My house is my paradise on earth – Kassim Musa Bichi
Alhaji Kassim Musa Bichi, who is still below 80 years of age, has been in public life since 1980. He was the first substantive director of budget in Kano State, and later, special adviser and commissioner for finance in the Abubakar Rimi government(1981-83). He also served as the managing director of the Northern Nigeria Investment […]
Alhaji Kassim Musa Bichi, who is still below 80 years of age, has been in public life since 1980. He was the first substantive director of budget in Kano State, and later, special adviser and commissioner for finance in the Abubakar Rimi government(1981-83). He also served as the managing director of the Northern Nigeria Investment Limited(NNIL), and as the managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank(FMB), from where he retired in 2007.
How would you describe your early life in Bichi town?
I was born in Bichi in 1949. My father was a traditional Mallam, especially in the book of Dala’il Khayrat. He was also a businessman.
I did my primary school in Bichi. From there, I went to Birnin Kudu Secondary School. After five years, I came to Kano and joined Rumfa College in the Higher School Certificate (HSC) class.
After successfully passing the examination for entrance into university, I joined the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in the Economics Department in 1970 and graduated in 1973.
Your mother was also a kind of businesswoman. And indeed, you combined schooling with hawking the goods she was producing; can you talk about that?
That’s correct. At that time, about 70 years ago, in most households in Hausa land, the women were in seclusion; if they had children, they normally engaged in small businesses inside the house.
In the case of my mother, she was cooking food, especially rice, which I was hawking, as well as other things like snacks, which she learnt here in Kano, where we have relatives. She had learned those trades like making alkali, alkubus and things like that before she got married to my father. She made local delicacies and I was selling them.
So you were hawking and going to school?
It was very easy because before I started formal western schooling, I was going for Islamic education in the morning. At that time, we called it Quranic school rather than Islamiyya or Islamic school. After Islamiyya around 10am, the food would have been ready for lunch. So hawking would start in the afternoon, up to afternoon prayer times; after which I would go back to the Quranic school.
When I joined elementary school, which opened in the morning, there was no way of hawking anything. But after school, I still went out to do the hawking. However, the Islamic or Quranic school suffered because of that. That was only for the first 12 or so years.
Your mother was a remarkable woman. She continued in business and was even helping when you retired from work?
Well, my mother, who is still alive – 90 years old – is very industrious – even after she left Bichi. Unfortunately, she and my father divorced in 1976 or so and she came to Kano, where she has, or had relatives.
She continued producing food in the hajj camp during Umrah periods, sometimes with her last female child, who is now an adult.
When she got married to another person later, she continued with that business because she met the man while selling food at the airport.
In the house, she started producing the kind of things she was doing at Bichi, but there was no hawking by anyone.
Ultimately, when she retired from marriage about 20 years ago and was able to build a house here in the GRA, she started poultry business, which she is doing up to this moment.
So she lives in the GRA?
Yes. I was very lucky to have got a plot very close to the NTA and built a house for her in 1999.
In what circumstance did you go to ABU, Zaria?
At that time, those who went to university or even secondary school were on scholarships by the government. We were even getting pocket money in secondary school every month, even though we were paying a token as school fees.
Those in teachers’ colleges were getting stipends. So I went to Zaria through a Kano State Government scholarship.
Why did you decide to read Economics?
When I left the HSC, I had no idea of what I would do; just like when I left secondary school – to go and take up an appointment in either government or company or continue with education. Only God decided what I would do and I went ahead.
In ABU, at first I wanted to read Law because I thought that being a lawyer would suit me, especially when I saw lawyers, but after some time, I realised that lawyers were paid to defend anybody that engaged them, whether they were right or wrong. You know their duty is to defend. I felt that lawyers were defending falsehood and even criminals. So, why should I do that and be paid? That’s why I decided not to read Law.
And I passed Mathematics, which was one of the requirements in WAEC examination to read Economics. I could have read History because I was interested in it. So, going to the Ahmadu Bello University, I decided that Economics was the best course to do. Just like that. I like the name, how it sounds.
