That kerfuffle on Sokoto

written by a certain Emmanuel Anozie on mine of Friday 10th which dwelt on whether or not the Deputy-governor of Sokoto state, Barrister Muntari  Shagari is overrated. It was published in the Daily Trust of Tuesday 28 as Letter to the Editor. In it, Anozie accuses me of embarking on a hatchet job. He also […]

written by a certain Emmanuel Anozie on mine of Friday 10th which dwelt on whether or not the Deputy-governor of Sokoto state, Barrister Muntari  Shagari is overrated. It was published in the Daily Trust of Tuesday 28 as Letter to the Editor.
In it, Anozie accuses me of embarking on a hatchet job. He also plays around my assertion that I had reported Sokoto long enough to call it home and even admonishes me when next I “breeze into Sokoto” to verify some scanty information that he himself hardly understood. I still insist that Sokoto is home. Not just that, I have also been to every nook and cranny of Sokoto state at least twice, once before the turn of the millennium and once after, and that makes me eminently qualified to interject whenever matters involving the state is the rubric. I however remain confused about my accuser since judging by his name the likelihood that he would simply be writing because he is involved can only exists in his own head. He is neither a Shagari nor from Sokoto, and it is likely that he has never even been anywhere other than Sokoto in the state. So who, between us, carries a hatchet?
 Anozie’s insistence that Muntari Shagari as minister gave a cheque of N760m for the rehabilitation of Sokoto water treatment plant to improve water supply in Sokoto metropolis, would have sounded good if this is not Nigeria. The question is, who did the cheque go to and where is the water? Anozie would have known that as recently as 2013 Obasanjo, who kept Muntari as minister for six years, went to Asare in Wamakko local government area, where he inaugurated the Sokoto water supply scheme, meant to supply 40 million gallons daily, due to the dire demand for portable water in the state, but he is in denial.
If Anozie had genuine facts he would have educated us on the milestones of Muntaris achievements nationwide so as to convince us that while he was away from Sokoto he was doing a lot in other parts of the country to justify his being a prophet who is not known in his homeland. But in his selective amnesia he skipped the Benue issue that I raised and pretended not to debunk the matter of withdrawal of funding for water projects by international donors due to large scale corruption during Shagari’s tenure. Glibly, he argues that Muntari had given water to Sifawa, Isa, Sabon Birni and Yabo. Unknown to Aziken these places are so closely knit in the vast land that is Sokoto to make it sound like a spit in the ocean, in case that were true.
In my uncountable visits and long stay in Sokoto I had also personally witnessed Wamakko commission hundreds of water schemes, provided drilling chemicals, casting screen materials and submersible water pumps, starters, electrical voltage and modern geographical and geological equipment to enhance water drilling and distribution where there was none. As a reporter I don’t subscribe to hearsay. These projects are spread far and wide around the state from Illela to Silame, Isa, Sabon Birni, Wamakko, Binji and Sokoto itself including Shagari town among others. I did not see a single water project bearing the Muntari imprint.
However, all that is not the news, sir. As we bicker over the Muntari misadventure, the PDP under the leadership of Adamu Mu’azu is finalizing an elaborate agenda to hand over Sokoto to two-term former governor of the state Attahiru Bafarawa, who disparaged the PDP in Sokoto with all his might until Wamakko joined the party to give it life in 2007.
What should concern Muntari Anozie is that even in the year of the horses, the PDP does not seem to reject wild forces in its search for Muntari’s replacement. I feel utterly scandalized and vicariously responsible here. In the write-up under review, I mentioned Muntari’s absolute loyalty to the PDP. Bafarawa’s move to take-over the party, in my view, not only shows that the PDP does not really believe in Muntari but also humiliates the deputy governor by showing that not even the spirit of justice and fair-play would earn him the party’s ticket even if they would have to succumb to using a candidate that once injured their party, and in spite of his lack of public appeal.
Isn’t it instructive that right under Muntari’s nose PDP is celebrating Bafarawa as its new leader in Sokoto? How would Bafarawa look the PDP chieftains in Sokoto in the eye and shout PDP and expect the chorus of power! But a quick look at Bafarawa’s hour glass will suffice here. Under Bafarawa’s watch (1999-2007), a number of PDP stalwarts in the state including Ibrahim Magaji Gusau, Ahmed Mohammed Gusau among others, experienced their worst political persecution because they were PDP men. During that time, some parts of the capital was renamed Kandahar by the administrations sponsored militia, who purposely harassed and intimidated PDP stalwarts. Some of these PDP henchmen are already mobilizing to approach Adamu Mu’azu to protest the handing over of the party to their foe who has been nesting all over until there is no more hiding place before he considered PDP.
As an update, dear Anozie, it is no longer news that Bafarawa has joined forces with the former Sport Minister Bello Yusuf to push for Yusuf’s emergence as gubernatorial candidate for the PDP in 2015 and reliable sources further hint that the posters of Yusuf which were hung all over Sokoto on Monday had Bafarawa’s blessings. Where does that leave Muntari? As everyone knows Sokoto is an integral amphitheatre in Nigeria’s democracy and leaving it in unreliable hands could spell doom for the party. With its once big fish gone, the PDP has become very vulnerable in the state and rescuing it is becoming increasingly intractable, even confounding.