Pro-democracy activist Senator Shehu has been in the public glare for long that his schtick should be well known even to an average follower of political events in Nigeria.
Sani, who lost his bid to return to the Senate due to his maradonic over-dribble which resulted in an own goal, on Wednesday, posted the picture of himself and former minister of FCT, Alhaji Mohammed Abba Gana with a caption that on the surface looks like a celebration of prudence for the former minister.
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He said: “Engineer Abba Gana. An unusual Nigerian and A honest man alive. In the history of Nigeria this is the Man who was once an FCT Minister but who still lives in rented apartment in Abuja.”
This, predictably, attracted sympathy for the former FCT minister and he is being celebrated as the poster boy for prudence and anti-corruption stance.
Even if that was the intention of Sani, it still wouldn’t have been okay as not owning a house in the FCT even if one was a former minister, does not prove honesty, neither does it translate into aversion to self aggrandisement.
Owning a house is basic necessity that even people without means achieve by making the necessary sacrifices.
So It’s not enough to say that once a former public office holder does not own a house then he is sincere and honest.
Such dummies have been sold to the public by politicians to have an edge over their opponents, neglecting the fact that it may also indicate lack of enterprise or prudence.
Those projected to the public in such colours have, when given the chance to prove their distaste to stealing public funds, turned out to be the direct opposite of such claims.
A governor in one of the North Central states was, for example, once projected as an icon of honesty simply because he was said not to own properties even after serving as military governor in some states but at the end of his tenure after he got elected, he got more than a handful charges of financial sleaze for which he still appears in court to defend himself.
Back to Sani.
From what I know of Shehu Sani, when he posted the picture of the former minister with himself and gave it that caption, it wasn’t really to celebrate the man for his prudence and spartan life
He was only continuing his verbal war with the Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai.
How do I know?
Shehu Sani and the El-Rufai have been at daggers drawn since 2015 when El-Rufai, after winning the governorship elections in Kaduna State, decided to run the government his own way without recourse to the omnipresent stakeholders in the state.
As senator-elect, Shehu Sani felt slighted that El-Rufai would name his cabinet and later reconstitute the exco of the APC in the state without as much as asking for his opinion.
This opened the door to the beef between them and since then, both men have not relented in their bids to outdo each other in politics.
The height of which was during the 2019 elections when Sani tried hard to get the APC ticket using all the tricks in the books, first by getting the Oshiomhole-led NWC to give him an automatic ticket to run and his refusal to defect to the PDP when his other colleagues were doing so and later running to Daura to get a photo opportunity with President Muhammadu Buhari which would later be printed into larger than life bill boards and placed in strategic parts of Kaduna, etc.
When it was obvious that the duo of Uba Sani and El-Rufai would not let him have the APC ticket, Shehu Sani went to the PRP where he contested against Uba Sani in the general elections and lost.
With the elections over, one would have assumed that the bickering between the two men would be over but Governor El-Rufai exhumed the corpse of the old rivalry last week, when he blasted Shenu Sani for refusing to endorse his request for a loan when he was a senator.
It’s true. Shehu Sani was one the three senators from Kaduna that turned down El-Rufai’s request for a $350 million loan which almost cost El-Rufai his reelection bid.
Showcasing the prudence of Abba Gana immediately after El-Rufai fired the salvo was therefore not a coincidence but typical of the style of the Comrade to hit back at El-Rufai for any offensive against him.
The message Sani wanted to pass which was lost to many is that there is a former minister of the FCT who left office without getting anything for himself unlike El-Rufai who was accused of giving out plots of lands to members of his family when he was a minister.
So the bout was not pro bono, it was well intended to score a political point.
But since the message seems lost to many, one wonders if Shehu Sani had actually made any point. Has he?
- Gowash lives in Abuja.
