The North West and Namadi (na) Sambo (II)

Now that’s not what the North West, with its pre-eminent 18 million-strong vote, wants. Why should the North West, the largest voting bloc in this country, accept to be represented by someone whose “duties are not spelt out in the constitution”, whereas the region has the resources to contest and win the most desirable office […]

Now that’s not what the North West, with its pre-eminent 18 million-strong vote, wants. Why should the North West, the largest voting bloc in this country, accept to be represented by someone whose “duties are not spelt out in the constitution”, whereas the region has the resources to contest and win the most desirable office in the land?
There is also a contradiction here: If the “Vice President will be the reference point for all issues and decisions affecting his area of representation”, it follows then that Sambo abdicated his responsibility of ensuring that Northern Muslims were properly represented in last year’s national conference, especially after the Sultan and his delegation had complained directly to the President in Sambo’s presence.
I was in this country, not in exile, when Namadi(na) Sambo went about town in 2011 saying: “The President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, is a PhD holder and I am an architect; vote us into office so we can together redesign Nigeria.” They were declared elected by the INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega. Since then, President Jonathan and Vice President Sambo have indeed redesigned Nigeria by littering it with one uncompleted project or the other and these projects are too numerous to mention; the so called East-West Road, Abuja-Lokoja Road, Kano-Maiduguri Road, Second Niger Bridge, Green Wall, Lagos-Ibadan, National Identity Card, Abuja and Lagos CCTV project, Boko Haram war, Zungeru hydro-electricity project, Mambilla hydro electricity plant, Kashimbilla dam, etc. In point of fact, the Mambilla hydro power plant “the largest power plant in West Africa” is a non-runner.
In the North West, money, fabulous amount of money, like everything Jonathan/Sambo, has been thrown at every kind of problem without any positive results. If the Vice President returns to Kaduna a week before election as he says he will, and makes the journey in a VIP coach of the Abuja-Kaduna “modern, fast moving” train, and proceeds from the Kaduna train station to commission the 215 MW Kudenda power plant they have been building, then he will be hailed as an achiever. But the Kudenda power plant project has become another white elephant. Here is what Sambo said when he visited the site on Wednesday, 25th June, 2014: “I am delighted with the level of achievement so far. The project is 84% completed and by December, 2014 (emphasis mine), power will be generated and supplied from this plant to Kaduna and Nigerians.” Well, we have gone past December 2014, we are not even in December 2015; we are in March 2015 and this 215 MW plant hasn’t generated electricity enough for you to iron your best cloth and receive Sambo when he returns to Kaduna a week before election!
The Almajiri School is a hoax. Many people bandy this scam contemptuously at the North as evidence that the Jonathan government has solved our problems. The paradox of this administration is that the more it declares a problem solved, the more that same problem jumps at you. You ask yourself where these Almajiri Schools are located and why are the almajiri not inside them? It is a simple logic; if you truly need to take the almajiri off the streets, you need to make their colony more or equally attractive as where you pick them from. If the Almajiri School has no regular teacher, or water, or electricity or some other conveniences – even television – the almajiri will NEVER dwell there! You have to discover what attracts almajiri to the place he currently goes to and reproduce same in the new place you want him to reside, before you are really able to hold him there. Every corner in Kaduna is swarmed by the almajiri. Every super market, pharmacy, car park, hospital, restaurant or mosque you go to, you are harassed by the almajiri, in Kaduna, Vice President Sambo’s home state!
In addition to the unsolved cases of armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, etc, inexplicable, indefensible and unprecedented murders have become commonplace in the North West, some right under the nose of Vice President Sambo. Not long ago, Sheikh Auwal Albani was assassinated in Zaria, followed by over a dozen supporters of Sheikh Ibrahim El-Zakyzaky, including three of his sons, who were killed in cold blood, also in Zaria; and it was a miracle how two other prominent Northerners, Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi and Major General Muhammadu Buhari were able to escape murderous bomb attacks, during the last Ramadan, in Kaduna!
Some of our rulers think they automatically deserve respect from us even when they disrespect us by continuing to break their promises of improving our lives.  Kaduna has clearly slipped off the grip of the Vice President. Reports say the state is the most indebted in the North West and despite that unpleasant condition, Ramalan Yero and his principal have absolutely nothing to show for their dozen-year administration.
No, the North West cannot settle for vice president when it has the vital numbers to win the Presidency. The North needs the presidency more than ever before to rescue our people, our religion and our values in the face of the utter failure of this clueless administration to protect us.  The bracket that Sambo belongs in (Jonathan, AIG Mbu, Asari Dokubo, Edwin Clark, Tompolo, Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Tanko Yakasai) presents us a horrendous alternative; unless the North West uses its strength to vote out those persecuting us, we shall be trodden upon. The people of the North West are citizens; they are nobody’s subjects and so if Vice President Namadi (na) Sambo returns to Kaduna with bags of money, they should collect the money and vote according to their conscience.