build-up for the retired General Babangida-led Second Republic.

His friend, political adviser on legislative duties and former state chairman of the defunct National Republican Convention party, Alhaji Bala Jibrin Jos, talked of the build-up to Inuwa becoming the governor of Niger State. Jibrin Jos said that the late Inuwa was invited to run under the NRC to take the place of the initial candidate, Alhaji Ibrahim Aliyu, a call to duty which Alhaji Jos explained Inuwa gallantly took despite the fact that the odds of coming from a minority ethnic group and a late starter in the political calculation were against him.

Jibrin Jos explained that politics then was based on the personality of an individual and how it appealed to the people irrespective of ethnic or religious background, adding that Nigerians at the time were tired of military rule which had lasted for 13 years non-stop. He added that in today’s political calculation, perhaps Inuwa would have disappeared in the clouds of defeat as money, ethnic background and political cover were quite the resources he had in limited quantity.

After defeating his opponent from the Social Democratic Party (SDP) from the grassroots, it was then not surprising that he centred his then five-star agenda around the people living in the rural areas.

According to Alhaji Jos, Inuwa’s administration would have brought succour to the lives of rural dwellers as he provided them with clinics, water, electricity and inputs to mechanised farming. In the area of accountability, he was said to have had a legendary attitude towards probity and accountability as he was known for his sharp records of what was left in the state government account anytime of the day.

Jibrin Jos said every penny to its smallest detail Inuwa made sure he recorded personally as he practised prudent spending of government funds while he ruled as governor. After serving Niger State as governor between January 1992 and December 1993, Inuwa retired from politics and returned to his professional practice as a surgeon at his private clinic in Kaduna. He also tended to his farm in Kontagora.

The aging Inuwa was to be diagnosed with cancer of the colon, an ailment which he managed for a long period for the rest of his life. After trips in and out of the country to get the best of treatments, Dr Inuwa finally succumbed to the pressure of the malignant ailment at the Ahmadu Bello University Hospital, Zaria and was laid to rest in his hometown, Kontagora.