Re- Kano Central Senatorial Contest In The Eyes Of The Storm: Gwale’s Myopic And Baseless Assertion

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By: SHARIFF AMINU AHLAN

I read with dismay and pitiful feeling of shame of an unethical, blindfolded, and unmerited display of outright ignorance and misinterpretation of facts from the write-up with above mention captioned, published by the Daily Trust of May 23, 2022, by one unknown entity called Abdulkarim  Haruna Gwale, who shamelessly claimed to be representing a non existing association or forum called ‘Concerned Kano Citizen,’ in which in his quest and hungry desire to satisfy his pay master poured out his assessment and sentiment clouded opinion on the raging issues in relation to the battle of senatorial ticket of Kano Central between the undisputed Prince of Kano State politics who has turned out to be one of the most talked about  political giants, Excellency A.A. Zaura and corruption induced and assimilated political rotten rat called Senator Bashir Lado.

Having outlines the important and political significance of the zone in relation to the entire political equation in the state, being  the most populace and strategic zone, the need to produce competent and capable hand to represent the zone in the upper chamber is indeed paramount and deserved unhindered attention and concern of the party hierarchy and its entire members. 

The need of the party to present someone that would be sellable, who would easily attract voters due to his sterling qualities and past antecedents is indeed uncontested and unchallenged. The members of the party are fully aware of this and would naturally do justice to themselves and entire people of the state when the appropriate times surfaced. 

As such readers would expect him to do justice having claimed to represent the so-called Concern Citizen, by putting both candidates on the scale, weigh their competency and capability and in the process outline their achievements, past antecedents, popularity and presumed general acceptances with genuine and factual accession beret of sentiment or bias. Alas, the reading populace would then be allowed to made their conclusions based on critical analyses of the facts presented. 

But right from the word go, the writer exposed his true colour by open display of evil concocted desire to favour one side and not only castigated, bastardised and painted His Excellency A. A. Zaura in black with baseless, irrational and unnecessary open attacks on  his persona with sole purpose  of promoting his either a pay master or attention seeking target.

The writer went straight to the neck by extolling the virtues of Senator Bashir Lado by narrating his uncontentious average performances as the former Senator by which he glorified it and coloured it with sentimental narrations that give it an aura of excellent performances that is unprecedented and unmatched which is a mere exaggeration of a sentimental writer.

He brought the of  performances that centred on one single project on construction of the much repeated narration of its existence, the Gyadi Gyadi underpasses bride that is today refers as ‘Gadar Lado’, a federal government project, that to his credits he initiated the bill which led to its construction. 

But it was glorified corruption induced project in which billions of Naira were released for the project which serve as a mere pipeline of dubious and deceptive siphoning people collective wealth runnings to huge fortune in constructing cheap and non qualitative bridge that shamelessly crush few months after construction resulting into a massive reconstruction of the dangerously cracked side of the bridge. 

A product of systematic corruption that has become part and parcel of Lado opportune  political offices that is still prevailing in his subsequent appointments after vacating the senate seat. We would come back to that in due course.

He then glorified and made an much hype over the then popular and overrated radio programmes called ‘Sallamar Lado”. A programmed  conceived to entice populace to cast their votes on the man called Lado, by going round few selected houses in different parts of metropolitans where some representatives goes into a household and dolled out ten thousands to the family. It would then be recorded with media fanfare where the recipients are made to undergo unnecessary  interview which meant to serve its political purpose but at the same time exposing the identity of beneficiary’s.

But the writer highlighted that as an achievements, in which he ignorantly failed to differentiate between achievements while in office with preelection enticements.. Then also a funny campaign gimmicks where his representatives goes to soup beverages market where they normally bought some soup ingredients worth few thousands, going by their cheap prizes and distributed to the few lucky  customers presents under the watchful eyes of heavy assembly of media outlets who are always tasked and paid to give it massive publicity. 

Such peanuts consumed programme was also given precedence as massive achievements. Funny indeed.

Now let’s talk about his Principle whom all those in know are fully abreast with corruption induced and chronic public fund looter who is no fit to hold any political office of trust. There is an old saying that ‘Any one coming to equity should come with clean hands”. The so-called honest and achieving politician is presently consumed in the mess of investigations by our financial crime investigation outfit. 

The man who is currently been investigated in Globally acknowledge financial scandal of Malabo Contract scam. And still remember the undiscovered stolen funds from that funny bridge construction. And not mentioned an investigation of his merciless looting from Small and medium Enterprises based on the uncountable number of petitions tendered against with soundproof facts and evidences.

He was dismissed from the so-called appointments the writer was trying to justify as a demonstration of faith and trust has on him by the President Buhari. 

Dismissed from Ministry of Humanitarian and also fired by the same President Buhari from National Agency of Prevention of Human trafficking in person. The dismissal and faring from all those lucrative post was based of discovery of series of financial scandal and other dirty corruptions deals. 

Countless number of petitions tendered against him that were found to carry weight are what led to deserving loss of the positions and subsequent series of investigations going on him by both EFCC and ICPC. 

Many tendered proves of dirty allegations against by uncountable number of people he duped using his position with false promises of getting heavy contracts and patronage from the agencies and other government parastatals. Not to mention several other cases that naturally fingered him as unfit and underserving that cannot be entrusted with public funds..

