Governor Abdullahi Ganduje: Google image

Yerima, former Governor of Zamfara State

By Tunde Asaju

Yesterday was Friday. Juma’a Mubarak to the faithful and their faithful friends. May Allah SWT grant us grace to witness more of it and to be counted worthy of His blessings here and in Aljannat Firdaous. Amin thuma amin.

So, I will offend a lot of people today (it happens). Maybe I will even get a fatwa (it comes with the terrain, yesterday I was called a hypocrite for refusing to be initiated into witchcraft).

I have read from my sister Bamidele Ademola-Olateju’s wall that Abdullahi Ganduje, the privileged governor of Kano State has promised not to delay in executing the warrant for the execution of the Kano singer who allegedly blasphemed the Prophet (SAW).

I share in Bamidele’s initial position about how warped the world of religionists have become in our clime. Sani Yeriman Bakura the man who reintroduced political sharia in Nigeria is a classic example of how we get our priorities wrong once we wear our religious goggles. As a northerner, growing up even in Okeagi, I was aware that there was sharia in northern Nigeria. As a youth ‘youthing up’ in Kano, I knew the good and bad sides of Sharia and I knew who usually end up as casualties.

In Zamfara, Ahmed Sani was quick to make Jangedi his political sharia scapegoat. He amputated the goat thief’s hands but himself escaped all the allegations of incompetence and obvious mismanagement of Zamfara funds. He later told people that Zamfarans wanted Sharia and he gave it to them. Yerima’s mismanagement may have laid the foundation for the harvest of deaths that now characterizes that potentially rich state. Our elders say that it is not the day the child insults the iroko tree that the lightening strikes him dead. Actions and inactions have eternal consequences. I know that even if we win the war against insurgency, the lives of generations are blighted by its impact. Does Muhammadu Buhari know that?

I am laying a foundation here, so please bear with me. This is a very dangerous subject. In Kano, Ganduje was filmed stuffing dollars in every orifice of his garment. It is the most shameful act by any chief executive since Sabo Bakin Zuwo retorted that finding government money in government house is not a crime.

In other climes where people are less ‘ungodly’ and have no basis for sharia, that video evidence would have ended Ganduje’s political career for ever.

Ganduje remans bold-faced and full of cant. The journalist who exposed him escaped death by whiskers. He (the journalist) who would have won a Pulitzer in America for that sting operation became the enemy of the people. People quoted scriptures to show that when you come across a fellow Muslim doing something wrong, you do not expose him and bring ridicule to the faith, you chastise him privately. That is why it doesn’t matter to people. If Buhari went to Kano on Friday during Juma’a and shot his way through, he’ll still be some people’s Amirul Mumeen! People became angry with the one who exposed Ganduje’s evil and left Ganduje the evil-doer.

The Kano State House of Assembly pretended it was an independent arm of the realm and attempted an investigation (in Canada it’ll be the RCMP, in America it’ll be a felony to be investigated by the FBI and in the UK, Scotland Yard would be up working). But Ja’afar Ja’afar has become some people’s enemies for life. He remains my hero for his boldness and forthrightness! May Allah be kind to him. Our Kano needs him and our society needs many like him.

Ganduje escaped scrutiny from Mai Gaskiya, the anti-corruption czar. Buhari was gauging his chances with Kano voters. He turned his bad ears to the loud complaints of kwarrupshion in the hallowed chambers of Kano Government House that would have made Audu Bako, the man who laid the foundation for the progress of Kano State squirm in his grave.

Ganduje would go ahead to ‘win’ the re-election against untainted candidates. Abracadabra, the courts would ‘rubberstamp’ the electoral fraud. The people of Kano are long-suffering!

With federal support, Ganduje would clean the state of the only remaining conscience it had – Amr Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, our eternal Amr of Hearts! Ganduje a son of a nobody in Kano entered historical infamy by reaping from the foundation of corruption.

For the information of Ndidi Uche Samuel, I know Ganduje. I slept in Ganduje’s official residence in N’djamena the Chadian capital where he served as chief executive of the Chad Basin Commission. I ate his food and drank his water and was there when he was interviewed – gaskiya dokin karfe. My hypocrisy dies in the face of facts, not conjectures and innuendo, dear Uche.

So, given Ganduje’s track record of quacking like a duck, and looking and walking like one, we pronounced him a duck! He should have carried out his duty to ‘unjust’ justice without making a remark on another convict. For indeed it is true what Abubakar Rimi once said – there are three judgments – the judgment of man, the judgment of the people and the judgment of Allah! In the mind of any Kanawa of conscience, Ganduje is a convict of conscience.

Yes, I think that Ganduje lost the moral right to condemn anyone for anything. I believe that Ganduje loses the moral right to sign anybody’s death warrant. My little knowledge of sin (zunubi) is that there is no small zunnubi or a great zunubi, zunubi is zunubi! The thief and the adulterer would have their equal share in الجحيم – aljahim.

The shame of our society is that chicken thieves stands in the court of moral opinion to condemn the cow thief. Before Allah, thieves are thieves. If we love Allah so much, we should call corruption what he calls it – zunubi!

Yes, Ganduje would argue that his crime has not been proven while that of the singer has. It is proof how earthly judgement works against the poor to favour the rich and the affluent.

Asked why he introduced political sharia, Ahmed Sani said it was what the poor wanted. He was elected to lead them because he was thought to be better than them. Prophets and political leaders are presumed better than the people they lead, that is what qualifies them first before Allah endorses them.

In our eyes and in the eyes of morality, Ganduje would remain a thief! He would need to take the image of him stuffing dollars into the orifices of his garments from our hearts even if he gets and destroys the original videos by virtue of his position today.

I feel for the country that I love. It gave me birth and has nurtured me with ilmi (education) formal and informal. He has also placed me in a good position to view these things and the courage to speak about these things. I pity my people who keep silent watching the law (secular and religious) work against the poor while the rich and powerful break through it with impunity. No nation grows like this.

Nigeria cannot continue like this. We can’t keep jubilating that someone should die for an infraction when the judge and jury are themselves moral reprobates buying fame and fortune hiding under religion and subterfuge. The courts have passed sentence, on a blasphemer, how does it feel to see a man whose hands are laced with corruption signing the execution warrant and looking forward to it at a time he is about to jet off to China to plunge the sons and daughters of the poor into eternal servitude to the Chinese?

Who will save the poor from themselves and their inability to decipher that their rulers are their ruiners who use religion and ethnicity to manipulate them into remaining in power? I am sad to read that Ganduje looks forward to killing a sinner when he stands on the gavel of corruption. It hurts so bad!

I have spoken my mind. Bring the arrows and if it makes you happy, I will return home someday, perhaps soon, lay an ambush and snuff life out of me. If that cures your misery, may God help you. May Allah be kind to us all for our various zunubi!

-Tunde Asaju, a multi-lingual journalist, writer and public affairs analyst, writes from Ottawa, Canada