Uba Sani, protest and leadership

BY EMMANUEL ADO

“A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit”. Arnold Glasow

No political leader in the North, while in office, had come out to openly admit that those of them bestowed with the honour of leading the region have betrayed the trust invested in them by their people. Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State, therefore, is in a class of his own when he admitted on live television, in the wake of #EndBadGovernance violent protests, that the North is bleeding from the cuts inflicted by failure of its past leaders. The governor deserves praise for also not conveniently excluding himself from the depressing situation of the North. The activist in him made him stand up to be counted at a very challenging times. For vintage Uba Sani, it is a matter of honour, principle and personal conviction to speak up.

When Governor Sani granted the August 2, 2024 Channels Television interview on the raging #EndBadGovernance protest, absolutely nothing prepared anyone for the earth shaking statement by the activist governor whose palpable anger and pain on the sorry state of the North was obvious. He was peeved, not just because the North has acquired the unfortunate reputation of being responsible for Nigeria’s lack of development or the average Southerner’s poor opinion of Northerners as leeches, contributing next to nothing to the wellbeing of the commonwealth, but because if the North continues to play the ostrich and refuses to frontally address the crises of unemployment, out of school children, rampaging drugs pandemic and other social ills that fueled the violent protest in the region and the accompanying looting of government offices and businesses, it might be very difficult to contain the people when next they decide to go into the streets under any guise.

Without any iota of doubt, the #EndBadGovernance protest has further confirmed that the North is sitting on a keg of gunpowder. And like they say, the idle mind is the devil’s workshop.

But Governor Sani should not expect a bouquet of flowers from some of the past and present Northern leaders that he has called out, or from the alleged sponsors of the violent protests that erupted in many other Northern states and Kaduna State, which compelled him to impose a 24-hour curfew, for making this indisputable statement of fact, that the problem of the North, like that of Nigeria, is simply that of leadership failure. But the governor should be rest assured that history will be kind to him for speaking up, with the aim of galvanizing the people to action.

Governor Sani’s antecedents show that he cannot be intimidated by attacks from those who find themselves uncomfortable with his irrefutable statement of fact, considering the dangers that he faced as a young man in the agitation against military rule and his blunt refusal to go into exile even when the likes of General Alani Akinrinade, Anthony Enahoro and Bola Tinubu (as he then was) were forced into exile through the famous NADECO route, by the Sani Abacha regime, which in Nigeria’s history, remains the most vicious. That Governor Sani stayed back to continue the agitation against military rule speaks volume about his courage and convictions.

Those who know Senator Uba Sani were not surprised that he spoke passionately about the frightening situation of the North, and that nothing is off the table when it has to do with the socioeconomic development of his native region. There is no denying the fact that Governed Sani is on solid ground to speak on the serious challenges confronting not just Kaduna State, but the entire North, because apart from being a Northerner, Sani is a governor of a strategic state, the Coordinator of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the North-West, and the Vice Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum (NGF).

Thankfully, Governor Sani’s message to his fellow Northerners has been received with thunderous applause. Hopefully, the Northern elites would take the required action to save itself (enlightened self interest) and the North.

Agreed that Governor Sani’s statement is not out of character and that he is not only courageous, down to earth, but progressive from his days as an activist waging a relentless campaign to send the military back to the barracks, to his adventure into politics, that his preoccupation has always been about service to the people, and making their tomorrow better, in the present war he would need a united front. And he would be helped by his convictions that fighting for the people which runs deep is the purpose of public service.

For the benefit of those who missed the Channels Television interview, we hereby reproduce the meat of his submissions. He said: “Like I said last week during the town hall meeting with stakeholders in Kaduna, I made it abundantly clear that whether we like it or not, the problem we are facing in Northern Nigeria is simply that of leadership. I personally accept that we leaders in the North, particularly those in position of authority, have not done well. And that looking at all the developmental indexes, that we have big problems on our hands. By 2016, we didn’t have kidnapping or banditry in the North. They only started around 2017.

“Back to the poverty index, I can say it without any fear of contradiction, that we are lagging behind. I was the Chairman Senate Committee on Banking, Finance, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions and from facts that are known to me and available data, over 70 percent of the adults in Northern Nigeria, are financially excluded. We should look at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves, why is this the fate of our people.

