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Opinion

The Godfather Who Mistook Democracy for Personal Ownership

Published

7 months ago

on

Kano Map

 

Murtala Muhammad Rijiyar Zaki

Democracy is, at its most essential, an act of trust. Citizens go to the polls, cast their votes, and place in the hands of an elected individual the authority to govern on their behalf. That authority is borrowed, not given. It is conditional, not absolute. It belongs, in the final and irreducible sense, to the people who granted it, and it must be exercised in their interest, not in the interest of whoever helped engineer its acquisition. This elementary principle, the very foundation upon which every credible democracy in the world is constructed, is the principle that Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso has spent the better part of three decades systematically, deliberately, and quite unapologetically violating. His violation of it is not accidental. It is not the product of ignorance or misunderstanding. It is the logical expression of a political philosophy that has always placed personal ownership above democratic accountability, and godfather authority above the sovereign will of the people.
To understand the full weight of this charge, one must first understand what godfatherism actually means in the Nigerian political context, and why it is not merely an inconvenient feature of our democracy but a fundamental corruption of it. A political godfather, in the Nigerian tradition, is a figure who uses his resources, his organization, and his influence to install candidates in elective office, with the explicit or implicit understanding that those candidates, once elected, will govern not primarily in the interest of the electorate but in the interest of the godfather. The elected official becomes, in this arrangement, less a representative of the people and more a proxy for the man who put him there. The voters, in this model, are not principals whose mandate the elected official is obligated to honor. They are a mechanism, a crowd to be mobilized and demobilized at the godfather’s discretion, a necessary inconvenience in the process of acquiring and exercising power.
This is the model that has been perfected, refined, and deployed with extraordinary effectiveness across the entire arc of his political career. He did not invent godfatherism in Nigerian politics, and it would be unfair to suggest otherwise. But he has practiced it at a scale, with a sophistication, and with a degree of institutional embedding that sets him apart from the ordinary political patron. Kwankwasiyya is not simply a network of political supporters. It is a parallel governance structure, a shadow administration that has, for years, operated alongside whatever formal government happened to be in power in Kano, always with the understanding that the real decisions, the real appointments, the real directions of policy would be filtered through one man’s judgment and one man’s calculations.
The most instructive way to appreciate the depth of this ownership model is to examine what happened each time a political associate of Kwankwaso dared to exercise the kind of independent judgment that democracy not only permits but actively demands. The case of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje is the first and perhaps most telling exhibit. Ganduje was Kwankwaso’s deputy governor, his chosen running mate, and eventually his personally endorsed successor. He was, by every public indication, a Kwankwasiyya man to the core. When he won the governorship and proceeded to govern Kano as an elected official accountable to Kano’s people rather than as a Kwankwasiyya proxy accountable to its founder, the consequences were swift, bitter, and enormously damaging to Kano’s political stability. war enraged. The two men, former partners and political brothers, became bitter enemies whose conflict consumed years of Kano’s political energy, distorted the state’s governance, and created divisions whose effects are still visible in the state’s political landscape today.
Now, with a precision that suggests not merely repetition but pathology, the same drama is performing itself with Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf. Abba was Kwankwaso’s political son in the most complete sense of that phrase. He rose through the Kwankwasiyya structure, received the movement’s full organizational support in the 2023 governorship election, and arrived in office as the standard bearer of a movement that had just achieved its most significant electoral victory in years. By the Kwankwasiyya ownership model, Abba was supposed to govern as an instrument of the movement’s will, making appointments that the movement approved, pursuing policies that the movement sanctioned, and maintaining, above all, the fiction that the man in Government House in Kano was the governor while the man who really governed Kano lived elsewhere and wore a red cap.
Abba refused. And in refusing, he did something that deserves to be named clearly and celebrated without reservation: he honored the democratic mandate that the people of Kano had given him. The people of Kano did not vote for Kwankwasiyya’s agenda on the ballot paper they cast in 2023. They voted for Abba Kabir Yusuf. They did not elect a movement to govern them. They elected a man. And that man, exercising the authority that democratic election confers, made decisions that his judgment and his reading of Kano’s interests demanded, including the strategically essential decision to align his government with the federal administration in order to ensure that Kano’s development was not held hostage to one man’s unresolved political grievances.
Kwankwaso’s response to this exercise of democratic independence has been to cry betrayal, to mobilize his movement’s considerable media machinery against the government, and to position himself as a martyr of political ingratitude. But let us be precise about what he is actually saying when he uses the language of betrayal in this context. He is saying that an elected governor who makes decisions without his approval has broken faith with him. He is saying that the democratic mandate of millions of Kano voters is subordinate to his personal expectations. He is saying, with a candor that his language barely conceals, that he considers the governorship of Kano to be, in some meaningful sense, his property, and that its occupant’s primary obligation is not to the electorate but to the man who arranged for his installation. This is not a democratic position. It is the position of a feudal lord who has temporarily misplaced his deed of ownership and wants it returned.
