A POWER MONGERER’S MANY TROUBLES: Perverse power-mongering rankles to no end and this is what’s about defining Aminu Waziri Tambuwal essence.
He is currently one year into the second term as governor of the northwestern state of Sokoto.
But recently he has been in the news, (as the illustration below shows) on a pre-presidential campaign junket to woo support for his bid for the top job. It doesn’t seem to matter that the election is three years away.
According report in a national newspaper, Tambuwal has been consulting critical stakeholders concerning his presidential ambition in 2023.
He was reported to have visited former Senate president, David Mark, former defense minister, Theophilus Danjuma and former two-time president, Olusegun Obasanjo.
Let assume it’s coincidence the trio happen to be former army generals turned politicians.
The paper already thinks he’s the person to beat in 2023, touting his “solid credentials.” Amazing!
As they say in my part of the world, unless a child eats what keeps him awake, he would know no sleep.
Governor Tambuwal was a strong contender in the 2018 presidential nomination of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP. He had returned a distant second to the eventual flag bearer, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, but Tambuwal seemed to have been deeply affected by that outing to the point of developing what may be described as a presidential complex.
It appears as if the mission to be president has become a do-or-die one for the governor who was also a former speaker.
But his quest beggars commonsense ab initio, not to mention the question of incapacity.
THE COMMONSENSE CHALLENGE: Why would a man of Governor Tambuwal’s standing portray such utter disdain for the simple and commonsensical? Even if he were to be under a spell, how could he ever conjecture, in his faraway dreams that after eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari who’s of the northwest zone, another fellow from that zone would be put forward by any serious party.
The likelihood of another candidate from the northwest emerging in any major party is so implausible, it’s a no-brainer. Add to the fact that both Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Shehu Yar’Adua both former presidents were of the northwest zone. Other zones of the north are already screaming sacrilege. How Tambuwal cannot see this testifies to his blind ambition.
Beyond the commonsense challenge is also the the issue of acute insensitivity regarding the clamour for power to shift to the south.
Particularly so, the quest by Ndigbo of the southeast to get a taste of the power gravy. All these legitimate aspirations, denial of which could threaten the very existence of the country seem lost on Tambuwal. It’s an open manifestation of the much-irksome born-to-rule syndrome. He is simply asking Nigerians of the south to go to hell! And by his calculations and body language, the southeast doesn’t exist!
TAMBUWAL IS NOT FIT TO BE PRESIDENT: A quick review of Tambuwal’s trajectory and his track record would actually show that Tambuwal has no capacity to run Nigeria, and if perchance he wangled his way into that office as he has done in all his previous high positions, he would return a colossal failure.
He has actually lived a life of opportunism, power manipulation and power grab (just as he’s trying to do now). Over the years, he has made a beautiful art of crass opportunity; zeal without knowledge, power without passion for work or responsibility – just power for the heck of it.
Let it be noted that Tambuwal is not alone in this game, it’s actually the way of most Nigerian politicians of today. But he has mastered the code so well that Nigerians are again, about to be deceived and carried away by what is purely charlatanry.
By jumping from party to party, he has climbed the political ladder very fast – winning elections into the House of Representatives, becoming Speaker and then governor – he is walking the same tainted track.
Well, all is fair in Nigeria’s politics of today, we must concede but what is not acceptable and must not be condoned is to give another quack the top job ever again! Tambuwal is simple not capable to be president.
THE DEBACLE THAT IS SOKOTO STATE: providence afforded Tambuwal a historic opportunity to show his presidential bona fides, but it turned out that providence also wanted to show Nigerians what stuff he is truly made of by making him a State governor first. If you can’t run a State for eight years, it’s starkly perverse to seek to run a country. Tambuwal is an abysmal failure as a State governor so far…
From the face of it, he has shown neither spunk nor capacity; he has not brought any big idea to bear on the State (probably has none, let’s face it). No reformation, no transformation, no legacies worthy of remark… the Caliphate and her long-suffering good people I wager, are worse off today than Tambuwal met them.
Of course he hardly showcases any achievements real or imagined but all socioeconomic reports available show that Sokoto State remains the poorest in the country to this moment – just as Tambuwal met it.
An independent study in 2018 by Riboud University, the Netherlands, which ranked the Human Development Index (HDI) of Nigerian states placed Sokoto 36 out of 36. It had the lowest HDI, lower than Boko Haram besieged Borno at 25th.
A similar HDI study by UNDP in 2016 using a basket of indices like Longevity, Education Enrollment and Per Capita Income, again has Sokoto under Tambuwal’s watch in the dust at the bottom of the lot.
Another 2016 UNDP report on Nigeria’s Poverty Index states thus: “the incidence of poverty, which is the percentage of Nigerians who are poor are prevalent in Sokoto State with 89.9 per cent.”
And this: Nigeria Living Standard Survey (NLSS) report for 2019 by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), released in June 2020 also posted Tambuwal’s Sokoto as the poorest state in Nigeria, followed by Taraba and Jigawa.
Responding to this report, Governor Tambuwal had challenged the NBS: “Something must be fundamentally defective and wrong with their (NBS) processes,
“When you look at the programmes we are implementing in Sokoto State, they are people-friendly. They are promoting and supporting the vulnerable, the poorest of the poor.”
One of such programmes is the zakat!
One expected the governor to counter all these with data from his State’s Bureau of Statistics, but that would be asking too much of course. There’s probably no such agency in the State.
One thought Governor Tambuwal would avail us his authentic data on infant and maternal mortality, our of school children, child nutrition as well as year on year progression vis-vis budget provision. Zilch.
At a recent Webinar security summit where he was the Guest Speaker, he attributed the recent rage of bloody banditry in the State to inadequate manpower and lack of regional cooperation as the reason for the near-anarchy bedeviling his domain.
But of course that’s a most convenient if not deliberate misdiagnosis.
When was the last time a proper LGA election was conducted and the 3rd tier properly set up to oversee their portions of the land?
The real reason bandits and all sorts of non-state actors have almost hijacked his enclave is because he is not running it: and nature abhors a vacuum.
Governance at the 3rd tier is almost nonexistent thus there’s a vast unmanned territory. And acute poverty of course breed malcontents of the malevolent types.
Let it be stated that good governance anywhere need no advertisement and so is a poor outing. Nigerians can already perceive the vibes emanating from Babagana Zulum even in troubled Borno. The impact he’s bringing to bear on his State reverberates across the country… in just one year!
GOING FORWARD: This column humbly suggests that Governor Tambuwal should purge himself of the maniacal quest to be president. Luckily, he’s still got three years to avail his people some quality leadership. The billions of his State’s fund (of course he has no factory anywhere so it could only be state fund) he has amassed for the presidential battle should be deployed to lifting Sokoto from the mire of stinking poverty.
Tambuwal can achieve this in three years if he applied his mind, body and soul to it.
A great state governor is also as good as president.
Finally, COMMONSENSE: you don’t have to be a president to be a GREAT MAN!
– Osuji is a respected journalist