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Re: Kano: Empty Leadership, huge liability

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Ganduje

Muhammad Garba

When I read a piece pen down by the sacked chairman of the All People’s Congress (APC), Umar Haruna Doguwa titled:’’ Kano: Empty Leadership, huge liability,’’ I realized that the man, out of desperation, is carelessly ridiculing himself unnecessarily and exposing his candor and witlessness through misrepresentation of facts in the media.

Nobody is envying the embattled former party chieftain from aiming for any office, but definitely not through blackmail and spreading of lies.

One cannot overlook the deliberate distortion of facts on the state of affairs in Kano but to put out a response, because it could also help in dissuading desperate politicians like Doguwa using every opportunity to ensure that the people are deceived, just to achieve a selfish interest.

For those who are closer to Kwankwaso know that he always impose his whims on all and exploit them for his personal benefits against collective interest.

Kano: Empty leadership, huge liability

Even as pioneer APC chairman, you never run the affairs of the party independently talk less of bragging to have organize and coordinate an election.

You were just but a rubber stamp, while your master dictates how things were organized and executed.

Gaduje inherited Kwankwaso’s liabilities

While I absolutely agree with you that Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje did promise to continue with the legacies of the immediate-past administration of Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, when he assumed the mantle of leadership on May 29, 2015, the governor has kept to his promise in all spheres of governance.

This, he did, by fine-tuning most of the policies and, as well, bringing into bear, innovations that have today crowned Kano as a reference point of good governance in Nigeria and beyond.

As I read the article, I wonder how on earth Doguwa did not mention the huge liabilities Ganduje inherited from the Kwankwaso administration which were discovered by the Transition Committee. Since you were part of the government, you ought to have mention how Kwankwaso, who served his last tenure in office between 2011 and 2015, also introduced unworkable policies and programmes as well as execution of projects without financial backing, which allegedly used them to siphon public funds or to make the state ungovernable for the incoming governor.

At the expiration of his tenure, Kwankwaso left a liability of N313 billion for the incoming government.

With these debts hanging on his neck, Ganduje also assumed office when there was recession, which resulted in reduced federal allocation, dwindling level of Internally Generated Revenue and the slim nature of the state’s treasury which, however, had not deterred him from deploying his wealth of experience to effectively administer the state.

Ganduje’s building projects

Some of these projects include Murala Muhammad Way Bridge, the longest in the country named after the Kano Business mogul, Alhaji Aminu Alhassan Dantata, which was inherited at 15 per cent state of execution which has now been completed, commissioned and put to use; the state Independent Power Project at Tiga and Challawa Dams which was inherited at 35 per cent and now at 95 per cent stage of execution;  dualisation of Yahaya Gusau Road left at 10per cent and construction of underpass which was left at 15 percent stages of completion.

In fact, the contract sum of the project has to be revised because of absence of transparency in the project.

Other projects either uncompleted or abandoned but completed by the Ganduje administration include dualisation of ‘Yantaya Kofar Dawanau and rehabilitation of Ahmadiyya Road awarded in 2013; construction of Dorawa Road; construction of Rijiyar Gwangwan Road; Rehabilitation of Yusuf Road.

Ganduje also inherited 665 projects valued at N72 billion from Senator Ibrahim Shekarau’s administration out of which N40 billion was paid leaving an outstanding payment of N33.2 billion.

Two of such projects include the construction of Giginyu Specialist Hospital (now Muhammadu Buhari Specialist Hospital) and Paediatric Hospital Zoo Road (now Khalifa Sheikh Isyaka Rabi’u Paediatric Hospital).

The two hospitals which contracts were awarded in 2007, were abandoned at 35 per cent completion stage respectively.

The Ganduje administration completed the construction, furnishing and equipping of the facilities.

In fact, the two hospitals are one of the best in the country in terms of standard and state-of-art equipment.

Part of the promise made by Governor Ganduje in his inaugural address, which Doguwa failed to complete is that of the initiation of more people oriented policies and programs for the overall development of Kano state.

