One year after Abubakar Rimi’s passage

It is one year this month after the death of first civilian governor of old Kano State Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi. He died on April 9 last year of heart failure after an encounter with armed robbers on his way back to Kano from attending a function at Dass in Bauchi State.

The unprecedented surging crowd of mourners that turned up at Emir of Kano’s Palace for his funeral prayers showed that the sagacious politician was a hero of his people whose cause he doggedly championed all his life.

The prayer earlier organized by his family members to mark one year after his death was to hold last Monday, April 11 but for the preparation for the ongoing elections. And the prayer was suspended until further notice.

Rimi’s death, according to his disciples and political associates, has left a deep vacuum that will be difficult to fill even in the distant future. Until his death, the resolute Rimi determined the political direction of Kano politics because of his ideological sincerity.

Since his demise, the tempo of political activities has remained dull in Kano as all the political parties lack focus. This is so because the politicians today do not respect parties but individuals who now control everything because they have money to throw around.

For example, Peoples Democratic Party’s lack of internal democracy was Rimi’s only problem with former defense minister Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso who now controls the party’s entire machinery in Kano State. Almost all PDP contestants, in the first place, believe they cannot win election without his support and blessing. Expectedly, Kwankwasiyya, a PDP slogan in Kano, derives from Kwankwaso’s name, explaining the kind of control he has over the party.

The same scenario describes the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), a party believed to be surrounded by strange bedfellows in the state. It is a common knowledge indeed that all those who found home in ACN in Kano are runaway members of either PDP or All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). Kano’s incumbent deputy governor Engineer Tijjani Mohammed Gwarzo was given the party’s automatic ticket to fly its flag in the governorship election now scheduled for April 26.

Gwarzo left ANPP in annoyance because Governor Shekarau failed to anoint him as his successor. And all other top figures in the party are his supporters who he helped materially when he was made commissioner of water resources. The deputy governor and his supporters are in ACN not because of its ideology but because they want to contest for elections.

General Muhammadu Bahari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) is not without crisis. The protracted crisis bedeviling the party arises from a scramble for power. Most members of CPC want to ride on Buhari’s popularity to contest elections on the party’s platform and the crisis in the party seems far from being resolved as the leader of the party General Buhari does not want to intervene to avoid being blamed for taking a side. Internal squabbles now affecting party badly in Kano.

The imposition of Salihu Sagir Takai by Governor Ibrahim Shekarau as ANPP governorship candidate was the beginning of the party’s crisis. Many left it in annoyance. For instance, key ANPP figures from the state such as Deputy Governor Tijjani Gwarzo, Senator Muhammad Adamu Bello, Sani Lawan Kofar Mata and many others left the party because they felt they could not get justice.

Every politician in Kano, especially one contesting an elective office, tries to identify himself with the late politician or any member of his family to get recognition from voters. For example, Rimi’s younger brother Alhaji Sule Sa’a is now being accused by PDP members of being bought by ANPP to call all Rimi’s supporters to vote all ANPP candidates.

The late former governor of old Kano was indeed the most loved politician ever after Malam Aminu Kano in the country’s most populous state. His death brought together politicians from diverse political backgrounds.

Political analysts say only time will tell when there may emerge a politician of Rimi’s standing. Rimi, they argue, remained a leading light in Kano’s political landscape right from the Second Republic when he was elected governor. He stuck to party ideology and that was why he was able to make an unbeatable record up till today when he held sway as governor between 1979 and 1983. The clear mission of the PRP-led government in Kano State was to abolish cattle tax and other low-level fiscal measures that obviously became a thorn in the flesh of the ordinary people, and to also fight the feudal system he so much hated.

Significantly, Rimi was variously described as the most misunderstood politician. He did not believe in throwing out money simply to get acceptability or to get elected as is the case at present. He tried till his death to dismiss the trend as inimical to the survival of any democratic setup.

As a leader he believed in the collective welfare of all by bringing genuine development for everybody to benefit from. It was in line with this belief that he, as a stickler for quality job, chose the best academics and technocrats as his cabinet members.

Rimi was also believed to be the last person after the late Malam Aminu Kano who had the genuine support of the masses. He won the support of the downtrodden for the true love he had for them. His concern always was to liberate the common man to know his rights. No sooner after he first moved into Kano Government House upon his inauguration as governor than he led the masses, people who went to congratulate him, into his inner office in order to demystify the governor’s office.

Unlike the current political actors who see deceit as a political weapon, Rimi was down to earth as he would tell the truth however bitter it might be. His outright dismissal of a suggestion by some sycophantic government aides that his government should include his Sumaila constituency among the places to first benefit from his administration’s rural road programme earned him great respect from all, including the opposition.

The late Kano governor’s political views were always issue-based, not personality. His political misunderstanding with former Kano governor Engineer Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso was purely ideological as he had no personal ill-feeling against Kwankwaso. Those closely monitoring Rimi’s political antecedents would always say so. It had been his ideology since the time of NEPU days.

On what became of Kano politics in Rimi’s absence, his political associate Alhaji Lili Gabari said a lot of changes have taken place in Kano’s political terrain. He said the late politician had taught all his followers never to destroy the ‘progressive’ ideology and had “instructed us to always embrace dialogue to sort out differences with other proponents of the movement”.

Rimi’s disciple Comrade Sa’idu Bello described the late politician as the most misunderstood person, saying that the former governor remained consistent in his political ideology till his death. Bello also said Rimi, being an outstanding politician, always stood on the side of truth.