18082019 -Anxiety over " Next Level" Ministers

SUNDAY VANGUARD, AUGUST 18, 2019, PAGE 19
RUGA: The Ganduje Model
By Charles Kumolu,
Deputy Editor
You may not be his supporter but you
can’t afford to ignore him.
The more you attempt to disregard
him, the more interested you become in his
affairs.
He may lack the charm of Alhaji Abubakar
Rimi nor what is regarded as the astuteness of
Rabiu Kwakwanso, yet, he is one of the
mavericks of the Muhammadu Buhari era.
Being the governor of the commercial nerve
centre of northern Nigeria, could effortlessly
earn even the most reclusive leader fame. It
is not so in the case of Governor Abdullahi
Ganduje, who is as popular as the state he
governs.
Dissenting voices should carry out a fiveminute
popularity test for All Progressives
Congress ,APC, governors and make public
the result. He may not emerge the first but
would definitely rank among the first three.
Aura of self-assurance
Whatever presence he has across the country
is neither because of service delivery nor
political ideology, but what Sunday
Vanguard identified as hidden aura of selfassurance.
This virtue which requires an eagle eye to
see, accounts for his political relevance since
1979 when he vied for the House of
Representatives on the platform of defunct
National Party of Nigeria ,NPN.
This has seen Ganduje commanding
nationwide attention with issues and events
he associates with.
For instance, the dollar bribery allegation,
his re-election process and the split of Kano
Emirate Council, all crashed the social media.
Even the declaration of assets before his second
term inauguration didn’t go unnoticed.
Judicial
pronouncements
The bribery allegation which emanated
from a leaked video purportedly showing the
governor receiving wads of dollars from a
contractor was one controversy that many had
thought would consume Ganduje.
A man purported to be the Kano State
governor was seen collecting the dollars before
putting them into his white dress, in one of a
series of questionable deals allegedly struck
over a span of several months.
The 15 clips were published by online-based
Daily Nigerian.
The two minutes video was recorded in 2017
in what Daily Nigerian described as a sting
operation aimed at beaming a spotlight on
the governor’s alleged penchant for contract
racketeering.
Describing the matter as scandalous even
though he survived through judicial
pronouncements is to say the least.
Till date, the split of Kano Emirate Council
into five is still largely regarded as a vindictive
act against the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu
Sanusi.
The vociferous leader’s sin was said to have
been his alleged sympathy for the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP, during the last
governorship election in the state.
Though the state government had said the
move was made to expand the emirate,
critiques dismissed the reason.
“We will now have development close to the
people. The traditional institutions are indeed
partners in progress, especially in the area of
security, health, education, environment and
social development. With this new
arrangement, all hands will be on deck to take
Kano to the next level, “ Gaduduje said while
justifying the action.
In the news today
He is in the news today not for irrepressible
abuse of power that political elites are known
for, but for moves on Ruga settlement for
herdsmen—an issue that seems very
threatening to Nigeria.
The governor wants President Buhari to
abolish the movement of herdsmen from the
north to the south in order to end farmersherders
conflicts
Ganduje, who is also a Fulbe, Fulani, in an
interview with Channels TV, said: “The
federal government should abolish the
movement of herdsmen from the northern
part to the southern part of Nigeria because it
creates a lot of problems and the only way to
do it is the Ruga issue.
“This settlement is a must and for us in Kano
State. It is a task that must be done, because
we must improve the quality of lives of the
herdsmen so that they can become full
Nigerians and behave like any other good
Nigerian, so that the conflict we are having
all over the country
can be reduced and at
the same time, they
can improve the way
they breed their cattle.
“We have trained 72
of the herdsmen
children in artificial
insemination and we
have constructed two
insemination centres
in Kano and with this
Ruga settlement which
we are starting now so
that the breeding
system of the cattle
will be according to the
modern system.
Crises and extreme
threats can be
useful for directing
individuals, a
country, and even
the world to a
solution
Infrastructure
for grazing
“That is where we
are heading to, and
that is why we are
calling on all
herdsmen all over the
country to come to
Kano, we are getting
assistance from the Islmic Bank so that we
develop infrastructure for grazing areas and
we believe when they converge, it will be a
good omen for the state.
“We are already planning to build an
ultramodern abattoir here so that the chain
can be built right from bottom to top.”
