COVID-19: The Dangers Facing Governor Ganduje

BRASS TACKS
with Suleiman Uba Gaya
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The first time I ever came close to Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje was in April 2013 when we stayed on the same floor, in the same hotel in Mecca, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Both of us were there for the Lesser-Hajj (Umrah) with members of our family. Within that brief period, I formed a very positive opinion of the man, who at that time was the Deputy Governor of Kano State.

That informs why when, two years later, his boss and outgoing Governor, Engineer Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso was dragging his feet in anointing Ganduje to become the gubernatorial flag bearer of PDP for the 2015 elections, I was most displeased. I was one of those who vowed to ask Ganduje to contest for the governorship under another political party’s platform if PDP, or Kwankwaso, would not allow him a shot at that office. As fate would have it, wise counsel prevailed, and Ganduje not just became the gubernatorial flag bearer, but ended up winning the election for the first time.

I was also one of those who were ready to forgive Ganduje even when the dollar video surfaced and eventually went viral. For me, and certainly for majority of Kano citizens, Ganduje was one of the highest performing governors throughout the Nigerian Federation.

But as Umar bn Khattab, one of the four Guided Caliphs of Prophet Muhammad said, the best love you can show to a leader is to tell him the bitter truth. Since Ganduje is still in power, I am sure all those serving as commissioners or aides in his administration will readily claim to be in love with him. I admit there are some of them that truly love and care for the Kano Governor. But I doubt if in the entire executive council of Kano State today, or the House of Assembly for that matter, there is even one person who could guide the Governor by telling him the bitter truth.

I do not by this advocate for a confrontation with the Governor. Far from it. I am talking about finding someone out of the pack telling Ganduje about the very negative publicity he is unnecessarily generating for himself since the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic in Kano, when he constituted a task force and made his daughter, yes, I mean his biological daughter, a certain Dr. Amina Ganduje, a key member of that task force.

One of the very reasons it is ethically wrong to involve members of one’s family in governance is that of conflict of interest. Sadly, in Kano today, I wonder whether those close to Governor Ganduje are telling him that he is fast losing respect by allegations that he has allowed members of his immediate family to be dictating the path of governance in the state. The most accused person in that regard is his beloved and dutiful wife, Dr. Hafsat Ganduje.

The popular belief in the streets of Kano today is that the wife is the de facto governor of the state. Rightly or wrongly, people in Kano assign in the woman immense powers, with some of them even saying you get things done faster when you get her buy-in on anything under the sky. In other words, the fear of Dr. Hafsat Ganduje is the beginning of wisdom. One wonders whether Governor Ganduje has forgotten that he has twice sworn by the Holy Qur’an, when taking his oath of office, to govern Kano without affection or ill-will, and without fear or favour.

The preponderance of opinion in Kano today is that the Governor, with all due respect, goofed by involving his young daughter in the state task force on Covid-19. It will even have mattered very little, if the daughter were not exercising unwieldy influence on the task force, with people saying that nothing gets done unless the daughter approves of it. Of course this claim has been denied by one or two members of the task force, but who knows whether they were directed to do so?

I know that as a journalist and a columnist for that matter, I ought to have taken the needed steps to establish the veracity of these claims. But what is of primary concern to me is the fact that the Governor is the very person who, by his actions (and inactions) particularly on this matter that has everything to do with life and death, providing his enemies the potent weapons with which they are now mercilessly attacking him. If he had gone beyond emotion to ensure his daughter remains at bay at her duty post in the hospital where she works, no one will have raised a finger against him. Certainly Kano is blessed with doctors and professors in the health sector who could do far better than Amina Ganduje, if given the chance. There is no question about that.

With the involvement of Amina Ganduje in the management of Covid-19 in the state, and of course owing also to bad politics, many now ridiculously see the whole thing as a scam, especially as management of the pandemic involves big money. Already, before the first index case was found in Kano, many in the state did not believe the Coronavirus pandemic exists. Those that think it does have the erroneous impression that it is an ailment for the rich and the powerful, and that since they are commoners, they are naturally immune from it.