The scholarship program, so frequently invoked as the centerpiece of Kwankwaso’s benevolence, must also be examined in this context of ownership and obligation. It is a program of genuine educational impact, and that impact must be acknowledged. But it was also, by the testimony of its own structure and its own cultural expectations, a mechanism for creating politically indebted citizens. Young men who received Kwankwaso’s scholarships understood, without being told explicitly, that their education came with a political price tag attached. They were expected to be Kwankwasiyya soldiers, to wear the red cap, to attend the rallies, to defend the movement on social media, and to vote, organize, and mobilize as the movement directed. The scholarship was real. The debt it created was equally real. And a democracy in which citizens are politically indebted to a patron for their education is not a functioning democracy. It is a patronage system wearing democracy’s clothing.
There is a further dimension to this ownership model that deserves careful attention, and that is its impact on the quality of governance that Kano has received across the years of Kwankwasiyya’s dominance. When a governor knows that his political survival depends not on satisfying his electorate but on satisfying his godfather, his incentives are fundamentally distorted. He makes appointments that the godfather approves rather than appointments that competence recommends. He pursues policies that maintain the movement’s patronage networks rather than policies that address the state’s developmental needs. He manages information to protect the movement’s image rather than managing resources to improve the people’s lives. The distortion is systematic, and its costs, while difficult to quantify in any single instance, accumulate across years of governance into a development deficit of enormous proportions. Kano’s persistent structural challenges, its unemployment crisis, its struggling industrial base, its dependence on federal allocations, these are not merely the products of bad luck or difficult circumstances. They are, in significant part, the products of a governance model that has been answerable to the wrong principal for far too long.
It is worth pausing here to consider what genuine political mentorship, as opposed to godfatherism, actually looks like. A true political mentor invests in the development of younger leaders because he believes that stronger leaders produce better governance for the people he loves. He gives his mentees the tools, the networks, and the confidence to govern independently and excellently. He celebrates their independence as evidence that his investment has matured. He measures his own legacy not by how many proxies he controls but by how many excellent leaders he has released into public service. By every one of these measures, Kwankwaso’s relationship with his political sons fails the test comprehensively. He has not produced independent leaders. He has produced dependents, and when they outgrow their dependence, he has declared war on them. The pattern is too consistent, too repetitive, and too damaging to be explained as personal disappointment. It is the structural consequence of a political philosophy that was always about ownership rather than mentorship.
The people of Kano have a right, a democratic and a moral right, to a government that is accountable to them and only to them. They have a right to a governor whose first, last, and only political obligation is to the mandate they granted him at the ballot box. They have a right to a political culture in which their votes are the ultimate source of political authority, not a preliminary ceremony that a godfather subsequently ratifies or overrides according to his own judgment. Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf’s refusal to govern as Kwankwaso’s proxy is not a betrayal of democracy. It is democracy’s vindication. It is the system working precisely as its architects intended, returning authority to the people by insisting that their elected representative answers to them and not to the man who helped elect him.
Kwankwaso has spent decades building a movement and decades mistaking that movement for a mandate. He has confused organizational power with democratic legitimacy, confusing the ability to mobilize crowds with the right to govern through proxies, confusing the gratitude of scholarship beneficiaries with the sovereign consent of an electorate. These are not small confusions. They are the fundamental errors of a man who has been at the center of Nigerian democracy long enough to know better, and who has chosen, repeatedly and consequentially, not to.
Nigeria’s democracy is young, imperfect, and perpetually under pressure from precisely the forces that Kwankwaso represents: the forces that would reduce elections to expensive ceremonies legitimizing predetermined outcomes, that would convert public office into private property, and that would transform the people’s sovereign authority into a godfather’s personal asset. Every time a governor like Abba Kabir Yusuf insists on governing for his people rather than for his patron, he pushes back against those forces. Every time Kwankwaso responds to that insistence with outrage and accusations of betrayal, he reveals, with an honesty that his political communications never intend, exactly what he believed he owned and exactly why he was always wrong to believe it.
Kano does not belong to Kwankwaso. It never did. And the sooner his political calculations are made to reckon with that elementary democratic truth, the sooner the state can complete the transition from a political culture of patronage and ownership to one of accountability and genuine service. That transition is already underway. Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, by the simple act of governing for the people who elected him, has done more to advance it than any political speech or manifesto could have achieved. That is not betrayal. That is, at long last, democracy beginning to mean what it was always supposed to mean in Kano.

