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As the jostle for the
State’s No. 1 Office heats up ahead 2011, the usual
political hustle and bustle was sure to intensify and
the usual tools and arsenals of the trade, which are
most of the time anything but civil, will expectedly be
brandished with reckless abandon. The smear campaigns,
slanderous name-calling and propaganda machineries will
be oiled and their silos opened for deployment. My
readers will agree that the preceding scenario is
anything but new to
Nigeria ’s political landscape and Kebbi state
was not expected to provide a saintly exception.
A
cursory look at my designation below will of course readily
indicate that I’m anything but a casual observer, of which I
make no attempt to profess otherwise, and though sworn to
serve and protect my boss and Governor, will hope to so do
with as much impartiality and open conscience as I could
possibly muster knowing fully well that my avid reader would
have deduced (perhaps not unsurprisingly) that my names
bear no resemblance or possible allegiance to the usual
nomenclatures of northern Nigerian names (I infact hail from
Ideato South LGA of Imo State but reside in
Birnin Kebbi). It is therefore safe to assume that
the appointment of an Igbo man as a Special Assistant by the
Governor of a Northern State could not have been just a
chance occurrence, but rather, a well-thought leadership
action by such a Governor, which I make bold to assert is
the first practical testimony of
His Excellency’s magnanimity, all-inclusive
governance and open-door policy that has endeared him to all
and sundry across the state – irrespective of race, creed or
religion.
And hence my worry for my Governor, who I must confess is in
my humble perception perhaps sometimes wee bit too civil for
the Machiavellian intrigues and Brutus-style backstabbing
that has so far characterized the game. While commending the
Governor’s SA on Media, Musa Argungu, for doing a yeoman’s
job of keeping the desperate bloodhounds at bay, I must
equally opine, with all due respect to my boss (whose leave
I did not take before writing this piece), that silence is
not always golden in these matters, because falsehood told
repeatedly through the banal alchemy of propaganda may
assume a toga of truth in public perception if not countered
with real facts.
In the last few weeks, the dailies have been inundated by
not quite a few publications from the Kangiwa brothers and
another faceless group calling itself the Concerned Kebbi
Patriots (whose paymasters we have equally unmasked). Their
brief was simple - cast aspersion on the personality and
administration of His Excellency, Alh Sa’idu Usman Nasamu
Dakingari. But rather than dwell on empirical evidence, they
chose to unfortunately thread a well-worn political path
which even the most dim-witted could see through. While I
have nothing personal against the Kangiwa brothers whose
declaration of Governorship intent I was invited to attend
at Atiku Villa Birnin Kebbi in 2007 and where I equally
delivered a goodwill speech during the then ANPP era prior
to the primaries and the decampment to the PDP, I’m rather
piqued by their newly found vocation – an ill-advised
unabashed attempt (bothering on desperation) at garnering
cheap political capital by stretching the limits of
demagoguery. saniabdul03@yahoo.com
It is rather unfortunate and even somewhat understandable
that they and all those who expected it to be
business-as-usual find Governor Dakingari’s style of
governance too uncompromising and reformist to ingest.
Haba Gwamna, why should you insist on paying contractors
for only jobs that are properly executed and what did you
expect when you refuse to award phoney projects to siphon
billions of Naira from the public treasury or to further
pauperize the citizenry by using your relations as fronts to
give out motorbikes and rice on loan to
civil servants
at exorbitant prizes while deducting the amortization
directly from source to your bank accounts?
Truth is, those that attack and pillory Governor Dakingari
are either delusional or being simply mischievous.
Unfortunately, he’s not also the type that calls the media
to a lavish opening ceremony of every borehole, feeder road,
school, dispensary or public toilet constructed. He
earnestly believes that the proofs are just there to be seen
and should speak for themselves. There are indisputable
records to the fact that Governor Dakingari inherited a
heavily indebted State with a sycophantic, wasteful,
self-serving and blindly patronizing style of
Governance
that was simply unsustainable. He knew well that cleaning
the Augean stable wasn’t going to be easy. But if his
detractors expect that by these attacks, he will deracinate
and cave in to their pressure and consequently abdicate the
oath he swore to the good people of Kebbi state on this ‘amana’,
then they may have to see a shrink.
Interestingly, their new propaganda shift (labeled ‘operation
kunama’) is to attempt to portray Governor Dakingari as
anti-President
Goodluck Jonathan because of his marital affiliation
to the late President Musa Yar’adua. Unfortunately this will
also be another failed demagogic experiment because Mr
President should know better who the ring leaders of the
cabal that never wanted him to assume his constitutionally
assigned role first as Acting President, then as President,
were. I make bold to further assure President Goodluck that
if he decides to run in 2011, and the PDP grants him a
ticket, then Governor Dakingari and the entire people of
Kebbi State will prove to him who his true lovers and
haters really are.
The gang-up is understandably slowly building up and I will
address the issue of the Shettima Gwandu and Tafidan Argungu
in subsequent publications, but suffice it to say that
despite my Governor’s characteristically gentlemanly silence
and demeanor, we his lieutenants will match his detractors
pen for pen, until the real people of Kebbi State see them
for what they truly are – just self-serving, belly-filling
demagogues bent on political self-preservation all cost. A
word is enough for the wise.
Onyedikachi Sani Obi (JP), a
Christian Youth Leader and ICT consultant is the Special
Assistant to Governor Sa’idu Nasamu Dakingari on Inter-Faith
Matters. He can be reached on
08037572918
or
dikachiobi@yahoo.com or
saniabdul03@yahoo.com
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Published
September 12th, 2010
