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Opinion

Opinion | The good Kashim Shettima’s visit to Kebbi has done to its politics

Even before former Borno state Governor Kashim Shettima visited Birnin Kebbi, the Kebbi state capital to present a talk on mentorship at a National Youth Day gathering, politics in the state has began to assume a rather very new and positive dimension.

For whatever reason, the political sophistication level of an average Kebbi electorate, has been, to put it mildly, too impulsive and whimsical. Many people have this belief that the very peaceful nature and aversion to anything rancorous of the Kebbi man is at the heart of his laidback tendencies, a virtue that has kept the state as Nigeria’s most peaceful and easy-to-govern, but which has also accounted for its glaring underdevelopment occasioned by a turnover of very bad leaders over the years.

The invitation to Senator Kashim Shettima to grace the youth event in Kebbi on November 1st, which was put together by an amalgam of youth groups was carefully thought over and primed to achieve one single objective: to draw from the former Governor’s experiences in the run up to his choice of Professor Babagana Umara Zulum to succeed him so that the people of Kebbi would get the message, that there is indeed a Zulum in every state and that, although it may take a Kashim Shettima to identify and prop him up, the people too can look out for him and queue up behind him until he or she gets into office.

If there is no any leader in the mould of Kashim Shettima who will overlook his own tempting interests to hold onto power through planting of stooges, then the examples as propounded by the people of Bauchi state should be able to suffice and provide the stimulus for the people to change the narrative of leadership. What is there in the politics of Bauchi from which the people of Kebbi could learn something?

In Bauchi, the level of sophistication has empowered the electorate to bid their time, support a candidate for either Governor or whatever, work hard to ensure victory, sit down and watch him and give him a very long rope to determine his fate. At the end of it, he gets what he deserves, either a return ticket if he delivers or the boot if he messes up. Ask the immediate past Governor of the state.

But what is the relationship between Kashim Shettima’s talk on mentorship which he delivered in Kebbi and the politics of succession and its implication to development in a state like Kebbi? To begin with, Kashim Shettima is a very popular politician in the old Sokoto states of Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara.

He is seen widely as a model of politics of selflessness. His choice of Professor Zulum – another emerging very popular politician around the country and the way the Professor has captured the imagination of all Nigerians through aggressive, pro-people and progressive governance had made Kashim a hot cake in the psyche of an average man in Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara, especially as it relates to a glaring leadership deficit on display there.

So, what did Kashim say that has changed perceptions to the point that a change in level of sophistication is anticipated? Is politics so an-all-comers-affair in Sokoto and Kebbi that they need a common lecture to alter a peoples’ political mindset?

There has been this argument that many states are short on dividends of democracy ostensibly due to, as most underperforming Governors always put it, paucity of funds. They bandy ‘’resource constraints’’ as their reason for their inability to bring about development to their states. But those of us who have travelled widely and have seen how some states have progressively and developmentally fared in the area of infrastructures, it raises more questions as to simply push ‘’resource constraints’’ narrative and expect us to swallow the balderdash hook, line and sinker.

How can Borno with all the attendant hiccups and drawbacks brought about by relentless and mindless bloodletting and ceaseless gun fights almost on daily basis achieve the much it has done especially under Kashim Shettima who governed for an eight year period of zero peace while underperforming Governors in states that have enjoyed endless peaceful period begin to spew laughable and very flimsy excuses built on blatant lies? What magic did Kashim Shettima perform to achieve as much as he did? What other sources of getting money were available to him that were unavailable to his counterparts elsewhere? Was he money-doubling?

What did he say that has so much made our day on November 1? He said many things, all of which earned for him more respect. For me, his revelation that he had pumped in more than N20 billion into the Ministry of Reconstruction, resettlement and rehabilitation under Professor Babagana Zulum as Commissioner and that the Professor was able to account to the last Kobo was one heck of a revelation about how selflessness and sense of duty could shape the path of a man’s destiny.

The Senator told the full house and raft attentive gathering at the International Conference Centre of Saffar Hotel in Birnin Kebbi, that Zulum channeled the resources strictly to areas of need without benefitting personally or allowing any of his friends or relatives to take advantage to exploit the situation.

He noted that Zulum’s self-made story of hewing firewood to fund his education and his humility and bravery resonated well with the people who see in him a caricature of their own struggles and deprivations.

Speaking amidst intermittent and loud applauds from a convinced and appreciative gathering including Kebbi state Governor Senator Atiku Bagudu, Kashim Shettima called on Kebbi youths to rally round their Governor whom he described as a good man in order to consolidate on the gains already achieved and to ensure that peace prevails in order to bring about more development.

My view about these interactions and talks is that the average Kebbi man has, even before Kashim Shettima came on stage to underline the options available in leadership, opened his eyes to the realities of his powers as the hirer and firer of leaders through the ballot box.

What the coming of Kashim Shettima has done was to unchain an in-born desire of the people to see all the pictures and options available which could be used to usher in a responsive and accountable leadership for the good of all.

The other reality is that we in Kebbi for example will, in the next dispensation, expect a home-grown Kashim Shettima to spot and support a Zulum out of the many available or the people will be left with no option than to look out for him and queue up behind him. Either way, politics will never be the same in Kebbi. Something has to give.

Ahmed-BK, a journalist, writer and public affairs commentator wrote in from Gesse III, Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State.

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