MALLAM NASIRU EL RUFAI AND THE PSYCHE OF REVISIONISM
The Oasis Reporters
June 9, 2018
Let us just imagine that this is not the 21st Century. Let us also imagine from a fictional perspective that present day Kaduna is existing in the period aptly captured by Thomas Hobbes as the “State of Nature” in which there was no order therefore it was everyone for himself characterized by wars and strength being all that is required for one to vanquish and dominate others.
If it were so, then you will have only yourself to blame if you are weak. Sadly for that period the likes of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and other philosophers began to put forward the Social Contract theory which advocated that both the strong and the weak should surrender some of their RIGHTS to a sovereign. Societies began to take shape and order had its place to moderate people’s excesses leading to what we now call DEMOCRACY.
Welcome back from the land of fiction to Kaduna State in the 21 Century where their is an existential policy of government to returning us to the very dark past of our history. Before the colonialist arrived our shores many of the diverse communities which make up the geographical space identified as Southern Kaduna were autonomous. All of this changed when the colonialist capitalizing on the Emirate system which existed before their arrival administratively placed these hitherto autonomous peoples under a feudal regime in the name of Indirect Rule.
With the coming of independence it was like the situation described by Tucor Benedicto Juan Ramirez Sanchez in that epic western movie ,” The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ” as ” One bastard going in and another coming out “. The foreign colonizing power left and a new phase of internal colonialism began through the Emirate system. In due course the values of freedom and democracy began creeping in resulting in a divorce with the thoroughly oppressive feudal Emirate system. The people of Southern Kaduna have since then enjoyed some level of self rule culminating in the creation of Chiefdoms and additional Districts during the administration of Ja’afaru Isa, a military officer.
Governor Makarfi in responding to the yearnings of the people of Kaduna State created additional Districts and Chiefdoms in an effort at engendering peace. This has been the situation up to 29 May 2015.
Let us imagine that all arrangements administratively up to 2015 after about 16 years of PDP’s democracy were total rubbish and there was need for change, would it not be fair even in an imperfect democracy as ours to expect that the views of the voting population should inform what manner of change they desire?
What we have been contending with is an uncontrollable Bull in a China Shop.breaking anything along its path. The population of Kaduna State invested their votes in that grand deception ” Making Kaduna Great Again ” but alas, the realities are with us. We are now having to contend with a modern day dictator in the 21st Century.
This character surely must have asked questions including why the autonomous and diverse people of Southern Kaduna should be granted some measure of self rule. This modern day feudalist bared his fangs by decreeing a return to the 77 District structure of the Ja”afaru Isa era. Without a demand or request from the people he went ahead to set up a committee to review the nomenclature of the Chiefdoms and Districts. Given that the administrative measures taken not too long ago by previous governments in Kaduna State particularly by the Makarfi administration have largely stemmed the frequency of conflict in Kaduna State in a general sense, this revisionist measure by the present State government is the very height of absurdity. Revisionism by the way is support of ideas and beliefs that differ from and try to change accepted ideas and beliefs especially in a way that is seen as wrong ( Merriam Webster’s Dictionary).
This is the dark alley the present State government is desirous of dragging the population of Kaduna State into. More puzzling is the fact that the Governor acts much in the style of a dictator without minding what the people think. The Governor’s feudal proclivities began manifesting early in the life of this administration when he took the unilateral decision to pay foreign Fulani terrorists in the name of compensation for losses they allegedly suffered in the 2011 post election violence which was sparked off by the same terrorists in Kafanchan. He did this after assuring the Fulani terrorists that it was one of theirs in charge as governor.
If every aspect of governance in Kaduna State was wrong, could that be corrected in one felled swoop?
Centainly not in a democratic culture.
Here in Kaduna we are having someone as governor so quixotic in behaviour and action which could not have been contemplated during the era of military dictatorship. Sometimes, I wonder if this man ever remembers that our votes took him to Sir Kashim Ibrahim House or that his tenancy in that palatial edifice is curcumscribed by time. We are just a year away from another election year and one of 2 things will happen either that God Almighty hears our CRY FOR REDEMPTION to be rid of this evil afflicting us or our thumps will do the trick during the elections to come. We are not essentially intereted in who eventually occupies Sir Kashim Ibrahim House in 2019 but are in agreement that this evil government must not be repeated. If by this revisionist policy there is a hidden agenda of returning our State to that combustible past, our people will not allow themselves be used because so much precious blood has been shed and we do not desire a repeat. One thing I can assure our people is that this revisionist agenda is only a temporary setback for which they should remain calm. Our people should be assured that our democracy as imperfect as it is guarantees their basic rights and freedoms.
No one man even if a governor is the whole of democracy without the people. In Kaduna the basic tenets of democracy have been serially raped with court orders made rubbish of while impunity has become the order of the day. The granting of immunity to governors some of who should have been serving jail terms in detention facilities across this nation is the greatest undoing of the 1999 Constitution. Let me conclude by saying that the past remains the past and no governor can take us back there.
To God Be The Glory. Amen.
Written by Col. Gora Dauda (rtd)
