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Writers Articles And Opinions |
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15 March 2010
By Saka Raji Audu
I read the article on the above title written by one
Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad, a 'researcher' published on
page 8 of the New Nigerian Newspaper of March
8, 2010 and page 9 of Peoples Daily of March
9,2010. Nuruddeen's write up is supposed to be a
response to my earlier article about the issues raised
by one Sanusi Abubakar, a columnist with the Daily
Trust. Sanusi's piece was titled "Jigawa: Keeping
faith with the electorate."
I have always argued that the essence of writing one's
thoughts is for one to express one's feelings and not
to impress or show-off. This is why no matter the
sentiment, writers that worth their onions should
endeavour to concentrate on issue rather than
parochial and narrow-minded interest. In no
circumstance should one deviates from the point of
discourse to irrelevant issue that is capable of
irritating readers' mind. This is the tragedy of Dr.
Nuruddeen Muhammad, who, for whatever reason, decided
to move away from Sanusi Abubakar's piece to his
concoction under the new title, "Saka Raji Audu and
Jigawa rarity." This title by Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad
is an attempt to hide the reality of things because it
does not in any way reflect what Sanusi Abubakar wants
us to know about keeping faith with the electorate in
Jigawa State.
Ironically, the import of Dr. Nuruddeen's crocodile
tears for his Dr. Sanusi Abubakar in his "Saka Raji
Audu and Jigawa rarity" was to deliberately undermine
the big challenge I put before Sanusi's keeping faith
with the electorate in Jigawa, thereby, causing
deliberate confusion among his readers that require
truth from him. This notwithstanding, Dr. Nuruddeen
Muhammad used my name, instead of the title of the
subject he was responding to, as the central point to
form his unimpressive title, thereby relegating Sanusi
Abubakar's piece on Jigawa to the background.
If really Saka Raji Audu's now vexed rejoinder to
Sanusi Abubakar's piece is not so important, as Dr.
Nuruddeen Muhammad would like to portray, I wonder why
he chose to trouble himself by being kept awake to
devote almost full page of a newspaper talking about
what he describes as irrelevant. The question is, who
is more of insane, a "mad man" or a "supposedly
sensible man" who followed the naked mad man to the
public stream to take bath?
Perhaps, it is because Sanusi Abubakar wanted to avoid
this type of embarrassment, in view of my superior
argument that made him to quietly 'block' my rejoinder
to his Jigawa piece from appearing in his now Tuesday
Column of the Daily Trust. Unknowing to him,
there are always alternatives to every thing in this
world except God. I know and am sure that if Sanusi
Abubakar had known that my rejoinder would still see
the light of the day, he would not have wasted his
time giving it 'black out' from his own end. In any
case, his column is not better than the five media
houses that considered my rejoinder worth publishing.
This was how the aim of the Tuesday columnist in
relations to my rejoinder to his Jigawa piece was
severely defeated.
In his misguided argument, Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad
stated that he did not expect a serious newspaper to
risk its credibility by publishing a sloppy piece.
Yet, he knows very well that his "Saka Raji Audu and
Jigawa rarity" is personally motivated towards one
side of the coin and he still expects the papers,
New Nigerian Newspaper and Peoples daily to
publish it. Does it mean that these two papers are not
serious and would lose their credibility? What kind of
double standards is this man called Dr. Nuruddeen
Muhammad?
Consequently, journalism is not one- way- traffic of a
thing. I think whoever is afraid of rejoinder to his
article should not necessarily write in the first
place. We cannot be cowed by the "doctorate tag" of
Sanusi Abubakar as Nuruddeen Muhammad would like to
suggest. Dr. Sanusi Abubakar is not God and only God
is infallible. Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad however claims
to be a 'researcher', yet he fails to realize the fact
that any claim that is not supported with evidence
becomes a mere assumption or hypothesis and therefore,
such claim remains inconsequential until it is further
subjected to critical examination and verification.