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Opinion

Kano’s War On Drugs: How Barr. Muhyi’s Taskforce Is Changing The Game

Published

5 days ago

on

November 2, 2026

By

Muhuyi Magaji

 

By Muhammad Abubakar Suleiman

When Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf declared a public health emergency on drug abuse on July 22, 2026, and inaugurated the Multi-Agency Task Force on Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, many in Kano saw it as another committee. Three months later, the committee led by Barrister Muhyi Magaji Rimin Gado is dominating security headlines in the state.

The Taskforce was constituted as a multi-agency platform bringing together NDLEA, Police, DSS, Consumer Protection Council, Pharmaceutical Society, Ministry of Health, Anti-Daba Unit and other stakeholders. Dr. Ibrahim Garba Muhammad serves as Secretary.

From Raids to Results: Over 400 Arrests

According to briefings by the Chairman, within the first two months the Taskforce arrested more than 380 suspects and secured over 230 convictions. By September 29, when Barr. Muhyi spoke at the Kano Network of NGOs (KANET) Monthly Lecture at Nasarawa GRA, the figure had risen to over 400 arrests.

Presenting its scorecard to the State Executive Council in late September, the Taskforce reported a 35% reduction in drug-related crimes in the last three months, attributing it to intensified enforcement, seizures and over 500 convictions as of October 22.

Operations have focused on identified hotspots: Race Course, Filin Idi, Filin Mahaha, Tashar Rami, Kawo, Tashar Rimi, Jakara, Madigawa, Yalwa, Sanka, Kul Kul, Dogon Nama and Kukar Bulukiya.

Recoveries include Cannabis Sativa, Tramadol, Diazepam, Pentazocine, Pregabalin, Exol-5 and a Methamphetamine-based designer drug. In one case, 870,000 capsules of Pregabalin were seized from a pharmaceutical company over suspected diversion. Local weapons – knives, daggers, cutlasses and clubs – used by gangs were also recovered.

The Taskforce also recorded high-profile arrests. On August 18, it announced the arrest of a former Chairman of Rogo Local Government for allegedly selling and administering fentanyl injections to youths, after a victim who spent over N2 million on injections identified him.

Latest: Gang Sponsor Tracked to Port Harcourt

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In its most recent operation, the Taskforce announced on October 30 the arrest of a 27-year-old suspected gang violence sponsor, Ishaq Lawan Ibrahim, popularly known as Malam Keya, from Yalwa in Dala LGA.

According to the committee, Malam Keya was allegedly financing violent clashes by rival Daba gangs in Dala that claimed lives. He fled to Port Harcourt, Rivers State, after crackdown intensified, but was tracked and arrested in an operation led by Head of Operations, CSP Bashir Gwadabe, and brought back to Kano. He is now in police custody pending prosecution.

Chairman Muhyi said the arrest outside Kano shows the Taskforce will pursue suspects beyond state boundaries.

Beyond Enforcement: Children, Rehabilitation and Technology

The committee says its mandate is not just enforcement. It reported rescuing 43 underage children allegedly exposed to intoxicants and convicting two dealers – Kabiru Isa and Usman Hamisu – for the offence. About 125 persons were referred to the Kano Reformatory Institute in Kiru for rehabilitation. With Kiru overstretched, government has provided an additional facility in Tofa.

The Taskforce has set an ambitious target of taking 10,000 youths off the streets for rehabilitation, skills acquisition and reintegration.

On August 21, Barr. Muhyi inaugurated nine sub-committees to professionalize the fight: Finance; Media and Publicity; Advocacy and Sensitisation; Licences, Inventory and Verification; Compliance, Inspection and Electronic Tracking; Monitoring and Implementation; Intelligence; Reformative and Traditional Council; and Anti-Drug Coordination.

Tech Turn: AI, 24-Hour Line and NDLEA Support

In the last two weeks, the Taskforce unveiled a new approach. On October 22, Barr. Muhyi, on behalf of Governor Yusuf, donated operational equipment to the NDLEA Kano Strategic Command led by Commander Dahiru Yahaya Lawan, to boost operations.

He also disclosed that Kano is deploying Artificial Intelligence for surveillance and tracking of suspected dealers, and equipping a rapid-response centre with ICT and a 24-hour toll-free line where residents can report and get response within 30 minutes.