The noble and modest achievements of the Ganduje administration have, indeed, dismantled the length and breadth of the so-called Kwankwassiyya Movement which has since gone into oblivion.

This is so because the article itself depicted the emptiness of the Kwankwassiyya and its foot soldiers, since they have no genuine criticism against the APC administration in Kano, having been intimidated by the uncommon achievements of the present ruling party in the state.

These projects include construction of an underpass at Sharada/Panshekara Junction completed and commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari; construction of underpasses along Katsina Road by Muhammadu Buhari Way; nearly completed underpass and flyover along Zaria Road by Dangi Roundabout; ongoing construction of Cancer Centre at Muhammdu Buhari Specialist Hospital; rehabilitation and ashphalt overlay of Burum Burum-Saya Saya-Kibiya-Rano- Bunkure-Karfi Road; Tiga-Rurum-Rano and Rano-Sumaila  Roads; construction/dualisation of Court Road (now Rochas Okorocha Road); Abdullahi Bayero Road; dualisation of Maiduguri Road (Opp Mobile Police Qtrs)-CBN Qtrs-Zaria Road; construction of asphaltic concrete surfacing from Gidan Maza-S/Gandu-Western Bypass-Kumbotso town and dualised Panshekara-Madobi Junction-Panshekara town Road among others.

Kwankwaso “killed” education

I am also gladdened that Umar Haruna Doguwa, has offered me a window to also refresh the memory of discernable good people of Kano and Nigerians on how the Kwankwaso administration killed the education sector in Kano.

Kwankwaso abandoned the basic education and that was why Ganduje inherited a dilapidated infrastructure in the sector, with the quality of basic education degenerating, leading to unacceptably low academic performance.

In virtually all public educational institutions, primary secondary or tertiary, classes were overcrowded.

Basic amenities are either lacking or obsolete.

And just as he was about to leave office, Kwankwaso made a mere declaration for ‘free’ education in the state, deviously with the sole intent to leave the encumbrance on the incoming administration of Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.

If Doguwa cares to find out, as at May 29, 2015, there were only 25,000 habitable classrooms out of the 30,000 available, whereas the total requirement in our 3,000 public primary schools is 45, 000 classrooms.

Similarly, there were only 18, 000 toilets as against the total requirement of 35, 000, while 3-seater pupils’ desks were only 198, 832 as against the need of 914, 000.

In addition to all these, instructional materials were inadequate while staff morale was at its lowest ebb and as a matter of fact, about 50 per cent of the teachers.

This same thing applies to tertiary institutions in the state that included the two state owned universities.

The Ganduje administration inherited only the Senate building at the permanent site of North West University now Yusuf Maitama Sule University with no academic activities.

The university now operates two campuses.

This is continuity.

Many infrastructure projects were also executed at Kano state University of Science and Technology, Wudil by the present administration, while hundreds of courses were accredited with the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) as well as the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE).

With this development, Sa’adatu Rimi College of Education has already commenced the award of degree.

Funny enough, Doguwa also brought up the issue of the ill-conceived foreign scholarship scheme on which the present administration was left with a huge liability amounting to N8 billion.

While as part of his continuity agenda, Ganduje has settled over N5 billion of the liability and still working towards offsetting it, facts are available on how the scheme was used to allegedly swindle the good people of Kano and Kano state government.

Far reaching measures have also to been introduced to reverse the ugly trend by accessing the Universal basic Education Commission (UBEC’s) counterpart funding of about N2 billion which enabled the rehabilitation of classroom blocks, building of libraries, sinking of boreholes, provision of over 15,000 pupils’ furniture, instructional materials, etc.

Governor Ganduje also came up with idea of the Education Promotion Committee (EPC) both at the state level and in all the 44 local government areas which has been able to rehabilitate thousands of blocks of classrooms, provision of seats and  as well as various instructional materials.