Economics opened opportunity to go into business – the private sector – but you chose the Kano State Government; why?
Well, although my family was in business, it was not that big; it was just for normal life sustenance, not for great riches. Moreover, there were so many opportunities at the time, even in the private sector – companies, banks and what have you, as well as the government.
During my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme in the East Central State, what is now called Anambra, the United Bank for Africa (UBA) came on a recruitment tour. I was one of those that attended their interview. They even took us to Lagos. That was my first flight on an airplane. I was offered an appointment in the bank as an officer trainee or something like that.
But at that time, the question of choosing a career was very important, especially when graduates looked up to the chance of getting accommodation, I mean housing, motor car, getting married and all that. In government, those things were already there, so I decided to go.
But you didn’t do badly because within a short time of your coming into the civil service you became a director of budget.
I joined the government as an economic planning officer in 1974 after the NYSC programme. But after five years, I wasn’t too happy with business in government and that affected my portfolio or appointment, so I decided to leave. I got an appointment in the Groundnut Board.
Which was another government parastatal of northern Nigeria.
Yes. It was based in Kano. I left the government, not even on secondment; I resigned.
You transferred your service?
I transferred my service from the(state) government to the Groundnut Board.
The Rimi government came in 1979 and he decided to remove all the permanent secretaries, except Mallam Abubakar Sadauki Kura, who was moved back to the office of the chief planning officer, even though he was a permanent secretary. Within a few weeks, the governor decided to create the Department of Budget, the first in Nigeria, even before the federal government created such department, separate from the Ministry of Finance. It was Rimi who first did it.
When he appointed Sadauki as director of budget, he came to my house although he was a big man. I was just a middle level officer, but we had worked together when I was a planning officer and he was the chief planning officer of the state before he became a permanent secretary.
He came to my house and asked me to go back to the government as deputy chief planning officer. I left as senior planning officer and joined the Groundnut Board. I was on level 12 in the Kano State Government. Groundnut Board gave me level 13.
Sadauki offered me level 14 to become the deputy chief planning officer, which I accepted. I had to transfer my service back to the Kano State Government. Seven days later, he decided that he was going to leave the government and join the banking sector as an assistant general manager in Union Bank. Rimi asked him to recommend three persons (who) would take this job and he told the governor that all he had was Kassim Musa Bichi.
The day I was given the letter that re-transferred my service to the state government as deputy chief planning officer, I was also appointed the director of budget to take the place of Mallam Abubakar Sadauki.
And you went on to become a commissioner for finance under Abubakar Rimi.
Yes.
You were a civil servant; how was your experience as a commissioner, which was a political appointment?
Even the director of budget was a political appointment. After six months, Rimi made me his special adviser on budgetary matters but with a higher salary and a bigger name. It was also a political appointment. I still held my position as director of budget in the civil service.
The commissioner for finance, the late Alhaji Abdu Abdurraheem left the government and joined the NNDC as managing director, having worked with Governor Rimi for one and a half years.
Interestingly, Governor Rimi and myself did not meet each other before my appointment as the director of budget. Apparently, he was satisfied with the way I handled the job in the budget department, so he decided that he would make me the commissioner for finance even though it was political. At that time, constitutionally, you could not be a commissioner, minister and so on if you were in service – state, federal or even local government – you had to resign. I had worked for eight years after graduation and was not even entitled to gratuity if I left.
You were 32?
I was 32, but eight years in the service. So, if I had left at the time, there would be no gratuity, not to talk of pension. But because it was the position of a commissioner, I decided to resign, considering the name, the prestige.
How was it working with Rimi?
It was fantastic because of what he was and what I was and still am. Maybe that’s why it worked. You may know a little about me – I do things I believe are right. If I am right, I don’t care who I tell and the consequences.
That’s why I was able to work with Rimi. For example, there was one incident involving a proposal he got from a foreign national, an Indian expelled by President Idi Amin of Uganda, who resettled in Britain.