“I make bold to stress that we have found ourself in this problem because of leaders, including myself, because I’m not going to sit here and say that I’m not part of the leadership (that) have not provided leadership. In fact, everyone that has either been a Chairman of a Local Government, a Member of the State Assembly, Member House of Reps, a Senator, a Governor, a Minister, President or Vice President from the North, including members of the business community, is inclusive.

“Why is the poverty index in the North so alarming. Why is about 65 percent of our people living below the poverty line? Why is it that out of 18.3 million out of school children in Nigeria, 70 percent are domiciled in the North? This is the reason why the protests in most of the states in the North turned violent, with looting of property.”

Governor Sani’s poignant submission is a wake up call for every Northerner and true friends of the North to ponder and urgently proffer solutions, because the clock is ticking dangerously fast. You don’t have to be a soothsayer to predict that any other protest or a case of two fighting would not degenerate into violence, with looting and destruction of property.

Once again, Governor Sani has shown that he can lead the way like he did during his pro-democracy days when, as the National Vice Chairman (North) Campaign for Democracy (CD), and Deputy National Chairman (North) of the Gani Fawehinmi’s Joint Action Committee (JACON) and member of the National Conscience Party(NCP), he served for a long time as the lone voice in the North campaigning for the restoration of late Chief MKO Abiola’s June 12(1993) mandate, which Gen Ibrahim Babangida annulled, until Col. Abubakar Umar resigned his commission over the annulment of the June 12 elections.

While Governor Sani, at a young age, fought against military rule despite the obvious risks because he was convinced about the rightness of his actions, but in this war to change the very ugly narrative of the North, he cannot go it alone. Though he will continue to contribute his quota in his own space, but because the task is huge, he definitely needs the buy in of every Northerner. Governor Sani must build a consensus with his colleague governors and other stakeholders to ensure appreciable success in the quest to rebuild the North.

Governor Sani has on his side the depressing facts. The insurgency by the Boko Haram, kidnapping and other forms of criminality which has resulted in widespread displacements of people. To date, more than 103 local governments of the North have Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’s) and the acknowledged educational crisis that should be an embarrassment of monumental scale to every Northerner.

According to Reports, 15 out of 18 of the lowest performing states in the West African Examination Council (WAEC) examination are consistently from the North, just as the North accounts for over 70 percent of the 13.2 million out of school children in the country. In 2018, Zamfara State presented only 28 students for the National Common Entrance Examination. What a pathetic picture?

Like Governor Sani asked during the Television interview, is it not a fact that most of the children that took part in the violent demonstration who ought to be in school, are not? And as he further asked, is it Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu that has kept them out of school? He could have gone on and on about the high divorce rate, the almajiri issue, and many more.

You may want to ask if Governor Sani has walked the talk. Yes, his first action as governor was an Executive Order on financial inclusiveness to address the exclusion of about 2.1 million poor, underserved and vulnerable citizens of Kaduna state from financial services, which denied them access to state and Federal Government’s Social Intervention Programmes. So far, about one million poor and unbanked citizens have been included in the financial services sector, because financial inclusion is key to poverty eradication.

On security, Governor Sani has always been proactive, because the Kaduna Central Senatorial District which he had the honour of representing as Distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic, is worst affected by the activities of the terrorists. Both as a Senator and governor, he has showed more than a passing interest in the security challenges confronting his dear State. He sponsored four consequential bills for the amendment of the 1999 Constitution to allow for the establishment of state police, to enhance the security of lives and property of Nigerians.

And as governor, he recruited over 7,000 personnel into the Kaduna State Vigilance Service (KADVS), established several military formations, distributed operational vehicles to security agencies, and established the Kaduna State Security Trust Fund as a means of collaborating with corporate organizations, the business community, industrialists, professional groups, individuals and all critical stakeholders towards enhancing material and logistic support for the security forces.

The situation in the North is frightening and Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has only re-echoed what the average Northerner knows, the difference is holding the elite as being wholly responsible for the unacceptable situation of the region.