THE Governor of Niger State, Muhammed Umar Bago, seems prone to controversies he didn’t set out to generate. But one way or another he gets enmeshed in them. He was also probably a farmer in his previous life as every controversy he gets bogged down with is either directly or indirectly connected to agriculture. Within a space of three months, he has been drawn into three needless incidents of controversy.
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It was he who, like a feudal lord, was reported to have banned civil servants from wearing kaftan and babanriga to work except on Fridays. He would later say, like politicians are wont to, that he was quoted “out of context”. Rather than banning the use of kaftan and babanriga, he claimed, his words on the matter were a mere piece of advice to workers he felt would look better and smarter in clothes other than the ones he was alleged to have banned. We are yet to know how well civil servants in that state have complied with the ban-turned advisory. Either way, the farm-loving Bago was caught in the whirlpool of a totally unnecessary controversy.
In a matter of weeks after the kaftan-babanriga debacle, Bago would be caught again in the news when he placed yet another ban (Mr. Banner!) on the mass purchase of food in the state. On the surface of it, his order would appear to be an embargo on food exportation to other parts of the country. What does that portend at a time of grave food insecurity occasioned by inflation, the hostile activities of bandits and other criminals that have made our farms unsafe and farmers an endangered species?
But it would soon be clear, as the government explained, that the ban was also to stem the growing tide of food exportation to neighbouring countries whose currencies are better valued than the naira. There were also the criminal elements that were alleged to be hijacking and diverting trailer loads of food to their hideouts. But when news of the ban was first relayed, the impression it created was that it was meant to keep food grown in Niger State within the state while other parts of the country starved. What would be the consequences of that, should the parts of the country, mostly in the South, affected by that order restrict their own products, goods and services, to their parts of the country?
The controversy around the food ban had hardly cleared off when the governor talked himself into another one at the Leadership Newspaper Award last week. There he rose to speak in support of the statement of Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election, condemning Nigeria’s importation of grain from war-torn Ukraine. Bago said Obi, who he called “boss”, was right and added his own bit to the attack right in the presence of other governors of his party.
He was reported as wondering how things could have gone so bad that a country at war would be feeding Nigerians. Well, we all know why and how we got to where we are now and the Tinubu administration would do well to address in good time the concerns and pain of Nigerians who have been pauperised beyond words. Yet, something seems off key about this report. Did Bago actually mean to criticise Tinubu or his government? We would know just a day or two after this report.
In the same week, in fact a day after he apparently endorsed Peter Obi’s attack on the Tinubu government, Alhaji Bago was caught on his knees on camera in a handshake with Tinubu in Aso Villa. It all looked like he was in Abuja to make amends for his verbal miscue and some made so much out of this. While his posture would seem odd, it is also a reflection of the culture of deep respect among certain ethnicities in the North as in other parts of the country.
Nasir el-Rufai was known to greet President Muhammadu Buhari in his manner. A recent footage of footballer Garba Lawal refusing to shake the extended hand of the governor of Kano, Kabr Yusuf, while crouching to greet him and others also seems to lend credence to this culture of deep respect. Which gives the lie to the idea that he was in Aso Villa to placate Tinubu. The more probable reason he was in Abuja to see Tinubu might not have been unconnected to the president’s visit two days ago to Niger State.
The President was in Niger State to inaugurate a number of projects connected to a so-called agricultural revolution programme that is aimed to see Niger State provide food security for its citizens. Could this not be why Bago condemned the importation of wheat from Ukraine? He probably didn’t mean to attack the Tinubu government as his comments were construed to be. Not when he was expecting the president in his state. It looks more like the man was just making a pitch for the agriculture programme his state was embarking on. The connection some have tried to draw between his statement at the Leadership Newspaper Award and his visit to Tinubu was false and the criticism of his manner of greeting the president was grossly exaggerated. Just something to titillate opposition elements.
What I find most worrisome about the entire Bago-Tinubu sidetalk and the president’s visit to Niger State is the decision of the Niger State government to rename the only international airport in the state after President Bola Tinubu. The airport which hitherto bore the name of an illustrious Northerner and son of Niger State, Abubakar Imam, has been renamed after Tinubu. Why would the governor rename this airport in this manner? Abubakar Imam was a pioneer Northerner in many respects. He was and still is the North’s most famous writer whose writing did much to popularise the Hausa language. Which means he was a pioneer of indigenous language literature. So, why would Bago rob Imam to pay Tinubu? What assurances are there that somebody else won’t rise some day in the future to correct this injustice done to the memory of Abubakar Imam?
While it may not be easy to look a gift horse in the mouth, Tinubu ought to have advised against such name change. It all seems like an act of sycophancy and error that both President Tinubu and Governor Bago can correct. The airport just renamed after Tinubu may one day be renamed after another person. How many Lagosians or Nigerians remember that the famous Broad Street in Lagos was at a time renamed Yakubu Gowon Street? After Gowon’s fall from power did the street not go back to its original name?
