By Auwal Umar
One thing that is exciting about democracy is its being internally endowed with an inbuilt system that avails citizens with an automatic power to punish or reward their benefactors or tormentors every four years. Politically, many causative factors bring down elected officials or traditional leaders from their seats or rob away their sceptres.
In a democratic setting, nothing so precarious leads to the downfall, even more, dangerous than powerful political opposition than the collective power of protest votes. Protest votes are votes cast by various aggrieved members among frustrated citizens dissatisfied with the incumbent government and determined to cast their votes to penalise the leaders they perceive as incompetent or self-serving. In the last US election, former president Donald Trump and his fanatics were made to understand the power of protest votes. Here in Nigeria, ex-president Goodluck Ebele Jonathan had his taste in 2015.
With less than a week left for the gubernatorial election, the Kano political thunderstorms have gathered. Kano has various groups of people that have grown dissatisfied and overly tired of the APC government under Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and his deputy, Malam Nasiru Gawuna. These aggrieved groups include students, Adaidaita-Sahu (tricyclists) riders, Kwari and Kofar Wambai markets traders, civil servants, and many others. These people consider voting for the current APC gubernatorial candidate and his deputy as a celebration and incentivisation of their unwanted act that led to the worst rerun election in the history of Kano polity.
That infamous rerun election has become a memory that still haunts us and deprives the Kano people of peace, especially with the daily sight of thugs taking over localities and the government seemingly unflustered. Therefore, the people seem to bear an implacable feeling of revenge towards the APC with their most potent weapon at the moment— PVC. This might be glad tidings for the NNPP and its boss, Dr Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, who fields the same gubernatorial candidate, Engr. Abba Kabir Yusuf, alias Abba Gida-Gida.
Abba Gida-Gida won the previous election with an unbeatable lead before it was dramatically declared inconclusive, which eventually changed the course of his victory. The kinds of people who still feel shortchanged by the results of the rerun election have come from diverse social statuses among the good people of Kano.
First, the collective electorate versus the indelible scar of “Inconclusive”: Looking at his wide popularity and acceptance across the teeming population of the state, especially among the youth, nothing was surprising in Abba’s victory in the 2019 gubernatorial election. The electorate toiled and moiled hard all day from dawn to dusk to ensure their favourite candidate emerged victorious. But inadvertently, some unscrupulous thugs led by the current deputy governor, the APC gubernatorial candidate of the ruling party, Malam Nasiru Gawuna and his deputy gubernatorial candidate, Murtala Sule Garo, disrupted the whole scene, which led to the worst rerun in our living memories.
The drama leading to the rerun is an ignominious act that still haunts our psyche and traumatises our brains. That utter embarrassment has planted an undying seed of revenge in the hearts of the Kano people for the upcoming election, irrespective of who is fielded as the APC candidate. The rerun had exposed the deeply insatiable lust for power at all costs. What else can explain the action of someone who hired the services of vampiric thugs that were so thirty of the blood of innocent voters just to ensure the will of the majority was ruthlessly robbed with not an atom of compassion?
Today, such social, psychological and physical casualties of the sham called election are still alive, hale and hearty and fully ready for revenge. People living at Gama ward, in particular, and places affected by the consequences of the terrible rerun need no more explanation of the horrors they saw with their own eyes.
Second, the Kano APC government versus scholars: Kwankwaso’s government had sponsored some brilliant Kano indigenes who went abroad to study different courses for the good of the state and the nation to add more value and human resources for the good of the general public. Some of these students who could not finish their studies during Kwankwaso’s reign needed registration and upkeep allowance to continue their studies during the outgoing Ganduje’s reign. But for the sake of bitter politics, these students were wholly ostracised despite being Kano indigenes who were abroad to study and not for tourism. These people are now ready for the 11th March in the eleventh hour to take their revenge.
Third, the Kano APC-led government versus the Kano state Students at Higher Institutions: Kano state students studying at various institutions of learning across the country have already come to terms with the deafening silence of the Kano state government that no longer gives them their meagre annual scholarship which amounts to nothing but a token of concern and appreciation of their struggle to study and liberate themselves from the darkness of ignorance. From the onset, it began with a wicked issuance of useless award letters; then, it metamorphosed to sample payment before gradually morphing into total non-payment of the scholarship. Therefore, these students are neither blind nor deaf. However, their anger is reserved and will be vented on election day.
Fourth, during Kwankwaso’s and Shekarau’s eras, Kano indigenes who successfully studied bachelor’s of Law were sponsored to attend Law School. That gesture helped many Law graduates from poor economic backgrounds realise their dreams of being called to the bar. But for this humanitarian service rendered by these two governors, many of them I know of would not have been officially addressed as barristers or learned colleagues.
The exorbitant fee for Law School has already risen, leaving many Law graduates roaming the streets with their hope dashed. But based on what I see from the lawyer-cum-activist, Abba Hikima, popularly known as ‘Champion of the Downtrodden”, he pledges to lend his voice to the cause to take those people whose hopes were dashed by this APC-led government. Of course, it is not incumbent upon the government to do that, but it’s something very laudable that might help bridge the wide gap between the haves and the have-nots in the state.
In addition, this act places Kano students in an advantageous position ahead of many students who might not benefit from the same gesture in their states. For the war to save the potential barristers and the stranded Law graduates left in limbo due to their financial status, they will express their anger through their PVCs.
Auwal Umar wrote from Kano. He can be contacted via auwaluumar9@gmail.com.