Kano is a state that is always politically-charged. Now the danger facing Governor Ganduje is that everything that goes wrong in his government’s efforts to curtail the spread of Coronavirus will be readily hanged on his neck and that of his daughter. Even for a serving Governor, I do not think this is a joke.

One day, Ganduje will round up his tenure of office and leave that position. It will then be a judgement day for him. At that time he will look at his left and right and find that all those cheering him today have disappeared into the thin air. Some of them will even make desperate efforts to join his traduces. It has happened to his predecessors, even those of them that were far more circumspect, and there is simply no way my governor could escape the verdict of history. The image of a former governor and his wife and daughter in prison is one which I, for one, do not wish for Ganduje. But then only he can help himself in this regard.

For me, and I am sure I am speaking for millions of Kano people, Governor Ganduje should summon the courage to ask his family members to stay off the course of governance and play only advisory role, if necessary. They should never be seen to be the ones dictating affairs in a strategic state like Kano. If any of them wants to be in government and dictate the course of affairs, let him or her contest for elections in 2023.

I produce herewith excerpts from an article penned by a senior brother in the journalism profession, the irrepressible Malam Bala Ibrahim. The headline of the piece is Ganduje Denial: When It Helps:

Once again, Kano state government has denied the reported spike in deaths in the state.

Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, who was interviewed via Skype on NTA television last (Wednesday) night, said the reported spike in deaths and burials were orchestrated by traders of fake news. Ganduje said his administration had carried out some investigations, and the results or findings came contrary to the submissions of the press. Good, very good, Your Excellency.

The Governor did not stop there, as he further disclosed that he had already signed into effect an Act that would lead to the arrest and prosecution of those spreading fake news on COVID-19. “There has been no unusual death in Kano State and I want to confirm that the reported deaths are not related to Covid-19. We have only one death arising from the pandemic so far.” Good, very good, Your Excellency.

I don’t know if there is any difference in the spelling of the word death, be it death by Coronavirus, death due to over feeding, over drinking or over air-conditioning in the other room. The bottom line is that people are dying, and so the press said.

Like every action, denial has its own repercussion, because it’s just a coping mechanism that gives one time to adjust to distressing situations. It’s one thing to deny, and a different thing to stay in denial, particularly where the challenges are dynamic.

If you are in denial, you are simply trying to protect yourself by refusing to accept the truth about something that’s happening. Denial results in a delayed response, which in this case, would lead to increase in the growth of infections.

Psychologists say in some cases, initial short-term denial can be a good thing, giving you time to adjust to a painful or stressful issue. But denial has a dark side.

Refusing to acknowledge that something is wrong can be a sign that something is wrong with you, because you may be battling with emotional stress, painful thoughts, that may perhaps be related to some conflicts of interest.

Since his return for the second time as the Governor of Kano, Ganduje has been under terrible tension, exerted politically from the outside, and allegedly mounted materially from the other room. It’s therefore not surprising if he acts the way he is acting.

Certainly when it comes to speed in enacting and executing laws, particularly Kangaroo laws, directed at, or intended to punish minor violations, the government of Ganduje is highly celebrated and undoubtedly unsurpassed.

Also, when it comes to the denial of justice or acting in contempt of court orders, the dictum in the government is, justice denied, is justice delivered. Good, very good Your Excellency.

However, it is important to draw the attention of His Excellency to one important issue, which is the issue of over stretching the elasticity of power, particularly power under democracy. The Governor might have succeeded in enacting and signing laws in seconds, and use the same laws with the same speed to dethrone an Emir without qualms, but it must not escape His Excellency’s mind to know that, with the press, it would be a humiliatingly lost battle, long before the start of the fight. Like no one had succeeded anywhere, it would never succeed in Kano state.

His Excellency’s advisers on legal and chieftaincy matters were probably not experienced or courageous enough to point out the consequences of the previous transgression, but his Commissioner of Information, who was one time the National President of the NUJ, and who knows the extent of confidence and boldness of the press, alongside the audacity of the members of the profession to resist intimidation, would surely advise him right.

The commissioner knows the magnitude of the stomachache he had with his colleagues, on the suppressed scandal involving the Governor, his principal. As such, he would never key into such mistake, no matter the power of influence, or the pressure behind the planned misdemeanor.