And with the introduction of Free Basic and Secondary Education in the state, which Doguwa overlooked deliberately brushed aside, payment of school fees has been abolished in all the primary and secondary schools.

The Ganduje administration has commenced direct funding of primary and secondary schools numbering 1,180 with a total students population of 834, 366 at a total cost of about N200 million per month or N2.4 billion per annum.

Furthermore, N357 million has been budgeted to take care of free-feeding for pupils in primary four to six classes in all primary schools across the state.

Similarly, before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ganduje’s government had provided school uniforms to 779, 522 newly enrolled pupils (boys and girls) at the total cost of N381 million which distribution and other instructional materials was flagged off at Mariri Special Primary School in Kumbotso Local Government Area last year.

The state government has also sponsored the funding component of the Free and Compulsory Basic and Secondary Education in the state which was launched at the Sani Abacha Stadium Indoor Sports Hall.

During that event, Ganduje distributed cash to over 110,000 schools across the state designed to enable them build capacity and human resource development.

He also distributed 790 Digital Classroom All Inclusive Empowerment Solution and tablets to 728 teachers, 39 master teachers, nine senior secondly school officers and 14 principal officers.

The programme was aimed at capacity building towards free and compulsory education on School Development Plan (SDP) and ICT appreciation for directors and zonal education directors.

Ganduje’s plan for Almajiris

With turn of events, which led to the formal abolishing of the traditional Almajiri system of education in the state, the Ganduje administration is completing arrangements to enroll all 1, 800 repatriated indigenous almajirai to Kano from other states of the northern region into conventional educational system.

Kano, which is the only state that has in place, a functional Qur’anic and Islamiyya Schools Management Board had earlier, established 12 integrated Tsangaya Model Schools across the state, 10 of which are boarding.

Each of the facility has dormitory, hostels, cafeteria, toilets and staff quarters among others, while 8, 000 volunteer teachers have been engaged to teach in the various public and Quranic schools across the state in a bid to reduce teaching deficiency in the sector.

Indeed, Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje’s launching of free, compulsory basic and secondary education policy has made serious impact with the reduction of the data of out-of-school children in Kano from 1,306,106 to 410,873, from 2015 to 2019. (Refer to the National Education Data Survey (NEDS) Report of 2015 which shows that, Kano had (then) the highest number of out-of-school children with 1,306,106.)

The terrifying report then prompted Governor Ganduje to take the issue with all seriousness, with measures aimed at addressing the situation squarely.

However, with the free, compulsory basic and secondary education policy, as contained in the report submitted to the Governor Ganduje by the sub-committee on out-of-school children survey 2019, it was noted that as a result of various intervention programs the serious drop becomes inevitable.

The survey by the sub-committee was conducted across all the 44 local government areas in the state on house-to-house basis, using village/ward heads under the district heads of each local government area with a view to generating a comprehensive and reliable data that will enable government to effectively implement the laudable free education policy According to the report, from the total number of 410,873 out-of-school children in the state, 275,917 are boys, that represents 67% and 134,956 are girls, representing 33%.

Unlike the Kwankwasiyya and their foot soldiers who play politics with everything, the Ganduje’s administration believes that with the right education, the issue of insecurity and unemployment would become things of the past.

Education is a right to every citizen.

This explains why in Kano today, there is a law that whoever fails to send his children to school is committing an offence.

Muhammad Garba is the Commissioner for Information, Kano State

Opinion

Best Online Shopping in Nigeria: Your Ultimate Guide to Convenient Shopping

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If you’ve ever wondered where to experience the best online shopping in Nigeria, you’re not alone. The shift toward digital buying has transformed how Nigerians shop — from fashion and electronics to home appliances and groceries. One of the fastest-rising names leading this change is Nujora.ng, a trusted platform designed to make shopping easier, faster, and more rewarding for both buyers and local sellers.

 

 

Why Online Shopping Is Booming in Nigeria

Nigerians are increasingly turning to online shopping for convenience, better prices, and access to products that aren’t always available in local markets. The ease of browsing and comparing prices from your phone has made e-commerce part of everyday life.

