With our attention legitimately riveted on the ruin at the federal level, clowning at the state level is at its best. State governors are outgunning each other for mention in the Guinness Book of Idiocy, especially those in their second terms. Second terms are for misbehaving in a country where governance is a joke.
Take Aminu Bello Masari the clueless governor of Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina. At 69, a step away from becoming a recognized ancestor, Masari was Speaker and twice attempted the governorship race before underage voting and rigging smiled on him. Forget Buhari’s helipad, Katsina is a rural state ravaged by mass poverty, illiteracy and the nine yards of underdevelopment.
As governor, Masari is an apology that takes selfies with bandits he was elected to annihilate. Masari deserves a mention in Onyeka Onwenu’s 1984 classic – Nigeria: A Squandering of Riches for gifting N6.5 million of state funds to a Hollywood actress. Pumped with the misapplication of public funds, the donee made a YouTube clip showing a teller bearing the name of Ummi Abdulwahab. That skit could be seen on (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGdelQol_s4&feature=share).
Latest available records show Katsina’s debt profile to be N30.852 million.
Masari is better than Kano, which years ago rejected an offer to site a multimillion-dollar film school in the state because it would have encouraged debauchery. But under Gandollar, Kano is always in the news for ridiculous reasons. Last week, Abdullahi Ramat, the Director-General of the Kano Metropolitan Agency explained the financial and environmental cost of lighting up Tumbin Giwa. He proudly told Freedom Radio that 149 generating sets pollute the air in each night’s attempt at making Kano look like the parody of Dubai gulping N200 million.
Before now, every streetlight pole consumed 800 watts of electricity. With Ramat in charge, Kano would now reduce that costly carbon footprint to 120 watts and the monthly bill to N150 million. That should make the Swedish prodigy Greta Thunberg a Kano happy camper. Apparently, nobody in hot and humid Kano has ever heard of solar panels. When Greta visits, it’ll be grand to bring a panel long enough not to fit into a governor’s pocket and with an inscription, not to be stolen by state executhief.
Governance is a burden for those with brains. For instance, since Muhammadu Buhari initiated nepotism at the national level, it has gained traction even in states run by the ‘opposition’ PDP. For instance, Ifeanyi Okowa, the medical doctor, governor of Delta State asked his idiotic critics to shut up after announcing his daughter as Special Adviser on Girl Child because ‘she deserves it’. In this second term, Okowa promised a lean cabinet, a euphemism for family members only!
In Jigawa, where an accountant is a governor under the APC, things are no different. With the possibility of joining those whose foreign investments are their foreign wives, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar is better than his comrades-in-the-faith who cast lots to determine who in the harem becomes the first lady. Jigawa has three first ladies with yet to be announced portfolio. Each comes with an aide paid from Jigawa’s abundant resources. In addition, Badaru has a special adviser for streetlights and another for population control. That means Jigawans might soon need a license to procreate. Imagine if such licenses were issued in 1961, the year Badaru was conceived!
#BBCEye has revealed a Brutish colonial agenda. We never heard of sex for marks, nor had we any inkling that our universities are citadels of debauchery. Well, state institutions exist for an extra motive. Every governor struggles to convert a primary school into a state university. But unlike Nasir el-Rufai, they do not send their children to their glorified hovels. State universities don’t mould first citizens.
Taraba has a university that is not often in the news. You won’t say that your host’s stew is salty while at the table. JT Sanni, my uncle would usually ask if there is still salt left in the house. But Joseph Israel, a Laboratory Science student of the Taraba State University has no respect for his college’s visitor, often going on his Facebook page to rave and rant against Darius Yakubu. Like Buhari, Ishaku wants the world to see his state as calm, peaceful and his government as the best after Buhari. Of course, he does nothing to earn those attributes and hates being reminded that governance is for work.
He needed to stop being criticised. An excuse came when the Taraba State University discovered that Israel had committed the unpardonable sin of ‘refusal to fill the matriculation form’. They invited him to a panel where they asked him why he often criticises his governor on Facebook. He fired back that they should show him a law forbidding him from expressing his views openly on governance. They dismissed him with a promise to get back to him. They did. They sent Yakubu Fwa, the deputy registrar academic to convey his expulsion to him. In his letter to Israel, Fwa deposed that the non-signing of the matriculation register makes Israel ‘a ghost student’ a crime warranting expulsion.
Strange things happen when you take clowns from the circus and grant them state power and immunity.
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