It may interest His Excellency to know that, while the Governor is denying the deaths, Abuja is not ready to do so, because they know and appreciate the value of lives.

At a press briefing yesterday Wednesday, the Chairman, Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, said the rising cases of coronavirus in Kano State have continued to be of concern to the Government, and they would not allow it to be downplayed. I hope Boss Mustapha, would not be amongst those to be charged under the planned law on fake news.

His Excellency also needs to be advised to extend the planned act of arrest to all complainants, including the medics that are in the frontline. The name of the Director of the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Prof. Isah Abubakar, must be the first on that list.

Profesdor Isah was among those that were patriotic enough to alert the nation, that the centre had run out of essentials like test kits, reagents etc. From the body language of Governor Ganduje on the television yesterday, that sounds like fake news.

There is the need for Governor Ganduje to borrow a leaf from the mistakes of President Donald Trump, who has consistently underplayed the severity of the coronavirus and its impact on America in particular, and the World in general. After a long period of denials and downplaying the catastrophe, America is now at a great loss, as millions of people are out of work, the nation is under lockdown, the healthcare system is on the brink of collapse, while many are dying daily due to the denials of Donald.

The Governor should not only know the consequences of the Covid-19 outbreak, but also what happens when leaders deny its severity. Their actions, or rather inactions, would make the pandemic worse, and all of us less safe, including the content of the other room.

Benjamin Franklin said, those who fail to prepare are prepared to fail. Denial and failing to plan go hand in hand with planning to fail.

I hope by these denials, Governor Ganduje is not planning to fail. Because that would hurt, more than help the state.

ABBA KYARI: The Untold Story of President Buhari’s Chief of Staff

NOTE: This piece was first published in this column on Friday, November 8, last year. I am publishing it for the second time based purely on popular demand. With the death of Malam Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to President Buhari, exactly a week ago, many of my regular readers called me on phone or sent text messages asking for it to be reproduced. Someone even called me a prophet, saying all the “latter-day eulogies on Abba Kyari” (as he put it) were fully captured in this piece, though it was published about six months before the man died.

Permit me to also add this: I am one of many Nigerians who are amazed that even in the Nigerian media, the late Chief of Staff had very many influential friends. I thought he was close only to Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, my former boss and publisher of Leadership newspapers, and very few of us. I am therefore one of those who are surprised that none of these who are only now informing us were his very close friends, including those outside the media, had deemed it fit to defend the man in his hour of dire need. The claim that Kyari didn’t want to be defended is in my view, at best preposterous. He is a human being, playing a key part in a democratic administration. If he didn’t want to be defended, then it is fraudulent to even say he was protective of his principal, the Nigeria’s President.

I know for a fact that when this article was published last year, Malam Abba Kyari called me on phone and profusely expressed immense gratitude. In obvious reference to those he drew close and were doing nothing to defend him, he said he did not expect such a generosity of spirit from me. If he gave me money or did any favour for me in appreciation, may the Lord refuse me everything I want. But I was not in the least disappointed because, Heaven knows, I didn’t do it out of expectation for any favour from the man. If anything, it added to the esteem in which he held me as a person, or a distant friend, for that matter.

Let me deploy this opportunity to condole with President Muhammadu Buhari and all members of the Abba Kyari family. May his soul Rest In Peace. Excerpts:

THERE is a popular saying that has since gained traction in the social media, which is to the effect that if you want to know how difficult it is to govern Nigeria, create a Whatsapp chat group and become its administrator. It is only then that one gets to see how naughty some compatriots could be, deliberately refusing to hearken to simple rules set to provide for smooth inter-relations in the group. For me, this gives a good background to the Abba Kyari story, who many Nigerians see as a legend, a hero of sort, and who others, perhaps in millions, perceive as a villain.

I came into personal contact with Malam Abba Kyari In August 2011, exactly four years before President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him his Chief of Staff in 2015. It was the very day the board of Leadership Newspapers Group was appointing me as editor of the flagship, daily title. Abba Kyari is a very close personal friend to Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, my boss and benefactor for life, and he was in the newspaper’s headquarters in Abuja at the time I was being interviewed. It was Sam who asked whether I knew the man, to which I answered in the negative. But when he mentioned the name, I asked whether he was the same person who served as Managing Director of the United Bank for Africa, one of the top four biggest banks in Nigeria at the time. Abba Kyari wasted no time in strongly recommending me for the job.