With platforms like Nujora.ng, buyers can enjoy smooth transactions, quick delivery, and reliable customer support — all while supporting homegrown businesses.

 

 

Why Nujora.ng Is Your Go-To Online Marketplace

When it comes to the best online shopping experience in Nigeria, Nujora offers more than just a place to buy and sell. It’s a growing community marketplace built around trust, affordability, and local connection.

Here’s why shoppers love Nujora:

🛍️ Wide Range of Products: From fashion to electronics, beauty, and home essentials.

🚚 Fast Delivery: Items are delivered quickly from nearby vendors.

🤝 Trusted Sellers: Verified local sellers ensure genuine products.

💰 Affordable Deals: Competitive pricing with no hidden costs.

🌍 Support Local: Every purchase helps small Nigerian businesses grow.

Calling All Local Sellers – Join Nujora Today!

Are you a business owner, vendor, or artisan looking to grow your sales?

Nujora.ng is your opportunity to take your business online without the stress of building a website. Our mission is to empower local entrepreneurs to reach thousands of new customers easily.

Here’s what sellers get when they join:

A user-friendly dashboard to upload and manage products.

Direct access to nearby buyers.

Marketing and visibility support from Nujora’s team.

Secure transactions and fast payouts.

Join Nujora today — the future of online selling is local, and Nujora is here to make it happen.

Visit www.nujora.ng to start selling now.

Final Thoughts

The best online shopping in Nigeria isn’t just about convenience — it’s about connection. With Nujora.ng, buyers get quality and speed, while sellers gain exposure and growth. Together, we’re building a smarter, more inclusive marketplace that keeps commerce local and digital.

Start your journey today at www.nujora.ng — discover amazing deals, support local sellers, and experience Nigeria’s most convenient way to shop online.

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Opinion

𝐊𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐨’𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐚𝐥

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Aliyu Isa Aliyu, Ph.D

 

During my time as the financial secretary of NNPP in Kano state and other political engagements, I saw clearly how many of the so-called fake Kwankwasiyya loyalists behaved. They always came with sweet promises, showing deep respect for Kwankwaso’s leadership and pretending to be his strongest disciples. They claimed they would defend the party’s ideology even with their lives. But the moment they got what they wanted, whether it was an election victory, recognition, or political favour, they slowly pulled away. Their loyalty was never to the Kwankwasiyya movement, but only to their own ambitions. Personally, I never regarded their loyalty, never praised them, and never wasted my time writing about them.

 

What surprised me most was Kwankwaso’s ability to take all of this without holding any grudges. Time and again, he welcomed them back whenever they were politically stranded. Instead of shutting them out, he gave them another chance, teaching us that leadership is not about revenge but about building bridges, even with those who once betrayed you. Many of us in the party leadership found it hard to understand this level of patience, but over time, I came to see it as part of what makes him a rare politician in Nigeria.

 

This same cycle has repeated itself in every election season. Politicians who abandoned kwankwasiyya the most critical times would always return in desperation, and Kwankwaso would open the doors again. For him, the bigger picture has always been the growth of the movement and the empowerment of the masses, not the small politics of exclusion. But from my own experience, I have seen both the strength and weakness of this approach. The strength is Kwankwaso’s unmatched generosity and forgiveness, but the weakness is the opportunism of those who treat leadership as a shortcut to power. In 2024, some of them worked tirelessly with all kinds of deceit just to secure tickets for their boys as local government chairmen, but thankfully Madugu Kwankwaso was firm and did not fall into their trap.

