Fiddling as their Rome burns

The last time Niger State had a dynamic governor was in 2007. That was when Ustaz Abdullahi Abdulkadir Kure bestrode Minna like the sultan of a caliphate. Those were the days when the only problems Nigerlites had been tackling the gullies between Suleja and Minna with the occasional robbery attacks.

Governor Kure solved all the problems so quickly he soon realised that what is left is how to herd his citizens massively into paradise. He did that by reinforcing the Sharia law, which, seriously speaking has been there since Nigeria adopted the Penal Code for the North and the Criminal Code for the South. 

To the applause of fellow religious zealots, Kure would ban the sale of alcohol, thereby restraining the spiritual culpability of the state to merely sharing the proceeds of khamr at the level of value added tax (VAT). The sale of akpeteshie might be haram, sharing the proceeds is halal. Kure found the time to enforce the ban, like occasionally stopping his own convoy just to set fire to palm wine- joints on the Minna-Abuja axis. Such zeal for the salvation of the souls of men has not been recorded since Jesus made a whip of cords and drove out the money-changers from a synagogue in Palestine. 

Kure also introduced education apartheid by compelling non-indigenes to discriminatory fees at Niger schools. Kure completed his term and succumbed to the cold hands of death leaving the acts of Kure and his many accomplishments to be written in the history of Niger State. None of his immediate successors were as keen to introduce political sharia until almost lately. 

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But for his recant, hurricane Muhammed Umaru Bago might have come close to Kure in sweeping through Niger State again. Within the last month of the past year, Bago has been hitting the headlines some would say for the wrong reasons. It has nothing to do with rehabilitating and reintegrating the thousands of internally displaced victims of insurgency that have made Niger State the new hotbed of terror.

Thankfully, not for things that could have warranted the visit of Kashim Shettima, our new minister of condolences. 

Bago first gained national notoriety when he banned the use of traditional garbs and reintroduced slave uniforms for all civil servants in the state. You wouldn’t beat his theory that wearing boubou and kaftan induces indolence while a necktie in 35 degrees heat is an elixir for productivity. Those who snigger at such ingenuity underrate the power of the title of Member of the British Empire, MBE, usually conferred on those who have served the interests of the colonial masters offshore. They might not know the values of heading the most productive state in Nigeria by the ILO. 

To the chagrin of religious zealots, Bago has denied reintroducing the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol in his state. To show how incensed such a rumour made him, the governor sacked the overzealous aide believed to have almost transformed a rumour into state law. This means that if you are reading from Minna or its outskirts or hoping to visit the most productive state in Nigeria, you could still be indulged in your favourite pint of whatever you drink except Hurricane Bago changes direction and becomes a gale-force wind. 

 When it comes to turning states into senseless killing fields, Niger IDPs must be considered a happy bunch. For now, they are not the subject of the senseless killing field that the so-called Middle Belt has been subjected to in the past eight years beginning with the carnage in Kaduna.  

Unfortunately, for those who live on the beautiful Plateau, it is dangerous to sleep even with one eye open. The 120 citizens who attempted to sleep on Christmas Eve did not wake up to recount their experience. They were senselessly massacred in an orgy that has continued in the state without let or hindrance, except of course you believe the story of the military top brass that only get promoted for dereliction of duty. The bloodletting began in Bokkos and Barkin Ladi in an orgy in which officials in the state confess they know the identities and location of the human bloodhounds, but are too powerless to bring them to justice. The killings have now become a daily affair numbing us from our initial shock and awe. 

The traditional home of peace and tourism is now Akeldama, the field of blood although Plateau leaders would prefer you play a parody of Madonna’s Don’t Cry for me Argentina. This is because Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang the interim governor of the state, has decided like his Biblical counterpart to see only the good of the land and not its bloodstains.  

While the blood of 120 of his citizens was still fresh on cold ground, Mutfwang chose a more dignifying assignment – leading his colleagues on the Governors’ Forum for a photo-op with President Tinubu who was celebrating the end of year break in Lagos. Mutfwang flew out of Rayfield to coral his counterparts to Lagos not to witness the rapture or the return of Moses, but to share a few moments with Number 16.  

The Plateau State governor needed to see Tinubu return home rather than face mass burial of his citizens for two obvious reasons. For one, he knows that wherever the president moved, the Nigerian State moved with him – the president might be more relaxed to listen to him while vacationing at his adopted home base.  

Second and most importantly, Mutfwang needed the photo-op. The governor is sitting with one part of his buttocks on the Plateau governorship. Anytime now, the Supreme Court could rule him unqualified to occupy that seat. This is a judicial sword of Damocles dangling over the governor. Imagine him missing a lifetime photo-op with the man while his mandate lasted? Not many Nigerian ruiners would miss such an opportunity.

Governor Mutfwang now has a pictorial memento that he shook the president’s hands and got the president’s approval to apprehend the killers of his people. Such a picture of him shaking hands at Bourdillon Palace would scare the heebie-jeebies’ out of any would-be assailant of the governor in future. 

The governor must have remembered Jesus’ charge to one of his would-be disciples who tried to go home and bury his parents – let the dead bury their dead.  Nobody expected Tinubu to reprimand this Nero for fiddling while his Rome burned. To do so would have placed him in a position where he could be accused of crying more than the bereaved. We truly have a wonderful country and we are well-deserving of those we select or who forcefully impose their ruinership on us. 

 Rays of hope 

If there was an award for renewed hope under this administration, it would probably go to Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, the square peg engineer put in the round hole at the Ministry of Interior. The ICT consultant is gradually turning a ministry known for declaring public holidays into one meeting its target of providing passports and other travelling documents for Nigerians in need.

I have never met or even heard of this technocrat until he began to ‘make waves.’ However, in an ocean of disillusionment that Nigeria has become, it is good to find an island to anchor the hope of one agency doing well.