By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.
We all love money, but not the quantity others love to have. Some of us have a penchant for amassing lots of it, to the extent that it beats the imagination what such ‘collectors’ want to do with it. In the end, we die and leave all of it to the inheritors, and then meet the Creator and explain how such a wealth was acquired.
The Governor of Sokoto State (again), Alhaji Ahmed Aliyu reportedly claimed that his government has rehabilitated five (5) Round Abouts in the state capital for another princely sum of N1.2 billion. This came after the recent denial by some Sokoto state officials that the governor had made a slip of the tongue when he publicly announced that his government had repaired 25 boreholes in the state at the cost of N1.2 billion.
The officials claimed that his excellency wanted to say N1.2 billion was spent in the construction of 25 new boreholes, not the repair of the same number of boreholes. Still, N1.2 billion for the construction of 25 NEW boreholes is somewhat on the high side anyway, by far.
I have nothing personal against the Sokoto state governor. He does not know me, nor I him. Neither have our roads ever met, not to talk of crossing. I am only representing my kind in his state, the voiceless multitudes of the downtrodden citizenry, many of whom are in others states, every day begging for what to manage to make ends meet.
Some people in the state have also alleged that the erection of the dividing wire fence at some of the major streets of the state capital was done at the sum of N5 billion. It looks like the governor is in love with billions of the green stuff.
What he plans to do with such amount of money cannot be fathomed, but a guess work may be close to the point. There is the possibility that the governor is amassing the money at the behest of some hidden big people, or he may be collecting it for his reelection campaign, but not for his retirement, for sure. It is early days still to hear talk of retirement from him.
Some past governors are in the Senate as members of the National Assembly (NASS), and some of them are ministers. They all have one other thing in common with him, a very deep pocket, courtesy of their past and present offices. It is possible he has his plan for joining some of them in the future. Or even above them, seeing as the number one citizen, the number two citizen, the number three citizen and the Secretary to the government of the Federation (SGF) are all former number one citizens in their respective states.
He may perhaps be planning on joining the ‘donation’ club. Most of them do. He and the state’s First Lady look like the type who would be ‘donating’ all the time. This media created word ‘donations’ is a misnomers, for the lack of a better word to describe the oddity. It is odd, or even outright wrong, to ‘donate’’ to people what in reality belonged to the them, but was misappropriated by those who are supposed to use it on their their behalf for the collective benefit of all.
Some of the so called donors were as poor as the proverbial Church rat before they occupied their previous top offices, but became stupendously rich the moment they left the office. The same people came back to ‘donate’ to their constituents or the people of the state as a whole.
By the way, the Sokoto state number one citizen should ask himself the whereabouts of his more illustrious state man and former President Alhaji Shehu Shagari and the 19 ‘powerful’ governors of his time. Shagari and all but two of the governors are all dead, leaving Nigeria to continue without their ‘powerful’ presence.
In recent times, the likes of Malam Abba Kyari, the influential Chief of Staff of President Buhari, Malam Sama’ila Isa Funtua, an in-law to former President Buhari and ally to Malam Abba Kyari, Alhaji Wada Maida, former Senator Efeanyi Ubah, Chief Emmanuel Uwanyawu and a host of many others have all gone back to their maker, leaving behind fortunes running into trillions of Naira. The fortunes will be shared by inheritors, some of whom, probably, could not wait for the death of their late benefactors.
Majority of the leaders on these shores ‘contest’ for, or get appointed to, big offices only to serve themselves and, at times, their masters, but not the generality of the people who owned the Commonwealth. As a result, many of the citizens are impoverished and malnourished in a country that is so blessed by the Creator with abundant mineral resources. If the resources were properly managed for the common good, there won’t be the suffering that majority of Nigerians experience daily due to prohibitive cost of fuel, epileptic supply of electricity, near absence of tap water, etc. These are things that are taken for granted, in more serious climes.
Still, it is said, one day is going to be for the owner. Sooner or later, the ‘one day’ would come for the owner in this country, and come it definitely would, by the Grace of the Greatest.
Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.