But I soon started having issues with Abba Kyari owing to his penchant for thoroughness and perfection. He was never a staff of the company, but was behaving like the Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper, and everyday, he will sit me down and tell me the many things I did wrongly. I became his true friend when a few months into the job, the errors were becoming fewer, and he would at times leave the office of the publisher and sit with me in my office in the very vibrant newsroom, asking whether I had challenges and needed his help. Once it was production time, however, he would wish me well and take his leave, saying he didn’t want to distract me.

One day, I had a problem with one of my supervisors and made up my mind to resign the post of editor. The woman was more or less personalizing her differences with me, and was clearly making life very difficult for me. I felt I needed to keep a safe distance from her, and could only gain that when I no longer work in the editorial department. So I entered the office of the publisher, and met him chatting with Malam Abba Kyari. I did not even extend to them the courtesy of greeting when I interrupted their conversation with a stern demand for the publisher to assign me to any other department in the company. I told him in unmistakable terms that I could no longer work with that woman.

Mr. Nda-Isaiah was shocked. The post of editor of a daily newspaper was one of the most lucrative in the industry. It brings you close to the men (and women) of power, who call you everyday needing one favour or the other. Strangely, here was I throwing all of it away on a platter. So shocked was my publisher that he couldn’t utter a word. He just looked at me in amazement. It was Malam Abba Kyari who spoke first, and the words he uttered have remained deeply etched in my memory since then:

“Editor,” he said, “you are not going to resign. The company will not accept your resignation letter even if you submit one. So go back to your work and learn to tolerate others. Learn to grow a thick skin and always remember that what is important is the work you have been assigned to do. Don’t allow critics or anyone to distract you.”

I bursted into tears. He waited until I cried my heart out, but still repeated those words. I felt a deep hatred for him for being so callous – or so I thought.

It was now time for Mr. Nda-Isaiah to talk. He was a man of few words who clearly felt disappointed that the man he so trusted with such a big responsibility was kind of betraying him. He minced no words in telling me how disappointed he was, saying he never knew I was a weakling. He ordered me back to the newsroom to carry on with my job. Both men supported me in every way they could, until I left on my own volition two years later. Even my resignation at that time was only possible because both Malam Abba Kyari and my publisher had traveled out of the country.

If there is one thing I hate, it is opportunism. And so, as a personal policy, I try to keep some distance from friends or benefactors once they assume a position of power, unless they make deliberate efforts to draw me close. I mostly only resume that relationship after they leave political office, and this is one policy that has been serving me very well. And so, my contact with Malam Abba Kyari has been rather limited since he assumed office in the State House four years ago. But I make bold to say he is one person who does not forget his friends, even if they choose to keep a distance from him, as I have chosen to do.

There has always been the urge to write on this man of excellence who, as a one time editor, played a key part in shaping my career as a journalist. The urge to help him became even more pronounced from the moment Kyari started getting heavily criticized by many compatriots who wrongly felt he was amassing too much power as Nigeria’s President Chief of Staff. But I always didn’t want it to look like I was being opportunistic. And so, I allowed the man to get all the bashing, amazed that my compatriots could not see that it is the office, not the person, that is so powerful. And it is the same with that kind of office anywhere in the world.

At the age of six, my father (of blessed memory), though a Muslim, enrolled me into a Christian missionary school that had what used to be the biggest church in old Kano State. When he was challenged by my grandfather, my dad told him he did so deliberately to broaden my worldview and prepare me for the realities and challenges of multi-ethnic, multi-religious Nigeria. I thought I was cosmopolitan enough until that fateful day when the duo of Malam Abba Kyari and Mr Sam Nda-Isaiah taught me a lesson in tolerance, and on the need to develop a thick skin so as not to lose focus on anything I set out to achieve. Though I can at times be emotional, that lesson has stuck with me and is responsible for much of the successes I have achieved in the journey of life.

