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By Maisamari Maitam

We are compelled to respond to an article authored by Ibraheem A. Waziri with the caption “Politics in Kaduna State, People Of Zaria And Governor Mukhtar Yero ” published on Sahara Reporters on 28th December 2012.

Related: Politics in Kaduna State, People of Zaria and Governor Mukhtar Yero

It was not unexpected to find a junk narration peddled on public space for a mischievous reason of misleading Nigerians about the Kaduna reality. The act of showcasing ethno-religious superiority and brandishing fictitious population strength is legendary to those whose interest Ibraheem seeks to protect and is quite familiar like winter cold even in the entire country where sheep, rams and human corpses find their way into our census records amidst arbitral creation of local government and states as a tool for political domination.

Ibraheem Waziri’s corosive submissions were premised on communiques issued by Southern Kaduna Youth groups who had earlier made their positions known and prescribed criteria for the choice of a Deputy Governor that has been zoned to them following the death of PartickIbrahim Yakowa. This was a crucial political decision for the people of Southern Kaduna with due consideration to historical antecedents of how the politics of exclusion builds up, so it was not an option to keep mute as Ibraheem and his cotravellers would prefer we do. His distorted analysis selectively captured only sections that will help launder his mutilated arguments as he deliberately refused to capture our intentions holistically.

The entire youths of Southern Kaduna are united against the choice of Ambassador NuhuBajoga as Deputy governor by virtue of his tired age and political romance with the Vice President to act as a spoil-man in order to scuttle the political projection of our people in their quest to present a strong and virile young politician to lead the State on our behalf. The sinister move by the Hausa Fulani dominated northern Kaduna to deploy the same game plan of planting political mines in the Southern part of the state could only appear as a riddle to our misguided elders who have become willing slaves and political profiteers under the whims and caprices of those who felt they have a religious mandate to rule others. It is clearly understood by the youths that there is a deliberate attempt by the North to circulate the worst amongst us to handle regional positions of responsibility. On two occasions in recent times where we had to produce a Deputy Governor by reason of death, the north will deliberately take replacements from people in their 60s to Deputise for northern governors in their 40s. This mischievous political calculation played a crucial role to deter late PatrickYakowa from contesting the 2007 election despite being the Deputy Governor for two years after the death of Stephen Shekeri in 2005.

Senator Makarfi under whose administration this fraud was concocted did not hold back his resentments against the candidature of the only Southern Kaduna aspirant in the person of Isaiah Balat who dared to challenge Makarfi’s anointed candidate (VP Namadi Sambo). He wielded his influence as a sitting governor to personally supervise the PDP primary election in favour of his Kinsman against an earlier agreement to support Southern Kaduna if he secured their votes to go for a second tenure. Senator Makarfi got an overwhelming support from Southern Kaduna but refused to keep his part of the agreement. This is the height of hypocrisy by northern Muslim politicians who talk religious tolerance but mean exactly the opposite. To Makarfi, Ibraheem and their northern opinion leaders, Yakowa was only good as a Deputy but never good enough to be a governor. Because of age factor, as was also projected by the north, Yakowa was reluctant to contest for the position he is most qualifiedfor owing to his Long term experience as a technocrat and civil servant of class–he could not stand the rigour of electioneering at his advantaged position. A repeat of this antiquated political calculation is again in the making with the choice of Nuhu Bajoga (63) to deputise for a 44 year old Ramalan Yero. Based on our calculation in tandem with how politics is played in Nigeria, Ramalan will complete late Yakowa’s tenure and, perhaps, go for two terms when Bajoga would be 73 years old. Can Bajoga have the tact to lead the government on our behalf at this age? The position of the Southern Kaduna Youths is clear: let’s have a younger person with prospects of growing in politics like the north have always desired for themselves. This stand point cannot be compromised because viable political representation of our people in government is akin to the development of a region suffering deliberate neglect by northern government at the helms of affairs. Only the indolent would fail to discern this mischievous manipulation that is aimed at achieving a northern grand plan of perpetual political enslavement of our people.

It is mind boggling to find the likes of Ibraheem and his retrogressive northern sponsors dictating to a government they contributed nothing to help make possible. This boy, Ibraheemhas so soon forgotten how Yakowa/Yero ticket was facilitated by bloc votes from Southern Kaduna during the 2011 elections. We are aware that Sahara Reporters hoisted a news piece on this site that Yero and the Vice President Sambo lost elections in their polling units to CPC which is the default party in northern Kaduna as PDP is to the South. The resentment expressed by the Hausa Fulani electorates on the candidature of late Yakowa based on religious bias reached a frightening proportion to the extent that PDP votes were deliberatelyvoided by repeated thumb print on the ballots–we have video evidence to this claims. IfIbraheem’s claims of having some form of relationship with the present governor of Kaduna State are true, then from every indication, he is scheming his way to reap where he has not sown. Were it not for Southern Kaduna Votes, the same people he advised governor Yero to ignore their agitation for fair representation, Ibraheem would not have had opportunity to start his wield ranting in the manner he did. His attitude of identifying with the governor he did not vote for portrays a character peculiar with commissioned political whores whose unprincipled lifestyle leaves them with no political party aside the ruling one.

We call on the governor to listen to the voices of reason from the Southern part of the State where his victory was secured and refuse to dance the drumbeats of haters of his government up north who, through Ibraheem, see peace efforts as a ‘distraction’ and have recommended a gamut of draconian political principles that will make any administration fail. We plead with the governor to avoid the banana peels and myriads of booby traps being hauled around him by the likes of Ibraheem who were quick to establish chronological ties with the same government they resented with passion despite having their kinsman in a joint ticket with Late Yakowa.

On the question of power blocks in Kaduna State, Ibraheem not only manifested the violent ideological pre-disposition of his people by linking the idea of a power block in Southern Kaduna to the Zangon Kataf Crisis, but has also given the indication that the people for whom he speaks have a pact with violence and largely see the attainment of political power through the prisms of violence. This analogy by Ibraheem should make the security agencies alert in monitoring the activities of Ibraheem and the people he represents, especially with the recent terrorist activities in Northern Nigeria, and particularly in Zaria. Indeed, the administration of ABU Zaria cannot be too careful in the circumstances

Ibraheem also needs to be reminded that his description of the outlaying towns and villages of Northern Kaduna as ‘Karkara’- as being a power block, should make his political paymasters shiver at the thought that real power in Northern Kaduna lies not with people like him (In Zaria) who appeal to hierarchical and family structures linked to slavery and all forms of dehumanisation of their own people in the past, but with the masses who dwell in these places he calls ‘Karkara’. Little wonder, political giants like Makarfi are able to arise from the ‘Karkara’ and put the blood thirsty descendants of imperialists like Ibraheem into political Limbo even within the Northern Kaduna framework! Ibraheem and his people should bear this reality in mind as they spew their false notions of power blocks in Kaduna State.