Note that it is the same Lado that dedicated his whole in indulging of several evil concocted plans to truncate Zaura ambition through crafted moves that are unethical in nature. It was later discovered that is the same man that instigated EFFC to wake up a dead case with sole aim of painting Zaura black and in the process disqualified him from contesting elective posts. But for those who may not know, Zaura has no running case against any court across the country. In fact Zaura is presently the one that is seeking justice and collateral damage from the same EFCC that wants to dent his image in the Apex Court in the land.

As a man full of dubious skills manipulation and found his way to be part of three man committee to screen the aspirants seeking positions and forwarded to Senate Committee of Appeal.

 In his naked desperation, they hold a meeting at room 129 at Sheraton Hotel where they confined themselves and wrote a baseless, narrow-minded and sentiment attached beret of logic and concrete proof, an appeal asking the upper chambers members to disqualify Zaura without any visible proofs. But woofully lost the battle when the party national body found Zaura clean, pure with no case trail  in any court and without  any skeletons in his cupboard. 

In fact the national body of the party suggested to him to write a petitions based on several investigating cases against his detractor which would led to his disqualification from contesting, but out of his magnitude and sense of responsibility decided not pay the said Lado in his own coins. 

Confidence and self worth made him to let Lado come to the wrestling ground where he is ready and fully equipped to batter him and send him to canvass because he is far ahead of him no matter his foolishly blindfolded  assumption that he can out do Zaura in the contest. What a mirage!

But let’s puts them on scale of recognisable achievements as you want it to be interpreted. But consider it and compared with what the man you loved to hate is presently doing to the state, then your principle entire so-called achievements prior and when he was even in office with access to public trusted funds under his custody, it would simple turned into tiny and little portion of it.  

A. A Zaura has and still doing huge and unprecedented developmental projects to the state and extraordinary humanitarian services that runs into billions of naira which the entire nation and state bear testimony and acknowledged as unprecedented in the entire history of the state..

The said A. A Zaura was the man whom the number 1 citizen of the state, His Excellency Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje showered praises on him and repeatedly hailed as the biggest individual in the state interns of complementing government efforts that has never been seen in the state. His uncountable number of projects in the field of health care, peoples empowerments, educational sector, Islamic propagation and advancements in provision of financial grants to the sector, alleviating people’s sufferings, unquantifiable provisions of amenities and resources to various human sectors made him stand out over all others. 

And admiringly from his hard-earned personal fortune drives from business ventures scattered across the globe. In this, he towered above everyone, your principle inclusive. 

It’s also the same Zaura that the state governor once asked the other elites and well to do established business gurus to emulate. 

Stating that if other rich individuals copied and adopted Zaura’s selfless sacrifice of his hard-earned fortune, then the government and people of the state would become an object of envy from the entire federation and beyond.  And no one has to be told that his personal contributions to the entire population of the state surpassed what ever achievements recorded by your principle before and during his entire senatorial seat jamboree.

Funny enough, the writer even have a boldness and shameless guts to described his principle as the most popular and easily sellable to electorate. What a myopic and blindfolded assumption! The man A. A. Zaura has no doubt stoled the show within a year of joining the great party, where he has no doubt becomes the most popular and household name politician in the entire state. 

He descended on the platform and within a blink of eyes becomes one of the most popular and most talk about politician in the state. His name rings bells in almost every household in the entire forty four local governments across the state.

Then he ignorantly or dubiously decided to described Zaura as unfit and a risk to the party because according to him, Zaura had a pending case with EFCC and its tantamount to risking the ticket if given to someone with such pending case. What a mirage! From been the most popular and sellable candidate he is backing based on the non existing comparison with Excellency  Zaura, he  now turned his gear to blackmail and tarnishing the good image of a youthful and globally acknowledged achiever, all in bid to promote his principle. To lower his morals and paint him black he brought the issue of the so-called pending case. Which case?

A case that was no case in the first place. A dead and buried issue that was awakened simply for the purpose of this kind of childish and baseless blackmail. 

To put things straight, the case was brought against him in 2019 by the EFCC claiming that he had collected the sum of one million, three hundred dollars from a Qatar business man under false pretences. 

He was arranged n court with faceless complainant who never show himself through out the duration of the trial. All through the court proceedings, the man claiming to be the victim was never seen talk less of stating his side of the story and claimed whatever he was said to have been duped. 

The High Court that was adjudging the case decided to discharged and acquitted Zaura based on no evidences and non apperances of the claimer. 

The EFCC was asked to apologized to him and was dismissed in January 2021. But at the peak of the present campaign about two months ago, the said EFCC obtained a new judgement from Appeal Court which directed the High Court to retrial the case which was closed with an accused discharged and acquitted.  

The new judgement didn’t stated that Zaura was found guilty or the judges delivered a wrong judgement. Rather, it  based it’s judgement based on legal lacuna that is subjected to challenge and poor interpretations because the judgement claimed that the accused was not present in the court when the judgement was delivered as such it should go for retrial. 

But even a lay man knows that with present of lawyers, one don’t necessarily has to be in court prior to delivery of a judgement. The decision was justifiably challenged by his lawyers who appealed the said judgement to Supreme Court.. As such Zaura has no any court trial as such it should not an issue in the first place.

Let the representative of a faceless, fictitious and non existing  so-called Kano Concern Group seek for another calling and stop wasting his energy and resources in blackmailing a righteous and acceptable personality that has risen to the level of being regarded as a hot cake who has the clout, personality, records and aura of general acceptance and credibility that can deliver the seat due to his unmatched popularity and ‘out of this world sterling qualities that  with no iota of doubt made him a force to reckon with in our today political arena…

Shariff Aminu Ahlan is a lecturer at Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education Kano

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