The gaffe by the Sokoto State Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Aliyu about the state spending N2.2 billion to repair 20 boreholes had captured the interest of many Nigerians so much that the disclosure is trending all over the social media, evoking even more condemnation from yet more denizens on these shores.
According to the governor, his administration has spent a whopping N2, 200,000,000 (2.2 billion) to REPAIR 20 boreholes in a state noted for a high number of out of school children, who roam the city streets begging.
But the spokesman, Malam Abubakar Bawa tried his best to correct the governor, saying it is a slip by the governor who actually meant to say that the amount was spent in the construction of 25 new boreholes, not the repair of 20, as stated by him earlier.
It was indeed a slip, but of the Freudian kind. The governor said what he meant, and no amount of Public Relations (PR) fire brigade approach is going to repair the damage done on the matter by no less a person than the governor himself. Most people would see the belated intervention by the spokesman as an afterthought, which it actually was, if anything.
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The governor spoke before an apparently illiterate audience, who clapped, with some of them even invoking the greatness of Allah, to applaud him. Were the clapping and the SubhannalLahu also mistakes? I doubt so.
Some statements or misstatements are best left un responded, because responses can sometimes bring negative results, not the positivity it is supposed to make. The response by the Sokoto state spokesperson falls into later category, because instead of dousing the ‘fire’ raised by his boss’s Freudian slip, it seemed to have added petrol to it. This writer was ambivalent about the matter, but when an unnecessary explanation was brought into the equation, then I suspected somehow someone did not want something understood in its correct context.
This perhaps explains why many almajirai (child beggars) in Katsina claim to come from Sokoto town. Three brothers of the same biological parents, who regularly come to my house to beg, told me that they were from Sokoto town.
When I asked them whether there were no Islamic (Quranic) schools in Sokoto, they replied that their father and mother also begged there, because, according to them, their father was an orphan. He was supposed to have lost his father, hence his and his children’s resort to begging, to make ends meet. The woman pulls the begging stick for her husband (the children’s parents). The youngest of the three children is not more than three years old and the oldest of them is about seven years old.
Sokoto state, along with its Zamfara and Katsina counterparts, is practically run over by bandits, whose heinous activities have made survival for a reasonable number of people, very difficult. Yet, the leadership appears busy with other things that they have sworn not to engage in. Doing things that are not within the schedule of their duty is definitely not in the interest of the people.
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The governor may perhaps already have his eyes in the upper chamber of the National Assembly (NASS) as some of his senior colleagues have. He may even have his sight above that, seeing that the number one, the number two and the number three citizens in the country, as well as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation are all former governors. And stupendously rich too. How they and many more former big offices holders become so rich is anybody’s guess.
One thing however, that is beyond the realm of conjecture is that service on these shores is rarely to the people, which explains the do-or-die attitude of many people in wanting to occupy big government offices. Most of them go there to serve themselves and their immediate family and, in some cases, they their masters. They often came out from the ‘service’ very richer than when they enter. And wow unto the persons who failed to go to the Senate or become ministers, because the anti corruption agencies in the country would not allow them ‘eat’ their new found wealth in peace.
The Sokoto state governor may want in future to go places very high up, hence the desire to acquire much money, forgetting that it is Allah Who gives to whoever He likes, and takes away from whoever He likes.
Labaran wrote from Katsina
