By Chika Onuora<\/p>\n
It is no more news that after President Goodluck Jonathan left Kano upon conclusion of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally on the 15th of April 2014, the Governor of the state, Rabiu Kwankwaso, led his state officials to sweep off the president\u2019s footprints in what was interpreted to mean that the president and his party, were not wanted in the North\u2019s most populous state.<\/p>\n
The image that was created in my mind, as I watched Kwankwaso and his team sweep, was that of the proverbial Yoruba allegory of \u201cagbale oja\u201d (market sweepers), a derisory activity.\u00a0 They did not amuse; rather, they were pathetically miserable.\u00a0 Unintended, perhaps, they communicated the wrong message: they meant to lampoon the president and the PDP, but it turned out that they were only parodying their own reality.\u00a0 Thus, the joke was on them, not on Jonathan and his party men.<\/p>\n
Let me attempt a joke here: sweeping the market place is what Kwankwaso and his officials should have been doing for a living, not getting close to elective and appointive positions, which they have abused for self-serving and manipulative politics.\u00a0 He may not have known it, Kwankwanso\u2019s resort to itinerant politics, for which he will find validation difficult, may have just begun.\u00a0 And this is sad.<\/p>\n
A historical interrogation of Kwankwaso\u2019s pedigree may have betrayed a real life nexus with the metaphor of the market place whether in Ogbomosho or Kano, depending on which truly is the case.\u00a0 So, it was easy to gravitate towards the broom because, beyond being the shambolic symbol of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the broom is emblematic of the slave mentality that is afflicting the party.<\/p>\n
The impression they try to create that they are out to sweep out the old order as typified by the PDP and bring about change is patently false.\u00a0 Rather, what they intend to do is to turn the people of Nigeria, especially the masses, into market sweepers (agbale oja) while they simply help themselves to the people\u2019s commonwealth.\u00a0 In some APC states, youths are employed to sweep the streets and this is celebrated as provision of jobs!\u00a0 Forget about the facade of the award of scholarship to some students in Kano.\u00a0 What is the ratio of the beneficiaries to the students\u2019 population in the state?\u00a0 The gimmickry is to rationalise the perceived mismanagement of billions of funds collected from the Federation Account.<\/p>\n
But the sweeping spree in Kano was a peep into the grand betrayal that is in the offing courtesy of the APC government if Nigeria experiences the tragedy of the party stepping in the saddle at the centre.\u00a0 Now, the jeers by Kwankwaso and his team after the PDP rally in Kano were colossally ineffective.\u00a0 If there was anything they achieved at all, it was the fact that they exercised their waists and assumed the responsibility of the men and women who would have been deployed to clean the venue of the PDP rally.<\/p>\n
The truth is that Nigerians are very perceptive.\u00a0 They see through deceptions, most of the times: it is still clear to Nigerians that what Kwankwaso intended to achieve by the sweeping of the venue of the PDP rally was completely rubbished by the declassification of the governor\u2019s fraudulent antics by President Jonathan who accused Kwakwanso of improper use of the state\u2019s local government funds since assuming office.\u00a0 Speaking at the rally, Jonathan said the Kano government, under Kwakwanso, had received over N255 billion as local government funds since 2011. He asked the 44 council chairmen in Kano to challenge the governor on what he has done with the funds.<\/p>\n
The president also accused Kwakwanso of refusing to release money provided for Kano delegates\u2019 movement to the venue of,\u00a0\u00a0 and provision of refreshment during the PDP presidential primaries; he was also said to have failed to remit the little money provided to the party in the state for logistics purposes during the 2011 presidential election.<\/p>\n
The governor, rather than respond to these accusations, took to the diversionary strategy of sweeping the venue of the PDP rally.\u00a0\u00a0 Another point made by Jonathan, which illuminated the politics of betrayal that Kwankwaso has played since 2010\/2011 was the fact that he did not even vote for the president at the primary and in the presidential election.\u00a0 Jonathan, responding to Kwankwaso\u2019s claim in the media that he regretted voting for Jonathan in 2011, said that contrary to Kwakwanso\u2019s claim, he (the governor) did not vote for him in the party\u2019s 2011 presidential primary and in the presidential election.<\/p>\n
Kwankwaso did not also counter the president\u2019s declaration on this, which means there is truth in the president\u2019s position and this is further reinforced by the aphorism that \u201csilence means consent.\u201d\u00a0 The governor decided to throw the \u201csweeping antics\u201d into the entire mix, ostensibly to diminish the impact of his declassification by Jonathan.\u00a0 Well, one would wonder if he, indeed, achieved anything by sweeping off the footprints of the President and his party members.\u00a0 The political symbolism did not fit in the picture of a fraudulent state governor painted by Jonathan.<\/p>\n
Well, for Kwankwaso, his decision to challenge the president to a fight in the manner he is going about it, is not politically correct.\u00a0 He could have fought his war quietly without appearing and acting indecorous.\u00a0 For instance, how could he have declared that the president of Nigeria was not welcomed in Kano?\u00a0 Is Kano no longer a part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?\u00a0 Or has Jonathan ceased to be Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?<\/p>\n
Granted that Nigeria is a democratic nation and people are at liberty to exercise freedom of association, which is a fundamental right; but the manner Kwankwaso has exercised that right rankles.\u00a0 How could he, for instance, have moved from the PDP to the APC with the mandate given to the PDP at the 2011 governorship election?<\/p>\n
Kwankwaso is not the only one in this game of perfidy.\u00a0 The PDP governors that defected to the APC included Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State, Ahmed Abdulfatah of Kwara State, Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State and Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto State.\u00a0 Of all these men, it is only the Kwara governor that has not abused or shown disrespect for the office and person of President Jonathan.\u00a0 Regardless, like Kwankwaso, they have all become sweepers of markets.\u00a0 How does one explain this development?\u00a0 This is what befalls people like them when they exercise crass indiscretion by leaving the shade provided by the psychedelic and enduring PDP umbrella to quick-fix that the APC typifies.<\/p>\n
Chika Onuora sent this piece from Asokoro, Abuja.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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