abdulraheem
Given the historical roles they are called upon to play, the political elite of a country ordinarily should be the best example of responsibility; of a measured attitude in speech; and a generally mature response to the public and the need to organize and lead change. This is why leadership recruitment must be taken seriously and it must be done with the overall interest of society’s progress as its basis. Alas, for Nigeria, one of the most glaring areas of failure in our national development processes has been in our faulty leadership recruitment pattern. A cursory study of the nation’s political culture reveals that on an incremental basis, we seem to make a poorer judgment of the types recruited with our political cycles: for example, the political elite seemed to have a greater sense of purpose during the First Republic. It was less so during the second republic; but by the period of the truncated transition of the Babangida regime, the quality became poorer, until today, when even drug dealers and all sorts of crooks and criminals found their way into the recesses of power. In describing leadership recruitment a major problem in Nigeria, our greatest writer, Chinua Achebe, once said that Nigeria seemed to always play its league games with its third eleven, so we never win! If we need any example of faulty leadership recruitment, we should not go further than the presence in the political leadership of our country, of individuals such as saminu turaki, former governor of jigawa state and presently, a senator. How on earth did saminu turaki get recruited into leadership? In a serious country, his type just would not get as far as to become a governor of a state for eight years. Years now regarded as largely wasted, for a state within the most backward region of Nigeria. In those years, saminu turaki presided over the systematic underdevelopment of Jigawa State; he ran a pyramid scheme of gimmicks and of bare-knuckled plunder, which left his state prostrate. Yet he ran a very sophisticated propaganda machinery which sold the cheap lie about how he was turning Jigawa, with its nearly non-existent primary and secondary school infrastructure, into a haven of information technology. Saminu Turaki was the author of some of the most hare-brained and bizarre political experiments, which literally locked up Jigawa State into a near-Stone Age non-development but which facilitated a systematic regime of theft and plunder. To facilitate his lunatic schemes and absentee governance, Saminu Turaki bought his way through to the heart of the Obasanjo regime; he handed over billions of naira of money meant for the development of his state (a sacred trust that he was sworn to serve as leader) by his own account, to Nnamdi ‘Andy’ Uba (the notorious imposter who loomed large during the regime of the discredited despot, Olusegun Obasanjo). Those monies were to stave off any EFCC interest in his affairs, as well as to facilitate the Third Term Agenda. Mercifully, the Nigerian people defeated third term and upon the ruins of that crazy idea, even people like saminu turaki got further leadership promotions by becoming a senator of Nigeria, on the basis of the fraudulent elections of 2007. If anybody thought that saminu turaki would lie low, to enjoy his jigawa loot and become just an ordinary member of senate, the man was determined to prove everybody wrong. Against the background of reports that the EFCC was about to re-open his old, skeleton filled, wardrobe from Jigawa (and all those missing billions of naira some that ended in oil blocks; some in the Nnamdi ‘Andy’ Uba run, Third Term Agenda financial bonanza and yet others to be discovered!!!), Saminu Turaki took the opportunity of his being made a member of (one of David Mark’s pet campaigns) the National Assembly joint committee on constitutional review (JCCR), to re-launch the discredited tenure elongation campaign, last week. THIS DAY newspaper of Friday, May 23, 2008, reported Saminu Turaki as canvassing for tenure extension for President Umaru Yar’Adua, “to enable his administration complete its development programmes”. The report said that Saminu Turaki is now canvassing for two terms of 14 years (seven years per term); “the constitution amendment should be done to make the tenure of the incumbent president to run for 14 years from 2007 to terminate in 2021”. Clearly, there is an awful lot wrong with Saminu Turaki; in the first place, it is clear that he does not respect the Nigerian people, especially the memory of those that were killed, fighting against the tenure elongation of the Obasanjo regime, which he funded with billions of naira of Jigawa State’s money. It is quite a co-incidence that those who died fighting against the Third Term Agenda had been killed in Katsina State, under Umaru Yar’Adua’s watch. It is one of the more uncomfortable truths of the Yar’Adua political record, that he was also a firm believer in the Third Term Agenda, as a former member of the House of Representatives reminded me last week. If Saminu Turaki chose to disrespect the Nigerian people, by stoking the embers of tenure elongation again, isn’t it also poignant that no word has issued from the presidency dissociating from the new form of lunacy that has issued forth from the senator from Jigawa? The question to ask is, why would Saminu Turaki choose this moment of his membership of the so-called JCCR, to ask for the elongation of the tenure of president Yar’Adua? What on earth has been achieved in the first year of a regime that seemed to have been living in a trance, induced by an overdose of ingestation of valium? Some perceptive observer reminded me that Saminu Turaki was merely looking for a way out of the problems he has over the missing monies of Jigawa State. He became governor on the platform of the APP/ANPP, and from that platform, he spent billions of naira to finance the Third Term Agenda. When all seemed lost, he crossed carpets to join the PDP; unfortunately, that did not save his skin, because the EFCC still went ahead to open the old closet of skeletons and missing funds. As a last ditched effort to stave off the impending problems of trial, seizure of funds and illegally-acquired properties and imprisonment, the senator from Jigawa suddenly recollected that President Umar Yar’Adua was part of the old, discredited Third Term Agenda band wagon! That is why Saminu Turaki chose this moment to re-open the most odious issue in Nigerian politics, tenure elongation: but Saminu Turaki will be sorely disappointed, because his advocacy of a “new Third Term Agenda” this time for Umaru Yar’Adua will not fly. Yar’Adua does not have the capacity to face the Nigerian people to seek tenure elongation, mired as he is in the problems of legitimacy which dog his regime. Tenure elongation is a settled issue of Nigerian politics, and no one, not even a crank will provoke the Nigerian people about an idea which we have decisively defeated. But the fact that someone like Saminu Turaki will get to the leadership position to be able to insult us all as a people, tells the tale of our leadership recruitment culture in Nigeria, but most especially in Northern Nigeria. What applies to Saminu Turaki must be extended to Ahmed Sani Yarima, a senator on the platform of the ANPP, who nevertheless was on a PDP podium, rooting for a candidate, other than that of his own party! The EFCC issue is said to be the basis of his strange “conversion” as well! It has become imperative to re-appraise the way we have recruited leaders in the past twenty-five years especially, in Nigeria. The emergence of a lumpen-bourgeoisie with roots in funds derived from crimes, drug peddling, 419 crimes and the outright theft of state resources must be traced to the era of SAP and the neo-liberal policies of Obasanjo. All of a sudden, emergence millionaires and billionaires emerged; often very rootless people, who do not have edified family backgrounds. They flaunt their ill-gotten wealth and in politics join parties like the PDP, to purchase positions in parliament, in the executive arm or as party financiers. It is this stratum of criminals and lumpen-bourgeois scum that can always be recruited for anti-people and unpopular schemes like tenure elongation. The consolidation of these types within political leadership in Nigeria, largely explains why Nigeria is in its sorry state today. Nigeria might not know much progress until we have decisively rooted out this band of lumpen politicians and “leaders”, from our political process. It is this irresponsible background which aided the emergence of the Saminu Turaki type, and that explains their lack of neither tact nor the sensitivity to respect the Nigerian people.