At KANET lecture themed “Kano Drugs Crisis: Challenges, the Way Forward and the Role of the Community,” Muhyi stressed community intelligence and called for more rehabilitation to decongest remand homes.

No Sacred Cows

From day one, Barr. Muhyi has maintained a hard line on political interference. “No politician can pressure me to free drug suspects. The only person who can stop me is the Governor, and I know he will never interfere,” he told journalists on July 28.

That stance, coupled with intelligence-led raids, has earned the Taskforce both praise and scrutiny.

The Bigger Picture

Kano Police data cited by the Taskforce indicates about 70% of major crimes in 2025 were linked to drug abuse. The Executive Order outlawing Daba gangs provides a minimum of five years imprisonment under Section 97A of the Kano Penal Code.

Whether the Taskforce can sustain momentum will depend on three tests: securing the drug supply chain from pharmaceutical diversion, expanding rehabilitation beyond Kiru, and maintaining inter-agency cooperation without becoming a parallel enforcement body.

For now, in the markets of Filin Idi and the streets of Dala, residents say the presence of the committee is being felt.

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Opinion

The Reward For Hardwork Is More Work: A Rejoinder To Dr Garba Ubale Danbatta

Published

5 days ago

on

November 2, 2026

By

 

 

 

By Nworisa Michael

The redeployment of Hon. Comr. Ibrahim Abdullahi Waiya PhD from the Ministry of Information and Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development has attracted several reactions. While professional and civic organisations have congratulated him and acknowledged his contributions, Dr Garba Ubale Danbatta, a supposedly veteran journalist, has chosen to use the development to question his performance and professional conduct in his former ministry.

Dr Danbatta is entitled to his opinion. Nobody should be above criticism, especially in public office. However, when criticism is presented as a professional assessment, it should be supported by facts, not merely personal convictions or years of experience.

Before concluding that journalism suffered under Waiya, perhaps we should examine some of the developments recorded during his tenure.

Eight contributions worth considering:

• Grassroots information: Strengthened engagement with Information Officers across Kano’s 44 local government areas and eight zonal offices.

• Capacity building: Supported training programmes for local government Information Officers, alongside interactive engagements with editors and news managers.

• Media policy: Facilitated the inauguration of an 18-member committee to develop a media and information policy framework for Kano State.

• Digital transformation: Established a Digital Multimedia Department to modernise government communication, improve digital engagement and address misinformation.

• Peacebuilding: Advanced the Safe Corridor Project, an initiative focused on rehabilitation, skills development and reintegration of reformed youths.

• Media engagement: Engaged media practitioners, online publishers and political programme presenters on responsible public communication and professional conduct.

• Institutional development: Pursued interventions aimed at strengthening state-owned media institutions and improving the capacity of personnel within the information machinery.

• National recognition: Received the Crisis Communicator of the Year award at the 2026 National Spokespersons Awards in Abuja.

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These developments do not mean that Waiya’s tenure was without shortcomings. They simply demonstrate that there is more to his record than the sweeping conclusion offered by his critic.

There is also something interesting about the public reactions to his redeployment. The Kano State Forum of Information Officers, Northern Youths Assembly and International Peace and Secure Society are among the organisations that have publicly acknowledged his contributions and congratulated him on his new assignment. Their statements may not settle every debate about his tenure, but they show that his work was not viewed negatively by everyone who interacted with his ministry.

Now, to Dr Danbatta’s presentation of his professional experience.

I found it rather curious that a commentary intended to assess another public officer’s performance devoted three of its concluding paragraphs to the author’s own professional journey, positions held and years of experience. One could almost finish reading the piece knowing more about the author’s resume than the evidence behind his criticism of Waiya.

Same individual who has been unable to ensure good working relationship with his staffs at Pyramid Radio Kano where is currently serves as its manager, a station that constantly runs out of diesel and goes off the air, perhaps even he isn’t proud of this hence he left it out from the list of his workplaces listed.

With due respect, professional experience is valuable, but it should strengthen an argument, not become the argument itself. A good product sells itself. A journalist’s professional standing should be reflected in the quality, fairness and depth of their analysis. Thirty years in the profession deserves recognition, but it does not automatically make every opinion conclusive.

If the intention was to assess Waiya’s stewardship, then the more important questions should have been: What did he inherit? What did he change? Which initiatives did he introduce? What measurable outcomes were achieved? And where did he fall short? Those are the questions that give criticism substance.

We can be safe to say that Waiya’s redeployment was a direct reward for his performance in the former ministry. The Governor has publicly explained the cabinet adjustments as part of efforts to strengthen institutions and improve service delivery. What is evident, however, is that Waiya has been entrusted with another important responsibility, and his record in the former ministry remains open to public examination.