Rimi met him and(he) made a proposal to do some development projects on a turn-key basis and getting finance from the international finance system. When I got the proposal, as commissioner for finance, I told Rimi point-blank that this would not gell because it was not sincere. Rimi said, “Kassim you are the most pessimistic person I have ever seen.”
He wasn’t happy?
No; there was no unhappiness. Rimi was fantastic; he never lost his temper. It was just a friendly remark. I liked being called pessimistic.
In the end, I was proved right; the thing didn’t happen. He even had to go to London. I was vindicated.
When Rimi lost election in 1983 you also lost your job, right?
Yes and no. No because it was not like that. First of all, Rimi did not really lose the election; it is contestable. They said it was manipulated by the National Party of Nigeria (NPN)-led federal government because they didn’t want Rimi. Even some very important people in Kano, including Aminu Kano, wanted him to fail.
As you stated in your biography, from September 1983 you began a long wait for jobs. How did you get a job at the Northern Nigeria Investments Limited, which was based in Kaduna?
I was not the only person that was out of job. Remember that after the 1983 military coup by General Buhari and Idiagbon, all the commissioners, ministers – everybody who held a political position – was incarcerated. Some were jailed after a bogus tribunal.
Were you also jailed?
No. I was detained.
For one year?
I didn’t go to the tribunal or court, but I was detained with many others for 11 months – three of them in Kundila. Two or three weeks after the coup, all the commissioners and Rimi were detained in Kundila Housing Estate, not the prison, Kundila on Zaria road. I didn’t even go to court. We were just detained. I was released in January 1984.
Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman (was) first offered the position of managing director of the Northern Nigeria Investments Limited by Alhaji Muhammad Hayatuddeen, the managing director of the NNDC at that time.
But Shamsuddeen did not take that offer; and when Mallam Hayatuddeen asked him to give him another name from Kano, he gave my name.
So Hayatuddeen said he would contact me, but he did not because he learnt I was high-handed. I don’t know the word I would use, maybe somebody who didn’t take commands or something like that. So he didn’t quite want me.
Hayatuddeen said, “Tell Alhaji Bichi that whenever he comes to Kaduna he could come and see me.” So he was not quite inviting me; maybe because of the views he had of me. But he didn’t say no. So I went to Kaduna on my own. That’s how I got the job.
How did we lose all those northern Nigerian investments?
We didn’t lose all the investments. Two things happened. First, those investments belonged to the NNDC, hence the 19 northern states. But you know an investment company operates in the commercial space or sector.
With time, the need for joint ownership, even under the NNDC, did not quite arise because they had outlived their usefulness. Although they were commercially done, in the real sense, they were developmental-based.
Also, the wind of privatisation affected them. That’s how, with time the NNIL withdrew from some of them. One of them, Bank of the North, was liquidated by the banking system.
Are you saying the NNDC is still relevant to the northern economy?
I have a problem with that. The NNDC ought to have been, but somehow, it is not; maybe because it is not getting the full support it ought to get from its owners – the 19 northern states. Each of them has its own investment company, so they do not give enough financial support to the NNDC to become a real conglomerate that can really address the problems of commerce that are still facing the North. But it is still relevant.
After the NNIL job, you were again back to the job market; what happened?
I left on my own, after eight years; I had nothing more to achieve.
Why leave when you didn’t have another job?
It was simple. I thought I had enough capital from the resources I was able to gather in eight years because I was the director of 15 companies out of the over 30 under the NNIL – some for all of the eight years.
So, I had a legitimate opportunity to get something out of them. I was also given a severance compensation although it was meager. I think it was N40,000. I thought I had sufficient funds to start something in business because I was bored in the NNIL.
You are an economist with experiences in boards and the investment company, yet you could not really make it. You attempted to start a private business here in Kano, what happened?