I am one Nigerian who, therefore, is not in the least surprised that Malam Abba Kyari has continued to weather the storm, carrying on with his duties with little or no distraction. Four years before he got his current job he had asked me to develop a thick skin against criticisms and see that as a way to improve myself. And here we are, the teacher was being severely tested. With all the insults and misrepresentation against his person on daily basis, I thought he was going to give in to pressure and throw in the towel, as I threatened to do as editor of Leadership newspaper. But for him, he was doing his best, to the satisfaction of God and his principal. He must have concluded that he is not the first high office holder in Nigeria or elsewhere to be so abused and misunderstood, and surely he is not going to be the last.

Writing on Malam Abba Kyari, a good friend of his for many years, Professor Emmanuel Yaw Bennett of the University of Ghana, pointed out that the Chief of Staff to the President is operating on three cardinal principles, the first of which is that “he will not allow anyone to mislead the President through misrepresentation. Secondly, that he will not allow the President’s integrity to be violated, and thirdly, that he will not allow Nigeria’s interests to be subordinated to any other consideration.” This, surely, is bad news for those who feel they can have the man cowed by sponsoring endless insults and criticisms against his person.

Only someone with a thick skin, and a very thick one for that matter, could insist in operating on these principles. Naturally, those who have been stopped by Malam Abba from taking undue advantage of the President’s innocence – and there are a vast number of them – would not be happy with the Chief of Staff. And to get back at him, they go to town with all sorts of false tales about the man. A prove of that could be seen in the fact that the office Malam Abba holds is one that relates everyday mostly with elite members of the society. One therefore needs to ask why it is that ordinary members of the society, who hardly have direct relations with him, are more vociferous in attacking and condemning the man, especially in the social media.

For those who want to understand why President Buhari bestows so much trust and confidence in his Chief of Staff, here is another story.

On May 1, 2012, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah attained the golden age of fifty. His friends and key staff members of his media conglomerate felt we needed to celebrate our boss in a big way. But there was a problem: he preferred a rather quite celebration.and so, we secured the buy-in of his dutiful wife, and working in concert with her, we planned a nationwide birthday bash that included a public lecture to commemorate the event. It attracted the cream of the Nigerian society, with the legendary General TY Danjuma presiding.

Mr. Nda-Isaiah, a man with the lion heart, strangely became emotional as he was delivering his speech. He bursted into tears when he mentioned the name, Abba Kyari. He was narrating how instrumental Kyari has been in getting him achieve so much at that age, and General Danjuma had to calm the celebrant down by bringing him a cup of water.

The lesson here is that once you allow Abba Kyari to come close to you, one of the biggest benefits you are going to have is that he will play decisive roles in improving your life. He had done that to me. And I was only getting to know he was doing same to my boss at that occasion. Operating on the three principles he set out for himself, as enunciated above, Abba Kyari has done quite a lot to protect President Buhari from some hawks whose negative influences have played key roles in wrecking many administrations in the past.

Perhaps capturing Kyari’s resourcefulness even more succinctly is the maverick politician, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode. He was on record to have stated that he “studied at Cambridge University in 1984 with Abba Kyari, President Buhari’s Chief of Staff. We sat next to each other during our final exams and I can confirm that he is brilliant. He also worked in my father’s law firm, Fani Kayode and Sowemino for years and he was one of the brightest.”

Four years ago, President Buhari took over a nation in total mess, with the economy almost collapsing. He had two options at the time: to simply sit back, fold his hands and ultimately serve as the country’s undertaker, or take decisions that may be painful, but which will at the end of the day make Nigeria attain its rightful place in the comity of world’s greatest nations.

Successful administrators globally have always insisted that a leader makes or mar his administration from the appointments he makes, especially of those that will work with him on everyday basis. Contrary to all speculations and false insinuations, that is the only reason President Buhari had to search far and wide to pick from among the best that will help him achieve the noble objectives he set out for Nigeria.

Luckily for the President, he appointed someone who would rather take the bullet to ensure the President survives. And so, for students of the science of power, Abba Kyari is a classical study of an aide who has redefined loyalty, selflessness and commitment at their best.