Hard knocks for Ganduje, garlands for Matawalle

It was a great relief when President Muhammadu Buhari, in his speech of Monday night, announced that the federal government was going to intervene in Kano. This announcement was all many waited for. It marked the President as responsive to the yearnings of the people. Kano State, particularly the densely populated capital city, had become […]

It was a great relief when President Muhammadu Buhari, in his speech of Monday night, announced that the federal government was going to intervene in Kano. This announcement was all many waited for. It marked the President as responsive to the yearnings of the people. Kano State, particularly the densely populated capital city, had become a source of national distress ,more so because it was clear that the State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, was completely in the woods with regards to what to do as the people of Kano, including scores of very prominent senior citizens were dying in their hundreds. It was very obvious that Ganduje had mismanaged response to the public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One could sense the smack of anger in the tone of the President when he came to the subject of Kano. He indeed sounded very military.  President Buhari said “with regards to Kano, I have directed the enforcement of a total lockdown for a period of two weeks effective immediately. The Federal Government shall deploy all the necessary human, material and technical resources to support the State in controlling and containing the pandemic and preventing the risk of further spread to neighboring states.” There appeared a hint of frustration in the humour of President Buhari’s careful note that Ganduje was not going to receive monetary assistance, but “all the necessary human, material and technical resources to support the State in controlling and containing the pandemic and preventing the risk of further spread”.

Kano has been a tragedy of sorts under Ganduje. Hundreds of the city’s denizens were dying by the day and the state government, like the proverbial ostrich, buried its head in the sand denying that deaths were related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was chaos as the people as customary, observed no prescribed restrictions to inhibit the virus. What should have passed as the state’s version of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 collapsed as the key members tested positive to the virus. Who was left to organise the response for gigantic Kano? Here is a state for which the people are its wealth ,yet neglecting the people’s well being to the extent that private clinics closed, public health workers abandoned their duty posts because aside lack of drugs, personal protection equipment could not be provided for them, and the aged and sick were abandoned to all vagaries in the sweltering hot season. Even the Testing Centre set up for Kano State by the National Centre for Disease Control was so poorly managed that within a week of service, some of the operatives reportedly tested positive to the virus and the edifice had to be shut down for decontamination.

Why could Ganduje not prepare Kano for the obviously coming onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic? He had Kaduna State to only look across to, and see what Governor Nasiru el Rufa’i had done even from his sick bed. There was so much to have simply copied. Nasiru el Rufa’i locked down Kaduna State and enacted laws to enable Government punish defaulters of the lockdown. He established and equipped  isolation centres and ensured that first line defenders namely the Medical Professionals and the security operatives, were all trained and equipped and well prepared for the operation of a clearly spelt out state protocol for dealing with the pandemic. Bauchi, Jigawa, Yobe, and even Borno had gone far in preparation for the impending doom without looking up to Abuja, while Ganguje was busy charging at the windmills and picking cherries.

Were the constitution to allow it, we would beg President Buhari to send Ganduje on a forced intensive training leave to Zamfara State to understudy what the young first term Governor Bello Muhammad Matawalle has done without crying to the Federal Government for intervention. Imagine Matawalle’s check list! The Zamfara State government at the early stages announced the closure of all Government Primary and Secondary Schools, as well as all Islamiyya Schools, sending children home to their parents. Closing down all Government Offices and keeping essential services institutions only functional, two separate Committees were set up, one for Control and Prevention and the other for Impact and Relief headed by the State Deputy Governor, Barr Mahdi Aliyu Gusau and the House Speaker Nasiru Muazu Magarya respectively. This is a state ready for war. This is a governor delegating executive power over a studied problem. Compare this with Governor Ganduje’s preoccupation with politics and aimless rhetoric when Kano presented a well known nightmarish challenge than Zamfara, Kogi, Bauchi or Adamawa States. In Zamfara, the State Government procured tonnes of hand sanitisers and face masks for distribution to the public, with enlightenment campaigns on international good practices against spread of COVID-19 especially on hand sanitisers, use of face masks, keeping social distances and avoiding crowds. The government set up two one hundred bed isolation centers in Gusau and Damba and procured up to 12 ventilators and 20,000 sample test kits for the isolation centers in the state. The Zamfara State government purchased foodstuff worth N1.2 billion for public feeding through-out the month of Ramadan in all the 2,156 polling wards in the state.

Governor Ganduje allowed himself to be overwhelmed by clearly foreseen problems. He did not move to introduce restrictions systematically in a manner that coped with Kano and its complexities, and to this extent, his government is to blame for calamities that could have been mitigated.

What did it require for the closure of borders such that no vehicles left or entered the state for a period? If KAROTA could be organised to so terrorise the public, what did Ganduje need to enforce a total restriction of movement in Kano metropolitan? If the reward for Governor Ganduje’s shortcoming is whatever largesse comes to the State through the federal government’s intervention, what is the reward for forthright Governors such as El Rufa’i and Matawalle or even Babagana Zulum who has an insurgency to deal with and has yet been proactive in his response to the pandemic?