This is not the first of such a call as he had
done so last year. However, the escalation of
the crisis lately, makes his intervention apt
and unignorable.
You only needed to read the reactions that
trailed the development, to realise how
germane the Ganduje call is to the crisis that
further widens Nigeria’s fault lines.
Courage and
true leadership
Surprisingly, the statement by the Kano
helmsman created a common ground for
many who had been so divided by the matter.
To a lot of people, Ganduje’s submission
illustrated courage and true leadership in the
face of a national security challenge.
Though not the only northern governor to
have supported the proposed Ruga settlements,
acknowledging nomadism to be at the core
of the crisis endeared him to many.
Little wonder, comments like these from the
online community: “God bless this man. I hope
you will achieve this golden goal to save many
Nigerians from untimely death.”
Apart from, those, opposed to the Ruga, other
sections regard the Ganduje model as
heartwarming, timely, and tenable.
The singular move depicts the governor as
not just clairvoyant but a trendsetter.
He has succeeded in identifying
opportunities amidst crisis at a time his peers
prefer positions that are only pleasing to the
central government.
Investment
opportunity
Put differently, instead of just
viewing the crisis through an
ethnic prism, he found it an
investment opportunity for the
state.
In the light of this, Sunday
Vanguard can’t agree less with
Maria Langan-Riekhof, Arex
Avaani, and Adrienne Janeti,
who titled one of their works:
Sometimes the World Needs a
Crisis: Turning Challenges into
Opportunities.
An excerpt that speaks to
what Ganduje seeks to
achieve, reads: “Crises and
extreme threats can be useful
for directing individuals, a
country, and even the world to
a solution. As President
Kennedy suggested, out of
crises can emerge new and
incredible opportunities,
particularly if traditional
approaches and paradigms
are questioned and challenged.”
By and large, the governor’s stance,
strenghtened the often ignored truism that
crises offer benefits.
Now, beyond being the at the helm of affairs
in Kano State, how much of Ganduje do you
know?
Trained in Islamic
knowledge
Wikipedia provides this insight: “He started
his early education in Qur’anic and Islamiyya
school at his village Ganduje where he
became trained in Islamic knowledge. He
later moved to headquarters of his local
government where he attended Dawakin Tofa
Primary School from 1956 to 1963. Ganduje
attended the Government Secondary School
Birnin Kudu from 1964 to 1968.
“Ganduje attended Advanced Teachers’
College, Kano between 1969 and 1972. He
then attended Ahmadu Bello University,
located in Zaria, Kaduna State, where he
graduated with a Bachelors in Science
Education in 1975.
In 1979 he obtained master’s degree in
applied educational psychology from Bayero
University Kano and later returned to Ahmadu
Bello University from 1984 to 1985 for a
Master of Public Administration degree. He
got his doctorate in Public Administration
from University of Ibadan in 1993
“He joined the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) and aspired to be the party’s
gubernatorial candidate but lost the primaries
to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Tony Momoh
chaired the Committee that screened the
candidates and conducted the primary
election, other members included Abdullahi
Aliyu Sumaila and Senator Bala Tafidan
Yauri. Ganduje was later picked as the deputy
to Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso between 1999
and 2003.
“In addition to the deputy governorship, he
was also appointed as the Commissioner
for Local Government. From 2003 to
2007 he served as the special Adviser
(Political) to the Hon. Minister of
Defence, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Ganduje also served as a member of the
Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority
(NCAA).
Ganduje was appointed the chairman of
the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti in 2008 and
was later appointed as the executive secretary
of the Lake Chad Basin Commission at
Ndjamena, Republic of Chad. He participated
in the 2006 Nigerian Political Reforms
Conference.
Ganduje was a Deputy Governor of Kano
State Governor Kwankwaso between 1999
and 2003, under the flag of the PDP. They
lost re-election to Malam Ibrahim
Shekarau. They were re-elected on 27 April
2011 and sworn in on 29 May 2011 for a
second term in office.
Ganduje was conferred the national
honour of the Order of the Federal Republic
(OFR) in September 2012 by President
Goodluck Jonathan. He was also conferred
with the honour of Fellow National
Association of Educational Administration
and Planning (FNAEAP) on October 13, 2016,
in Bayero University, Kano.