Not that I couldn’t make it, but let’s say that I didn’t. I don’t know if I am being semantic. I didn’t make it because maybe I miscalculated. I did not have enough capital as things turned out. Moreover, based on my personal and Islamic principle and identity, I wasn’t going to take any loan from a bank that I would pay interest. So I could not really get sufficient capital. That’s what happened. And no business can be successful without sufficient capital. The money was in the banking system, where I could have gotten any loan, but I did not.
You started a poultry business but couldn’t grow it gradually into something big, even with the capital you had; why?
I know you have been going to Dawakin Kudu; there is a farm there.
Kutumbawa?
You saw it. I established it with a lot of money. That’s where all the money went. At one time I had 10,000 birds on ground, not even in cages. But there was a recurrent problem, and that’s how I could not continue. I closed it and ultimately sold it off.
So you were lucky that some of your former colleagues remembered you and suggested you for the position of the managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank.
Yes. The Federal Mortgage Bank job came while I was in that situation. But I was not in any serious economic predicament at that time. I was relatively okay, so in the real sense, I was not bothering about what was happening. But Allah, in his mercy brought me the manna from heaven.
How did you cope with pressure as the managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank in Lagos?
There was no problem. I was appointed by the General Abacha regime, so I relocated to Lagos, but my family remained in this very house.
I built this house 45 years ago. So I was in Lagos and my family was here. There was no problem. It was a new life over the age of 40. It was a new life I tremendously enjoyed.
But after almost two years, I moved the bank to Abuja, its headquarters; not of our own accord but with the support of the federal government, especially the minister of works at that time, General Abdulkareem Adisa. So I moved the bank to Abuja, which was closer home.
What made the job more interesting but also a little bit difficult was that throughout my almost eight years in the bank, it did not have board of directors. So there was nobody over my head, except the minister of works. At one time, a board was appointed by the government but it was never inaugurated.
So you were dealing with ( chief Tony) Anenih as your board?
General Adisa, General Garba Ali and maybe another one before Anenih came in. I was dealing with the ministers and there was no problem.
But you had few conflicts with Anenih?
Not conflicts.
Okay, run-ins; I don’t know the words to use, but you had some disagreements.
A kind of misunderstandings, yes.
Because he wanted the money?
Not in that way. It is in my biography. That’s where I read it.
I have nothing to hide. I had a fantastic relationship with Minister Anenih from the day he was appointed, up to the time he left. He left as minister a day before I left the mortgage bank. It was fantastic. I was dealing with him, not even the permanent secretary. I was dealing directly with the minister.
What happened on the two occasions you call conflict is that he wanted the bank to give a loan to Edo, his home state, from the National Housing Fund. We were collecting up to N2 billion at that time. There was nothing wrong in asking for that, but even Lucky Igbinedion, the governor we met, kind of understood that proper procedure would be followed for the loan to be given.
I sat with my executive directors – three of them – and thought about it. We decided that the loan ought not to be given, for three reasons, which I put in writing to the minister of works. First, at that time, members of staff of Edo State were not contributing to the National Housing Fund, which had accrued to the big amount they wanted a portion of as a loan. So why should you be asking me to give you a loan when you were not contributing to the fund?
Secondly, the interest to be charged was almost half of what we were getting from the banking system. Why should we lose money on that account?
Thirdly, if the loan was given, what would stop the other 35 states from asking? So I wrote and mentioned the above reasons and the minister was not happy.
In the end, I got a telephone call from the presidency. The person did not identify himself, but he said I should send the issue of the loan so that they could see; which I did.
Believe me, two or three days later, Minister Anenih called me. I didn’t know why he called me, but I wasn’t worried or unduly disturbed. But when I went in, he said, “Alhaji Bichi, you don’t like Edo State. You refused to give us a loan.” I told him that I didn’t refuse and he said, “Keep your wahala.”
He said you should keep your money?
He said, “Keep your money, President Obasanjo is giving me the money.” I said, “Thank God for that.”
Your tenure as the managing director of the Federal Mortgage Bank was supposed to continue up to 2005?
Yes. It should be for five years, then going for a second tenure.
I learnt that you heard it on the NTA that somebody else had been appointed to replace you; how did you react to the news?
