By Toheeb Omotayo
I am not really surprised by the ongoing political enmity and continuous shadings between the Kano State Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf and the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, which took a new twist on Thursday when Ganduje replied to the allegations against the APC by Gov Yusuf.
Governor Abba Yusuf, August 14, during an on-the-spot assessment on the State High Court which came under attack during the recent nationwide hunger protest, declared that “hired miscreant carted away corrupt charges on former Governor of Kano State, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, who has been facing multiple charges before the State High Court”.
Ganduje has been facing multiple charges before a high court situated in Kano State, including misappropriation and diversion of public funds during his eight years in office as the governor of the State, and unbelievably, the ‘superstitious thievery’ of corruption charges documents happened? Well, I have long harbored distrust in the Nigeria’s handling of situations — the ‘reckless’ and ‘kangaroo’ handling of high profile legal matters — but was not sure how to best express my dissatisfaction to a greater effect.
However, it became even more dramatic and comical when Ganduje took a turn to call for probe of the state government’s claims (as alleged by Ganduje) suggesting “that the APC sponsored the violent protests in Kano. I quote him (Ganduje) saying “it was the state governor who incited the protest to tarnish the image of President Bola Tinubu-led administration”.
Well, No shortcomings in the Nigeria’s overall system can shock or surprise me anymore. Not again! Just as expected, I knew something was going to come out of the nationwide demonstration. “Hoodlums carted corruption charges documents of a former governor who received a fresh charge of pursuing a personal legal case with public funds in April to the existing ones? It was the shocking news of a snake that swallowed N36 Million from JAMB office in 2018, and now this?
This comical event has, thereby, set the ground for different questions; Does losing the case files to the purportedly ‘hired hoodlums’ mean the case has ended there? Or are there no extra-copies of the delicate materials being saved elsewhere (even more safer)? What happened to the documents with the government lawyers?
The world is growing digital and people can now save items on the system — Laptops, Mobile phones etc — which can last for as long the system does not crash or get lost. Absolutely no discerning person will buy into that carefully conjured up ‘pedestrian propaganda’. And I want to believe that if the right thing is to be done, these acclaimed “stolen documents” could be seamlessly retrieved unscathed.
While the protest that was expected to be peaceful eventually turned out violent in some parts of Nigeria — North particularly — which claimed lives and leaving properties in wild destruction, attempting to exploit it to divert the attention of the public from the grueling hardship of hunger and economic shortfall, by conjuring up lies that critical documents were stolen from the court premises is really unscrupulous and unacceptable.
Also, while the development might seem irking, unsettling, and concerning, it has a lot to do with the shortfall and overall distrust in the nation’s security and legal system. A case file containing highly classified documents could not have possibly be stolen like that, not from a building where there’s no food, even though it comes under attack. Blatant lie!
It is a well known fact that citizens can do unimaginable things when they are aggrieved, especially when they are prostesting economic hardship and shortage of foods in the country. They will go to any length to make sure the government bow to pressure and heed their demands, but not like going to a court where there’s absolutely nothing edible to loot and carefully select specific documents to take away. We all saw published pictures of protesters carting away looted items from the prostest sites, but no one was seen entering a bookshop to steal books, because they deem it a misplaced priority.
I am not encouraging looting, nor am I supporting violence, but what is wrong, is wrong.
