Shema and The Trumpets of War! Faced with inevitable tenure exhaustion, most final term governors are running from pillar to post trying to avert the tragedy of losing what they consider their personal kingdoms. For obvious reasons, these governors will rather have people they could trust with their deepest secrets to take over from them and keep the dirt they accumulated through their eight years of leadership from the public and even prison. It is reasonable to assume that for any governor to vacate power and sleep with both eyes closed, he needs a dependable lame duck who must be part of the usual “chop I chop” arrangement that rules the system. And yes, who will like a situation whereby his hidden skeletons will not only be given life but made to tell their stories. Which governor, but the few with clean books can afford to have the treasury he treated like a personal bank account subjected to a holistic review by a new governor who may want to hit the ground running, trying to fulfill his campaign promises only to realise the figures left in the handover notes of his predecessor are nothing but accounting acrobatics. One governor that is taking this desperation to a whole new level is Barr. Ibrahim Shehu Shema, the out-going governor of Katsina State and a self acclaimed lawyer of international repute. In a video that have since gone viral on the internet, Shema was caught inciting his party members to engage in violence in what was a clear case of instigating breach of public peace. One is left wondering where Marilyn Ogah’s loyalty lies considering her constant harassment of members of the opposition on mostly flimsy excuses of “breach of peace”. In the video, Shema was shown going full throttle, preparing the minds of his gullible followers to replicate “Rwanda” in Katsina. As if to confirm his ambition of “Rwandanising” Katsina, he went as far as deploying the same “cockroach” identification mark adopted by Rwandan Hutu rebels to label the Tutsis for genocidal extermination that left over 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead with countless others psychologically devastated and homeless. Rwanda was a madness that represents a dark chapter in the book of humanity and could only be wished again only by a psychopath. Shema was explicit about his intent to leave Katsina bloodied as he is going to leave it broke and economically traumatised. In a manner that clearly questioned the legitimacy of his legal background, he asked the obviously charged and mentally numb crowd: “Me akeyi da kyankyaso in ka ganshi gidanka” loosely translated: “What do you do with a cockroach when you see one in your house”? To which the frenzied crowd replied “Kashe shi akeyi” which simply and literally means “Kill”, and to which Shema, a supposed representative of the learned profession gave his approval. How sad! To say the least, leadership couldn’t be lowered any lower than Governor Shema dragged it. This is a man who, even without being sworn in as a public officer holder should uphold the sanctity of life and the welfare of the public by virtue of his religion –a responsibility that doubles by virtue of his position yet, has no qualms unleashing a regime of bloodshed on a state he was sworn to protect with fear or favor. If that doesn’t tell you the depth of the mess we are in, nothing will. Surprisingly, not unexpected though, the crowd failed to ask Governor Shema where he will be when the war starts. With rumoured properties in USA and Asia, as well as a brand new bride to match I don’t see Governor Shema leading these crowd in the battlefield. Same goes for his son who will be bogged down by similar baggage. -By Ahmad Babba Kaita, Published in Leadership Newspaper, November 18, 2014.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 10:12:34 +0000
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