This is why journalists, writers and researchers are
always enjoined to disclose their source of
fundamental claims and information. Here is what
Sanusi Abubakar wrote about Jigawa and Kano that
earned him my now vexed rejoinder. "Frankly, I felt
like packing my bags and moving to Jigawa, after all I
have been told that my great-grand fathers are from
Dutse. But I love Kano too, with all its refuse, lack
of water, dare-devil achaba riders, as well as
arrogant and incompetent leaders who have little or no
idea where they are taking us"(sic).
It beats my imagination and like any one else, that
Dr. Sanusi Abubakar could make this sweeping
generalization without any back up and yet the type of
agent as Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad wants us to consume it
without much ado about any thing because an academic
Doctor has written. In fact, there are other such
unsubstantiated contentious statements made by Sanusi
Abubakar in his attempt to sell Governor Lamido at all
costs, and at the detriment of other states that have
not invited him to see a particular thing in their
states. No one needs to be a doctor this, doctor that
or Professor before one knows that Sanusi has an axe
to grind with Kano State under Shekarau, on behalf of
somebody, using his Daily Trust Tuesday Column
as a subterfuge to launch attack on Kano in order to
get Jigawa's pat on his back. This was why I had to
put up the true situation of things before he went too
far through my now vexed rejoinder. Fortunately
enough, I was not the only reader that saw the blatant
falsehood displayed in Dr. Sanusi Abubakar's
advertisement of Jigawa State Governor.
In his own separate rejoinder titled "Between Sanusi
Abubakar, Sule Lamido and Jigawa State" published on 2nd
March 2010 in the Daily Trust, one Adamu
Muhammad Usman from Kafin-Hausa, Jigawa State
seriously challenged Dr. Sanusi Abubakar's keeping
faith with the electorate in Jigawa State. He stated
that, "Sanusi Abubakar, in his Tuesday column (Daily
Trust) of February 9th and 16th -2010 busied
himself eulogizing Lamido, instead of advising the
governor to provide social services to people of the
poorest state in the federation." Usman further
disclosed that "even the Governor has acknowledged
that Jigawa, has witnessed a lot of suffering,
hardship and the total collapse of most of her system
in high level of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment,
insecurity etc. "Jigawa in terms of criteria such as
level of illiteracy, maternal and infant mortality,
has been portrayed as the poorest in the federation".
---Governor Lamido (See page 9, December 22 and page
21 December -25- 2008 Daily Trust). Definitely, Saka
Raji Audu is not the author of the piece that was
critical of Sanusi Abubakar's "Jigawa: Keeping faith
with the electorate."
Perhaps, Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad has only read my
rejoinder and not that of Adamu Muhammad Usman or was
it because of the glaring truth in favour of Governor
Shekarau of Kano State? Indeed, it is because the
Jigawa State Governor knows that truth is the best
policy of good governance, he chooses to face the
truth squarely, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth. If this was the case, could both Dr. Sanusi
Abubakar and Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad tell us whose
praise they want to sing? Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad, the
'researcher' should not tell us that he has not done
enough research to discover this truth. Now that the
above other side of Dr. Sanusi Abubakar piece was
published in the Daily Trust, can Dr. Nuruddeen
Muhammad say that the paper is not serious and would
lose its credibility? We can now clearly see who
should stop writing or adopt pen name in view of these
glaring contradictions.
It baffles me and I do not understand why some people
think that they have monopoly of talking evil of other
people and no one should talk of theirs. When Dr.
Sanusi Abubakar decided to pinch a tent in favour of
Jigawa Governor, at the detriment of Kano, that he
loves with its so called "arrogant and incompetent
leaders"(sic), he was doing the correct thing. But
whoever tries to correct the erroneous belief with
fact and figure, such person would be regarded as
being hired to do so. If in Dr. Nuruddeen's mind, Saka
Raji Audu was hired to always say the truth about
Shekarau, who hired both Dr. Nuruddeen and Dr. Sanusi
to market Lamido? In this case, would some one not be
right to say that we are all agents, serving our
various masters? See how clever and smart these
doctors think of themselves.
