Garba Deen Muhammad
2 November 2008
column
Like play like play, so goes the saying, Butterfly enter bush. And so it is that moving fitfully, carelessly, sometimes even aimlessly, Nigeria's democracy would be in its 10th year in just a matter of weeks.
Chances are that when, and if, we do get there in one piece, the issue of who becomes the next president, or the next governor, would be more important than what democracy has done for the people during the last 10 years. How sad.
Jangebe, the Zamfara state cow rustler whose left hand was amputated for stealing a cow would have his stump as a dividend; by 'contrast', most other Nigerians would have nothing but bitter memories of the last decade: the kind of self-loathing you go through every time you remember how you lost your house to your tenants. Assuming you've been that unlucky, or that stupid.
Some exceptionally brutal realists have always contended that victims of rigged elections have no business asking for democracy dividends or good governance from those they did not elect. If they have any business at all, it should be about getting rid of the usurpers and asserting their will; which, sadly, we are too timid to do. Viewing the last decade from this point of view, it has been 10 years wasted, almost.
But the odd piece of redemption picked up here and there along the way were singly and collectively of great significance. There was, of course, the titanic battle between the forces of freedom and the forces of bondage, respectively symbolised by advocates of a third term for former president Olusegun Obasanjo and those who opposed it. This is the biggest prize of them all and I completely agree with those who say that when we celebrate our record-breaking 10 years of unbroken Democracy next year, it should be on the day that epic battle was won and not May 29th, which with the benefit of hindsight, was the day that battle started.
Less conspicuous, but no less significant were events that happened in three states during the 2007 gubernatorial elections. The states were Sokoto, Bauchi and Zamfara. While the rest of the country remained firmly under the grip of political buccaneers and bandits who eventually succeeded in getting their way by stifling the popular will of the people, the electorate in those three states put up such a resistance that captured both local and international attention. This was particularly poignant in Bauchi and Sokoto; the result is that the people got what they wanted against very formidable odds.
In Bauchi, the peoples' resilience quickly became known-and justifiably so-as "The Bauchi Revolution". The young and the old, male and female; the elite and the down trodden abandoned everything for the entire period of the election process and devoted themselves to ensuring the victory of the under-dog, Malam Isa Yuguda, who was better known as a quite, unassuming successful banker before venturing into politics. But they knew also that giving him victory was not enough, they had to protect that victory, which they did by adopting the Hausa slogan of "A kasa, a tsare, a raka", which loose translation means urging people to vote and to protect that vote from the polling centres until the results are announced; a mantra coined by the Presidential Candidate of Yuguda's political party, the ANPP, General Muhammadu Buhari.
In Sokoto, the peoples' behavior was akin to a cult following; the magnitude of the peoples' devotion and absolute support for the Governor, Alhaji Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko was such that one could imagine if Wamakko drank poison and passed it round, there could be many who would follow suit. And they demonstrated that loyalty twice; the second time, on May 24 2008, more emphatic than the first. Like in Bauchi, the Wamakko movement also cut across class, gender and age barriers. It has to be seen to be believed.
Not surprisingly, both the nation and the international community took notice; the concept of the Bauchi Revolution was actually coined by the national media; while a United Nations-affiliated NGO P.U.S.H. (People United for Serving Humanity) which monitored the elections in Sokoto, Bayelsa, Kogi and in many other parts of the country described the Sokoto re-run as very free and fair. In the words of the P.U.S.H. President, Ibrahim Baba: "The turnout in Sokoto was very high and the peaceful conduct of the Sokoto people unprecedented". In Bauchi one of the most influential electronic media in the world was so impressed by the Bauchi Revolution that its local agent reportedly wanted to do a documentary of the elections; according to state officials, the state government declined because the Governor, Malam Isa Yuguda found the accompanying bill of $50,000 for the documentary too high.
Such remarkable display of political awareness is by no means a small achievement in a region notorious for its docility. That it emerged within the last 10 years of unbroken democratic dispensation is worth celebrating; it is also a pointer to what could have been achieved if we'd not had so much military interventions in the past. Bauchi and Sokoto can certainly be placed among the Orange, Red and other colourful Revolutions that are happening in Asia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
It is equally significant that the revolutionary zeal is finally penetrating the all-important barrier of class and gender; in the past, political activism and in particular political rebellion in the North had been exclusively elitist and theoretical. The likes of the late Sa'adu Zungur (who would have grudgingly applauded the mass mobilization abilities of a capitalist like Yuguda); the late Malam Aminu Kano; the late Dr Mahmud Tukur; Alhaji AbdulKadir Balarabe Musa and his late comrade the late Dr Yusuf Bala Usman spent a lifetime trying to gather the momentum that finally took-off in Bauchi (Zungur's home state) and Sokoto.
But this is only half of the story; the other half has to do with asking the question: having got the peoples' mandate freely and fairly, what are these governors doing with it? The three governors sighted above have certain things in common; apart from having an honest mandate, they are also generally adjudged to be honest; Yuguda because he made so much money as a banker and Wamakko and Shinkafi because they simply lack the appetite for wealth accumulation. Not having the propensity to steal is a cardinal prerequisite for good governance. So the beginning for those three peoples' governors is sound. But how far, so far?
A dispassionate and honest answer to this question would be the most important contribution that anybody can make to the deepening of democracy and all its positive consequences in our country and its constituent parts. This is so that the tremendous sacrifices that the people of those three states have made would not be in vain. That would be attempted in the second part of this article.
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