Date Published: 09/28/10

Re: Demolition of filling Station in Sokoto

Our attention has been drawn to the above story in your online news medium. It is rather unfortunate that a medium which pride itself with being objective and practice journalism with excellence can allow itself to be used for political and selfish gains.

The story, carried by your medium is full of factual errors. In fact, to say the least, it is heavily slanted. Perhaps, it was done for a reason. Whatever, the motive such bias reporting is capable of eroding the confidence the public has on your medium.

Firstly, the story has no any reporter’s name nor was it attributed to anyone. As a journalist who has worked in a newspaper, i have been trained to detect false reports/stories by none appearance of bylines and lack of attributions. Iam profoundly pained that our profession is being draggd into the mud by some selfish political jobbers who are disgruntled because they have been rejected by the people.

How comes your editors did not bother to find out from the government or the authority that carried out the demolition instead of believing and reflecting only one side? I don’t want to believe you did that because you have interest or you are sympathetic to the Bafarawa camp. There are so many things you needed to find out in that story before you went ahead to publish it. One question that should be asked is how did you know that Mil goma is well known, upright and reputable? I guess who ever wrote the story believed what he was told without bothering to check th facts out in order to make a factual presentation.

The truth of the matter is that Milgoma was given a land which he decided to put to use a while ago. In the process he encroached on the land of the sokoto state cultural troop which serves as an office. Several letters of warning were issued to him but he chose to ignore them. Many attempts were made to make him see reason and stay within the confines of the law but without success. In this situation do you expect people who refused to obey the law to be allowed to continue to act with impunity? The SURPB being a body established by law is not only to administer the urban development and maintain the Sokoto master plan but also to protect it from being impurned by anybody, no matter how highly placed he may be.

Another thing you need to find out is the state of business activities in sokoto now and when Bafarawa was in the saddle. For the avoidance of doubt, kindly make enquries from the business community in sokoto whether they have witnessed an era where government took over the business of buying and selling as well as engaged in the machandising of building materials ranging from iron rods, nails, zinc, cement, water pipes and blocks or not. In fact¸ before now there was a lull in business activities in the state resulting into mass exodus of people to other more business friendly places. Now it is ara of boom as far businesses are concerned. Apart from creating the enabling environment for business to flourish, Aliyu Magatakarda’s government has a soft loan of two billion naira interest free to resuscitate businesses that had hitherto became epileptic or comatoes. Please, endeavour to find out to correct the wrong impressions you were made to create. Good journalism entails that.

It is also not true to claim that sokoto has become a place where armed robbery, kidnappings, brutal attacks, killing and miaming have become the order of the day. In fact sokoto has never witnessed peace like this time around. During the dark days of Bafarawa’s treacherous administration people lived in fear. He unleaches his area boys on sokoto people. We also watched in awe how the area boys and police embarked on joint patrol of sokoto terrorising all persons who dare not to support his administration. It is on record that the miscreants also break into houses or jump the walls to attack people who are later thrown into prisons. Now the question is can we have a run down of the people who have been killed, miamed or thrown into detention? Certainly, it is difficult unless if the same old lies that would be dish out the unsuspecting public with a view to gaining undeserved sympathy.

However, we can conveniently name Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna, Bafarawa’s serving attorney general, his house of assembly adviser Gero Tsamiya, sarkin yaki shittu, Ibrahim magaji Gusau, Bashir Gidan kanawa, Malam Lukuwa, mallam Bello yabo, Inusa and Abdullahi as some of the people that were thrown into detention for the desent towards Bafarawa. By the time he left office more than 150 people were known to be in prison custody across the state.

Abubakar Mohammed Dangusau

SA Press

Government House, Sokoto.