9 November 2009

By Saka Raji Audu

I read an article written by one Mr. Aliyu Dangata (real or fake) and posted at the Sahara reporters online of 3^rd November, 2009 and Nigeria Village Square of 7^th November 2009. While appreciating Dangata's misguided piece about some of my opinions, which worry him, it is pertinent to correct some deliberate misconceptions he holds against my analytical opinions and views that are mostly reactions against the traducers of Governor Ibrahim Shekarau and his administration.

It has always been the tradition of those who suffer poverty of the mind to myopically think that one cannot express one's views without being paid by some one else. I have always regarded people with this type of abysmal thought as being hypocritical, evasive and jealous. Such people are so lazy in rational discourse that whenever they are confronted with the truth, they jealously and sadistically resort to name calling and admitting the fact that they have been defeated.

For instance, a man who believes that Mr. B was bribed or paid to put up rejoinder against his lopsided article, should be able to answer the question of who paid him to put up his own article in the first place. If some people feel that some of us who genuinely stand in favour of governor Shekarau's laudable achievements are paid to do so, who paid those who blindly stand against the governor or do they think that they are honest while others are not? This is where Mr. Aliyu Dangata and his fellow travelers should have made use of his sense.  But, for the fact that they are guilty and affected by the issue under scrutiny, they betray their sense of judgment and further subject themselves to public ridicule. This is the tragedy of Mr. Aliyu Dangata and those he represents in his poorly written piece.

It beats one's imagination that Mr. Aliyu Dangata who claims to be a Hausa man from a Christian family in Kano suffers misplacement of identity. At least, if truly Aliyu Dangata wants to live up to his identity, as a Christian, his name ought to have contained an English name depicting his biblical antecedent. Aliyu is a Muslim name and Dangata is Hausa. As a Hausa man, he should not have referred to "Bakura as Bukura" and "Maguzawas as Maguzuwas." Aliyu alias Dangata should have come out with his true identity than hiding under the façade of what he is not, since he is not sure of what he says or writes. This is why his article is a cluster of a man talking from two sides of his mouth.

In spite of the above suspicion created in the true colour of Aliyu Dangata, it would not be out of place to also correct some other assertions in his berated piece. It is however astonishing that Messrs Alhazai Abban Sumayya, Ndiameeh Babrik, Tukur Mamu and Bashir Abba Shariff Whom I had individually responded and corrected their deliberate ill-feelings, against the astute governor Shekarau, could descend so low to allow a fake man to help them to respond in their 'favour'.

I could remember that Alhazai Abban Sumayya went out of his way to misinform and misinterpret Professor Wole Soyinka's comment on Malam (Dr) Ibrahim Shekarau out of his sentiment. Kongi had rightly observed when he came to Kano that Shekarau is the last man standing in his North-West geo-political zone, which comprises Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Kaduna and Katsina. This is true of Shekarau because he is the only ANPP governor still standing in this zone. Rather than Alhazai Sumayya accept this simple fact, he wrote a piece calling the people's governor all sorts of names and tried in vain to mislead people that Borno and Yobe states are still under the grip of ANPP, and therefore, to him, Shekarau could not be the only man standing. Because, Alhazai Sumayya does not seek to know before he writes, he fails to realize the fact that Borno and Yobe are in North-East states.  Based on this basic fact and some other berated thoughts, I took him up. That was in September 2009, and since then I have not heard of him except in recent time when he sneaked to the Nigeria Village Square website to make another sentimental comment against my piece on "Kano and 2011 election."

As for Mr. Ndiameeh Babrik, he also lied against Shekarau by misinforming his gullible readers that the governor denied his Pentecostal churches 80 C of Os to build churches in Kano. I regarded this as a pure fantastic lie because I wonder how many total churches in Kano that Shekarau had to deny 80. This is why I said that perhaps, Mr. Babrik might be talking of 80 business centres or companies and certainly, not churches.

Mr. Aliyu Dangata mentioned in his washy article that there are certain people fighting for 'justice' in Kano, which my pen had also rubbished. Although Mr. Dangata chose to hide the identity of the 'people', he knows full well that the people he talked about are guilty of the offence they committed and wanted to arm-twist the government in order to get away with it. Dangata's 'people' admitted stealing public fund, which would have earned them summary dismissal. But, for the Adalchi of Shekarau administration, the dismissal was converted into compulsory retirement in order to recover the public fund they admitted stealing. Is this not enough of justice? By the way, Dangata claims that he is a Christian, why is he defending a thief simply because he and his cohorts don't want Shekarau as President?

Dangata should know that Tukur Mamu of the notorious Desert herald deserves worse than whatever I have written against him. This man shall ever be remembered as the biggest destroyer of journalism in Nigeria. He was arrested, detained and released twice for misinformation, which should have earned him jail sentence like the one time second Republic Minister of Mine and Power, Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim Hassan who was recently jailed and bailed for misinformation. Recently, Mamu confessed in his paper, after his second arrest and detention that he does not investigate issues before he goes to the press. This was why he had to put up public apology and later retracted the insinuations he published against the First Lady, Hajiya Turai Yar'adua. Mamu's principal occupation is to lie and fabricate against people of integrity for monetary and political gains. This is what he did to the People's Governor, Malam (Dr) Ibrahim Shekarau and some other governors in the north. He might get away with it in this world but certainly he will not, on the Day of Judgment. He knows this very well. Consequently, his concoction against Shekarau on the demise of the late Islamic cleric cannot go unpunished, especially now that his collaborator of the fictitious story, Mr. Sowore of the Sahara reporters has disclosed that the story was sponsored by the opposition to 'dent and cripple' Shekarau's rising political profile in the country. Sowore has now removed the concoction from his website, having 'achieved' the dubious political and monetary benefits. You can see the extent to which some people can go to achieve their diabolical goals.

I must, with all sincerity and purpose, thank Mr. Aliyu Dangata for appreciating and rating my article on Prince Ogbulafor's outburst. Perhaps, Dangata loves the piece because it satisfies his interest. If it does not, he would have said that I was paid to lambast Ogbulafor, just as he assumes of other articles of mine that do not go down well with him. This is why it has always been said that one man's meat is another man's poison. Still, I agree with Dangata that Professor Wole Soyinka has one vote to cast just as any other person. But he should remember that when Kongi speaks, there are people who respect his words because of the niche he has carved for himself. There are people of national and international repute that do not joke with what Kongi says. So, we cannot just sentimentally regard Kongi's vote as just one because his personality commands millions of votes in Nigeria and beyond.

I am not unaware of the subtle attempts to deliberately undermine the unsurpassed achievements of the people's governor by pockets of some misguided elements, some of whom disguise their identity in borrowed robes because they lack truth. Aliyu Dangata and his strange bed fellows should be assured that no matter the name calling and other cosmetic insinuations, some of us that strongly believe in saying the truth, not minding whose ox is gored, shall continue to do so without favour or bias, believing in the local gnome that, it is not the day a trap catches a rat that the rat gets rotten.

Saka Raji Audu writes from Kano and can be reached on his email: sakaraj@yahoo.com

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