Contrary to the perception of Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad,
I want to also refer him to my book published in 2006
titled: "Kano Industries at Cross roads" where I
critically examined some of the problems confronting
Kano industrial sector especially textile. One of the
main problems that were bedeviling the sector in Kano
was the issue of poor state of infrastructural
facilities such as bad roads leading to most part of
the industries in the state. This dilapidated state of
the roads had been a critical problem long time before
the coming of Shekarau administration. Shekarau, being
a leader with listening ears and a man that believes
in the development of his state was able to listen and
swing into action to transform all the industrial
roads in the state. In particular, the industrialists
at the Challawa Industrial Estate should ever remain
grateful to Shekarau administration that the roads,
which I narrated its disastrous state of affair in my
book has now been rehabilitated, not minding the tight
schedule of the state budget.
This is just an aspect of the numerous land mark
achievements of Shekarau administration. With this,
it would amount to great injustice for any one not to
encourage such a leader, knowing full well that it is
not easy to get this type of hard working leader in
our contemporary society in view of the kleptomaniac
society we are living today. So, whether or not
Nuruddeen Muhammad and his fellow travelers like it,
it is an undisputable fact that the present leader of
Kano under the leadership of Sardaunan Kano has really
achieved a lot in the socio-economic and political
developments of the state.
On the issue of the Talakawa Submit by the Jigawa
State government, I am very much in support of it just
as I also gave kudos to Kano State government over her
Tsangaya project. However, the reference I made to an
article published by the Desert Herald Weekly of 2nd
-9th June 2009 edition was meant to simply
draw the attention of Dr.Sanusi Abubakar to what I
read about the Talakawa submit, which is capable of
debunking his beautiful claims of Jigawa, if the
impression created by the author is not corrected and
quickly too. This is the aim and nothing else.
Nuruddeen Muhammad might be a doctorate degree holder
and a 'researcher' in his own way but these
qualifications do not qualify him to assume what does
not exist. The reader of Dr. Sanusi Abubakar's article
on "Jigawa: Keeping faith with the electorate" was
first introduced to the relationship between the
writer and the Governor in paragraph one, line 21
where the writer clearly stated that, "Frankly, I
never thought my friend Sule Lamido had a chance when
he was elected the new Governor."The issue of
Katsina wedding was only mentioned as a smokescreen in
paragraph two by the writer. It is therefore wrong for
Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad to think that what is stated in
paragraph two should take precedence over and above
what is stated in paragraph one.
In whatever type of writing, the most important aspect
always comes first, followed by the second important
aspect and not vice-versa. So, I am perfectly right to
have stated that Dr. Sanusi Abubakar was invited to
Jigawa State to see how the Governor keeps faith with
the electorate, based on the already existing
relationship as friend, which the writer Sanusi
Abubakar did not hide in his article as quoted above.
Why Dr. Nuruddeen should betray his intellectual
prowess just because he wants to show to his sponsors
that he, Nuruddeen Muhammad can use his doctorate tag
to intimidate Saka Raji Audu and his factual articles?
Methinks that writers are respected based on factual
analysis, not minding the name tag.
As I said, Dr. Nuruddeen Muhammad, Dr. Sanusi Abubakar
and any one else have the right to award pass mark to
any leader of their choice just as they have done to
Jigawa State governor. But they have no right to
deprive others the right to exhibit similar award to
any leader of their choice. It is therefore
instructive to advise both Nuruddeen and Sanusi to
learn how to accommodate the opposite view, no matter
how bitterly expressed, to enable the society to grow.
Let them know too that they do not need lie to
undermine Shekarau- led administration because it will
definitely not work since it has never worked. This is
because, in addition to the fact that Shekarau has
already won the hearts of Kanawas and indeed,
Nigerians because of his integrity and hard work,
there is nothing envious and sadists can do but to
swallow their pride and ego for the undisputable
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So,
God help us all.
Saka Raji Audu writes from Kano and can be reached
on his email:
sakaraj@yahoo.com
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