I was surprised but not bothered because I didn’t hear it directly from the television screen. I was watching the 9 o’clock news; when I went to the toilet, before I came out, the announcement was made.
A friend called me and asked if I heard the news that I had been removed. I said, “Thank God.”
Why do you think you were removed?
I wouldn’t know, but this is what happened in brief. I was given a national honour – Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) by President Obasanjo. Look at the certificate there. Somebody recommended me and the government agreed that I deserved the national honour.
A week later, the announcement about replacement came and I couldn’t understand. I could not understand how the government would give me a national honour and a week later remove me from the office.
So you left the job and your very comfortable life in Abuja and returned to Kano. I think that began another short episode of your life in politics?
Before I was removed, a colleague from Bichi, who was my senior in government came to me in the bank and said our people wanted me to contest election. But I said I was not interested in politics for two reasons. First, I was not a commissioner under Rimi 20 years earlier because I was in politics; it just happened. Second, from what I knew, I could not imagine that I could live the life of a politician. And that is my position up to this moment, although I ultimately participated for almost 12 years.
When the removal came and I came back to this house, I didn’t have a business or anything to fall back on and keep myself busy; so naturally, I decided to attend the meetings of the then opposition political party in Kano State, the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), not the PDP that was in power. By the grace of God, I was accepted easily by the leadership of the party, both here in Kano and at the national level.
But you couldn’t get to contest any position?
I just wanted to start when the guy who advised me came back and said the people in Bichi had decided that I should contest for a position in the House of Representatives. I accepted and even paid the fee of N500,000 from the severance compensation package that was given to me.
But the politicians thought you had a lot of money?
Absolutely. I bought campaign vehicles and gave the little money I could. I don’t think I had N100,000 in my account at the time. So naturally, somehow, by the grace of God, maybe because of the role I played in the election of Shekarau, he decided to make me a special adviser. I was there for almost four years.
You said you didn’t like the life of politicians, how did you cope as a special adviser in a political setting?
There was no problem because it was just a job. And I wasn’t dealing with the politicians. The politicians from Bichi who first got me to be in the race later stabbed me in the back. But after my appointment, shamelessly, they came to my office, maybe wanting to get the largesse; and I told them off and said they should ask Governor Shekarau whether he gave me money as an adviser to give to people like them. That was the end of the matter. So I had no problem. I was doing a job, just like what I did earlier.
From your biography, after holding those high profile appointments, you still had financial difficulties?
That’s right. I never took a kobo that was not earned. When I was commissioner for finance, I wasn’t giving contracts. I was only making payments.
Then in the mortgage bank, there was no money. There was only money on deposit. There was no money that I could have been getting other than my entitlements.
Those who are listening to us or seeing us, should believe me when I say that I don’t have a single property anywhere in the world. I challenge anyone who thinks I am lying.
It means you left those high profile government jobs and not really doing very well financially?
I am not. But it doesn’t matter; I am not complaining because God has given me two things that are ameliorating my situation. First are my children – I have 9 children – all adults, all university graduates. Five boys and four girls, all gainfully employed. And some of them are in really very good financial positions.
And they are all contributing towards your upkeep?
They are all contributing to the upkeep of the house. Our mother had 9 children, but only three of us are alive today – myself, the first, a girl and the last, a boy, who I brought up like my own son, because between us were 20 years. God has made him even bigger than me right now.
Only seven days ago, he brought me a car worth N9 million and took away the old one I had, which he had given to me five years ago. That is the first blessing from Allah.
Secondly, I have great goodwill. Today, if I want N1 million, believe me, all I need to do is make phone calls and I will get it. Only two months ago, one of my benefactors I mentioned in my book sent me N2 million, just like that.
Without asking?
Without asking. Thirdly, since I left the position of an adviser in 2007, I have been engaged in presenting papers, although what comes from there is very small. But at least I have a few engagements where I get something, but not much to talk about. So I am relatively comfortable. Sometimes things happen that require finance. At times I have to ask for assistance, but Alhamdulillah, I am not complaining.