 

Now the time has come for our leader, Senator Kwankwaso, to reflect on his political generosity and take the right stand. It is better to lose an election with true loyalists than to win with those sabbatical politicians who only come for their selfish gains. Nobody can deny that they contributed to NNPP’s growth in Kano, but the truth is that the sacrifices Kwankwaso made for them are far greater than what they have done for him or the movement. Before their defection to NNPP in 2022, there were committed people already vying for those positions, but they were pleaded to step down and hand over the tickets for free. You cannot build a political movement with people who carry two faces. In politics, you are either here or there; there is no middle ground. Kwankwasiyya is not only about winning elections, it is also about discipline and sacrifice. We won clearly in 2019 before the election was declared inconclusive, and we still won in 2023 despite the odds. If Almighty Allah has destined our victory in 2027, no betrayal can stop it, no matter who leaves Kwankwasiyya.

 

– Aliyu Isa Aliyu, Ph.D

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Opinion

A reply to Dan’uwa Rano’s from makafi to awakai: the display of blind plotics and political idolatry 

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Ibrahim Bello-Kano           

I’ve read Danuwa Rano’s post as a trained and professional critic of prose works, both fictional and non-fictional (the kind of writing in which the writer and the narrator are the same person, and in which there is a direct mode of address to the purported reader of the writing, the text). Thus, my response to this post, shared on this platform, is three-fold. 

1. The writer, Danuwa Rano, is a well-known member or sympathiser of the APC in Kano and a supporter of an aspiring APC candidate for the position of the Gov. of Kano State, despite his critical yet digressive comment on the Gov of Jigawa, Namadi, Abubakar Rimi, and Aminu Kano, to cite just those three. In my academic field, we train our students in the literary criticism of non-fictional texts to look for the writer’s MOTIVE for writing. Usually, in this kind of writing, the writer does not reveal his motive (which is usually hidden) for writing directly but takes detours, digressions, and other textual strategies of establishing some nuggets of “authenticity”. Just a ploy to deceive the unsuspecting or the gullible reeader, to say the least. If and where the writer is well known, we also seek to read his previous works, including his podcasts, interviews, or open attitudinal-ideological stance in relation to public discourse.

2. We also probe the text for its linguistic “unsaids” or “non-saids”, namely its TONE and the perspectival presentation of events and people (we call this reading or interpretive strategy “symptomatic reading”). It’s interesting that the writer himself reveals that his text was inspired by a previous one critical of Kwankwaso and the Kwankwasiyya movement, written by Auwal Anwar.

3. After a thinly veiled ideological bad faith on the part of Danuwa Rano, he delves into a moralistic discourse, namely that God/Allah has created human beings with dignity and with self-worth, higher than those of the animals such as “goats”; and much more integrative than the blind (“makafi”). But Danuwa Rano is clearly not very educated in how language, in this case Hausa and English, work. In language, in Hausa, we call or regard someone that is a maestro, a highly gifted person, in any vocation or an endeavor, as, or by describing him as “shege” or “maye” in or about something that we admire or value (masterly). Why is that? Language has both DENOTATION and CONNOTATION. In any Hausa dictionary, the denotation of “Shege” would be “bastard” (illegitimate within the marriage-kinship and cultural system). But when used in the context of connotation, “Shege” describes someone with admirable skills, in appreciation of his or her skills, mastery, and distinguished capacities. Alas, this is what Danuwa Rano has missed. So, in every linguistic comminity, symbolism, figuration, and emblematic descriptions are never far away from the symbolic sphere of experience. Here’s another example from the English language. Expressions such as “evil genius” and the Latinate “maestro” exist because symbolisation or figural descriptions are creative, a way of coming into the undecidable space of appreciation and appropriation, including the anxiety about what we denote in the cultural-linguistic game, and in our unconscious.

4. Rather bizarrely and crudely, perhaps even maliciously, Danuwa Rano fails to see, blinded by his ideological moralism, that whenever the Kwankwasiyya people call themselves “makafi” and “awaki” they are, in fact, ENGAGING IN the SYMBOLIC PARODY of their opponents, that is, those who criticise them for being resolute and committed political agents in a certain way. To borrow a metaphor from Michel Foucault, it is the Kwankwasiyya people’s way of “self-presentation” in the political and democratic arena. Indeed, it was the same process at work when the British Workers called themselves “Chartists” (based on their Charter of Demands). But we know that a group of human beings cannot be a List or a Charter. Rather, in language, any group can identify with a colour (“Red” for communists and Marxists; Green for Muslims; or with emblems (the Crescent Moon, The Cross, or the Hammer and Sickle, or just an Effigy; a country’s or a state’s “coat of arms”). Should we assume, then, that the Kwankwasiyya followers are physically, intellectually, or ideologically blind? But if they were, they would not work for someone, Senator Kwankwaso (RMK), that they couldn’t have literally “seen”.