The Ministry of Information and Internal Affairs is not beyond criticism, and neither is Dr. Waiya. But fairness requires that we acknowledge the work done alongside the shortcomings alleged.

Frankly the most fitting way to understand this new assignment is captured in the title of this piece: the reward for hard work is more work. His previous assignment is now part of his public record; his new ministry presents another opportunity to serve.

Congratulations, Hon. Comr. Ibrahim Abdullahi Waiya. The expectations continue.

Nworisa Michael is a
Writer, Public Affairs Commentator and writes from nworisamichael1917@gmail.com
1st Nov. 2026

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Opinion

My Achievements At Kano State Ministry of Environment — By Dr. Dahir M. Hashim

Published

1 week ago

on

October 31, 2026

By

 

Looking back on my time at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, one change I value most is how the public came to see the sector itself. Environmental protection became a stronger part of conversations about our health, neighbourhoods, livelihoods, and Kano’s future. People increasingly joined the work, supported our programmes, and held us accountable.

For that, I thank the people of my dear state.

This journey began for me on 6 January 2025, when His Excellency, Alhaji Abba Kabir Yusuf, the Executive Governor of Kano State, entrusted me with the responsibility of leading the Ministry.

The challenges were clear. Facilities had deteriorated, policies needed updating, enforcement was weak, and frontline workers were owed outstanding payments. Yet His Excellency saw what the Ministry could become and gave us the support to begin rebuilding it.

Our government-owned nurseries tell part of that story. Eight facilities that had become non-functional were fully rehabilitated, restoring our capacity to produce seedlings locally. Building on the administration’s three-million-tree planting programme in 2024, the programme grew to five million in 2025 and ten million in 2026, with all seedlings raised in government-owned nurseries. Behind those numbers was the recovery of public facilities that could continue serving Kano for years to come.

The same determination guided the restoration of the Kano State Pollution Control Laboratory. We renovated, equipped, and recommissioned it, giving the State the scientific capacity to test, monitor pollution, and support enforcement. We operationalised the Environmental Pollution Control Law and developed the Environmental Pollution and Waste Control Regulations to give that work a stronger legal foundation.

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At REMASAB, reforms improved the coordination of waste collection, evacuation, and disposal. Waste management became more organised and responsive, with operations supporting the evacuation of approximately one million metric tonnes of waste. The Dorayi Compost Plant was also brought back into operation, restoring the capacity to turn organic waste into useful compost and creating opportunities for investment.

Across flood-prone communities, we undertook drainage construction, clearance and erosion control. The stormwater harvesting intervention in Toranke and work on the Kano State Drainage Master Plan formed part of our effort to move towards better protection and long-term planning.

We also restored four public parks, with more underway. Spaces that had suffered neglect were given new management arrangements and a clear responsibility for maintenance. Families now have more welcoming places to spend time together, while the parks’ combined annual revenue increased from around ₦5 million to ₦90 million.

Alongside these projects, we rebuilt the policy foundations of the sector. We developed the Kano State Climate Change Policy, its implementation plan and results framework; advanced the Climate Change Bill; and reviewed the Forestry Law after more than five decades. We also developed the Climate Finance Reform Action and Implementation Plan and the Green Bond Framework to prepare Kano for environmental and climate investment.

Kano’s third-place finish in the just-concluded 2026 Climate Governance Performance Ranking, and the opportunity to present our work at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, gave us reasons to be thankful. They also reminded us how far consistent support and collective effort could take the state.

None of this work could have continued without the people delivering it every day. With His Excellency’s backing, we cleared nine months of salary arrears for 2,369 verified street sweepers and doubled their stipends, re-engaged inspectors and forest guards, and doubled the stipends of 875 sanitation vanguards. I remain grateful for their service.

Today, as His Excellency separates the ministries and appoints a new Commissioner for Environment and Climate Change, my strongest feeling is gratitude.

To His Excellency, thank you for trusting me with this responsibility, listening to our proposals and supporting the decisions needed to carry them through.

To our staff and agencies, community leaders, development partners, civil society organisations, young volunteers, businesses and residents: thank you for standing with us. Your participation, patience and constructive criticism helped us improve. These achievements belong to everyone who contributed.

I congratulate the incoming Honourable Commissioner and offer my full cooperation to sustain the work we began together.

Serving the people of Kano State in this capacity has been a privilege. Thank you for the trust and support.

Dr. Dahir M. Hashim, Honourable Commissioner
Ministry of Water Resources, Kano State, writes from Kano.

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