Do your two wives also work? Are they in business?
No. My first wife is the one I have been married to for almost 50 years now. By April next year, God willing, if we are alive, we will celebrate 50 years of marriage. And she is from Kebbi, not Kano. My second wife is from Katsina; and we have been married 35 or so years.
My first wife does not work, but she engages in catering services and teaching. She has a place where she gets clients, especially girls that are getting married. Sometimes she may have 10 to 20 girls and get good money teaching them different kinds of cuisine for two or three weeks. She also takes orders for catering services. She did some schooling in catering in Abuja at the Women’s Centre.
My second wife, who has a diploma from a polytechnic, is into spices production, teas and things like that in the house. She sometimes sells them all over the North and Lagos, especially through the internet. That’s what they do right now.
You have written up to 10 books. Do you do this out of pleasure or it brings you some income?
I do it for three reasons, but the most important one was boredom; I wasn’t doing anything. But the idea of writing is not new. Even when I was in secondary school I was like a reporter. I used to follow teams and report to our local school newspaper. When I was in the HSC here in Kano, I even had a column in the school newspaper, which I called The Inquisitor. That’s why I started this writing affair.
The first set of books, which were five, were just for our school. I wrote about our classmates who left Birnin Kudu Secondary School in 1967. When we were 50 years old, I wrote something about all of us, both the dead and the living at that time.
That is the historian in you.
Same with my biography in 2021. Apart from boredom, the purpose is that I want the legacy of my life, especially for my children, my progeny.
Now, I am writing three more that I hope to be able to launch. But you can’t find any of the books in any bookshop because I have not made any approach(to sell them).
What is your view on the economy, both of Kano State and Nigeria? Where do you think we are going?
This is a very difficult question, because the Nigerian economy defies characterisation, simply because of the characters that have been running it. We are sometimes not running a true economy.
Do you have hope that we would make progress?
Not really because there is the political aspect. Unfortunately, the political determines the economic. Sometimes it is the other way around, but in Nigeria, that is the situation. So, unless the political changes for the benefit of the economy rather than individuals or groups of individuals, I don’t have much hope.
What should change politically?
Today, the leadership of this country is not taking decisions that are in the interest of the economy. For example, the removal of fuel subsidy, in principle and in theory, is okay. As an economist I have no problem with it, but in reality, it is not, because of what it has generated. It is there for everyone to see. Who is benefitting? Only a few, the corporate sector that is involved with that business, not the people, not even the economy because the cost of doing everything has gone through the roof. It doesn’t make sense.
How do you spend your average day?
Simple. After waking in the morning and after the early morning prayer, I read the Quran. In fact, I read the Quran after every prayer, every day, except the last prayer. I read a portion of the Quran for 30 minutes or thereabouts.
I play on the computer – video games – not children’s video games. I play Sudoku and do crossword puzzles. I even play Solitaire, the card (game). Then I go on the internet and do some intellectual browsing, not entertainment as such.
I also watch television, especially Hausa films, although I find problems with them. First, they distort the Hausa language. You could see that the meanings are sometimes different as if they were illiterates translating. They also distort the Hausa or Fulani culture, or whatever culture. And they sometimes distort religious principles.
Youngsters and others can learn negative things from these three distortions without knowing it. But I get entertainment from time to time.
Do you still travel?
No. I don’t travel because, first of all, from what we discussed earlier, do I even have the resources to travel? The last time I went for lesser hajj, which I had done 15 times when I had the opportunity, was in 2010, I think.
The last time I boarded a plane, until when I had to go to Abuja for some personal reason, was more than 10 years ago, because I had no need to go anywhere.
Let me tell you because you asked: A very good friend of mine, a General, asked me to come to Abuja – that he would sponsor everything – there is a house there for me. But I told him that I was better off in this my house than going to Abuja or even Saudi Arabia or London. I enjoy myself in this house. This is my paradise on earth.
So I have not travelled anywhere, except I have to go to Bichi.