5. Danuwa Rano is such a poor writer, such a poorly educated person on how language and symbolisation actually work, that he mistook a figural statement as intransitively real and factual. What a pity! In fact, I am tempted here to cite the famous argument of the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, that language as such is only a doxa (opinion) rather than (a) truth (episteme). In this view, language is a kind of rhetoric and thus inherently rhetorical. For example, in the Hausa “Kirari” system, any one can call themselves a lion, a mouse, an elephant, or even a fox, or even, indeed, a “merciless killer”, one who does not and would not spare his enemies. I recall, in my youth, my father admiringly calling my mother “uwar garke” (“the mother of the herd”, his herd) but does that mean she was a cow, the female head of a herd of cows? Certainly not!

6. It is a mark of Danuwa Rano’s ideological project that he mistakes linguistic and symbolic parody for the literal thing. Hence, his weak, unconvincing, and flat moralistic attacks on RMK and the Kwankwasiyya people. The latter are saying that they are deeply committed to their political projects, that they are not the typical political opportunists, fortune chasers, and the “fair weather people” that one finds in the Kano APC. In addition, the Kwankwasiyya “Makafi” are also saying that they see clearly where their principled allegiance lies.

7. If Danuwa Rano were a careful, perceptive thinker or writer of political innuendo, he would have seen something prevalent in the history of Kano since the 18th century, namely the tradition of following religious, sectoral leaders, as seen in the mass of committed followers in Kano of the Tariqa, the Shia, and the Izala, to mention just those three. It’s hard not to find a Kano man or woman that is not openly oriented to those three groups.

8. It is, without a doubt, the same temperament that one still finds in the secular political sphere in Kano. Expecting otherwise in the political sphere of the community is either short-sighted or willful blindness or sheer ignorance, all all three. Or, one might ignore all this in furtherance of his un-stated ideological-political agenda.

9. Let me reiterate a point that I have always argued in public: Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso is, without a doubt, a veritable political leader for many reasons. There is not one politician in Kano today who has the deep and wide charisma as to draw a huge crowd of enthusiastic supporters, with the charm and grace that can score, or in fact has scored, over one million votes in Kano State in the elections. His party’s candidate for Governor scored well over a million votes in the 2023 elections. Even Tinubu lost in Lagos in the 2023 elections (only scored anout 600, 000 votes). For that reason and many others (RMK’s cosmic patience, personal Promesean and Sysipusian endurance, his political sagacity and capacity for brilliant and moving political oratory— the “Ma-a-ha chant”), he is the target of disgruntled enemies, the object of deep malice but that is obscured or hidden as “objective analysis”.

10. But hate him or love him, despite Kwankwasiyya movement or not, one must accept that RMK is simply the modern expression of the new politics that is gripping the imagination of young people and that of perceptive, politically committed intellectuals, those who know what is at stake in the political future of Kano State and Nigeria as a whole.

11. Imagine a political leader, the one whose previously opportunistic followers had deserted when he left office, the man who stayed out of power and elective office for eight years, the man who founded a political party within eight months to the national elections, and yet him and his party swept the board, won virtually all the elective offices, including the Govenorship. I daresay such a man, RMK, is naturally the target of malice, envy, and bruised political egos. Danuwa Rano’s virtuperations on RMK and the Kwankwasiyya movement is one more example of crudely malicious, badly conceived, poorly written attacks on modern Kano’s most successful person and his movement.

Ibrahim Bello-Kano.

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