Shettima’s selfless sacrifice for Borno

The limelight has, quite naturally shifted from ex-office holders to their successors. Expectedely, the so-called ‘’30 days in office’’ of newly elected governors have taken the centre stage and the newspaper spaces are filled with the traditional chest-beating of achievements by associates, agents and minders. While the celebrations is some states were just not worth […]

The limelight has, quite naturally shifted from ex-office holders to their successors. Expectedely, the so-called ‘’30 days in office’’ of newly elected governors have taken the centre stage and the newspaper spaces are filled with the traditional chest-beating of achievements by associates, agents and minders. While the celebrations is some states were just not worth it owing to the apparent dismal output, in others, you cannot but agree with the torrents of messages of congratulations billowing out of such states.

In Borno, Governor Babagana Umara Zulum is deservedly being celebrated for the positive actions he has taken from day one and which have impacted positively on the lives of his people. His Media Adviser Isa Gusau had, in a-must-read article in the Daily Trust few days ago entitled ‘’Prof. Zulum’s 30 goals in 30 matches’’ done justice to the subject of the mindboggling achievements in the state.

The fact of the matter is that the only Professor-Governor ever in the Northern part of the country has left nobody in any doubt of his ability and capacity to deliver. His action-packed first few days in office gave out a signal of what to expect from a man that was deliberately and carefully selected by an equally selfless predecessor whose idea of a successor was to have a man that would add value, and not a man that would kowtow to him.

I have spoken countless times at different places and platforms about the peculiarity and significance of the selflessness of former Governor now Senator Kashim Shettima in the nobility of putting Borno first in a situation where every other outgoing Governor in Nigeria was vehement and unyielding in a do-or die mindset of forcing a lackey on the people. When APC National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole stood in the way of Abdulaziz Yari when the later had zeroed in on his sidekick, we have all seen how the fierce battle led the party to losing out completely at all levels in Zamfara state.

Why am I still not done with the subject of the succession process in Borno? What actually is in it that can prove that Kashim Shettima was actually not as selfish as they come? I see myself as reasonably knowledgeable about Borno politics, having stayed there for an unbroken period of over forty years as a resident journalist and public affairs commentator.

I have seen Governors come and go and right from the years of Muhammed Goni up to the last, Kashim Shettima’s aristocracy in his ultimate choice, even when there was a pool of other competent but compromise-able candidates, who would have suited Shettima’s desire for a lackey, depicted a man whose love for his state was unequalled. Out of the over 20 people who bought nomination forms to fight for the APC governorship ticket, more than half of them were closer to the former Governor than Professor Zulum. In fact, amongst them was a group of the so-called ‘’Kashim Boys.’’ Another group of them shared biological kinship with him. Most of them have personally and politically associated and related with Kashim for many years before the Senator discovered Zulum at the University of Maiduguri from where he first made him Rector of the state-owned Ramat Polytechnic. The intellectual powerhouse and sheer competence in the Professor manifested in the way he turned around the Polytechnic into a first class tertiary institution in so short a time.

Naturally, the former Governor threw more challenges unto the path of the Professor and in no time, he became a member of the state executive council. As commissioner in charge of the all-important Ministry of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, the workaholic and physically astute 49 year old academic demonstrated that the Irrigation Engineering Professorship in him had a knack of putting into practice the theories imbibed in the ivory tower. We can therefore see, from the foregoing that Kashim Shettima went for the best man and worked assiduously toward convincing the party into handing over its ticket to him and ultimately working out a campaign strategy in which the people of the state keyed into.

What I have been able to establish in this write up, is that Kashim Shettima had the leeway to go the way of almost everyone in his shoes as was evident almost everywhere. He could not bring himself to doing that because he knew that Borno could ill-afford that. The state had fought a mindless insurgency for ten years and the destruction to human lives and property was so immense and intense that supporting anybody to become Governor at this most trying post-insurgency period, other than a man of the professor’s towering caliber will have meant many more years in the dungeon of senseless decapitations. Clearly, Kashim Shettima had found himself torn between advancing his personal interests by way of supplanting a stooge in order to call the shots, or supporting a man that cannot be railroaded alright but who fitted into an office in a state that was in dire need of a man of decision and courage.

Zulum’s choice was the best in the circumstance and the rapidity of his decisions and how vital they have proven to be as is evident in the popularity of his actions meant only one thing as far as succession process was concerned. The incontestable reality is that even though Kashim Shettima has overpowered the temptation to make himself the central issue in Borno politics, he has, by this singular tact, become the cornerstone of the finest brand of politics in a country where such is very uncommon. So, when next anyone speaks glowingly of how right the choice of Zulum was, he or she must add a rider by extolling the virtue and selflessness in Kashim Shettima’s courage to put his own providence on the line, so that Borno will suffice.

Ahmed-BK wrote from Gesse III, Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State.