Message that Goni sends

Some of the things that former Governor of old Borno State Alhaji Muhammadu Goni told Daily Trust on Saturday in the interview published two days ago invite some thinking about the situation of a major Nigerian politician in retirement and the psychological effect that it could have on the men and women who are still in power today.

Goni was one of the nineteen men who were elected state governors in Nigeria’s 1979 elections. All of them became important political figures in this country, partly because there were half as many states that time as there are now, so a Second Republic governor ruled over much bigger territory than is the case today. Goni ruled over old Borno State, which includes today’s Yobe State. He was governor three decades before Boko Haram exploded arrived on the scene. In Goni’s day there were no exploding bombs, no territory ruled by insurgents, no JTF, no Theatre Command, an army brigade in the state instead of two Army divisions, no Civilian JTF, no IDPs and no spending of hundreds of millions of naira every month on security and to feed IDPs. I am therefore not surprised, as my colleague Uthman Abubakar’s report said, that Goni is remembered today for executing many good projects during his tenure.

The nineteen men who started out as governors in 1979 had different trajectories of fate. One of them, Alhaji Shehu Mohammed Kangiwa of Sokoto died in a polo accident and another one, Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa of Kaduna, was impeached by the state House of Assembly, both in 1981. Of the remaining 17, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar Rimi of Kano and Alhaji Abubakar Barde of Gongola resigned just before the 1983 elections. This was because FEDECO [precursor of INEC] said a governor must resign before he could contest on the platform of a party different from the one on which he was elected. Both men re-contested under other platforms but lost. Goni too was about to resign when the Supreme Court quashed FEDECO’s [partisan] interpretation of the constitution. Though he was elected under GNPP’s platform, Goni re-contested under UPN’s platform and lost to NPN’s Alhaji Asheik Jarma.

I join my brothers and sisters in Borno in congratulating Goni for the laudable projects he executed but Alhaji Muhammadu Goni also attempted one of the most audacious political moves of the Second Republic, if reports in Radio Kaduna’s Alkawari Kayane program were true. Rimi and Barde both handed over the governorship to their deputies, Alhaji Abdu Dawakin Tofa and Chief Wilberforce Juta respectively. Both men supported their former bosses in their re-election bids on new political platforms, without success. Goni however did not trust his deputy, Alhaji Anas Ibrahim. He therefore proposed that before he himself resigned as governor, the deputy governor should first resign and be replaced by the First Lady, Hajiya Amina Goni. Governor Goni will then resign; Hajiya Amina will become the governor, and the deputy governor will be restored to his post. This arrangement was only abandoned when the court ruled in Goni’s favour.

Now, of the remaining governors of 1979, Governor Clement Isong of Cross River was denied re-nomination by NPN so he re-contested under UPN’s platform and lost. Of the other 13 that re-contested in 1983 under the same platforms, five were defeated. These were Chief Jim Nwobodo of Anambra; Chief Bola Ige of Oyo; Chief Michael Ajasin of Ondo; Prof Ambrose Alli of Bendel and Alhaji Adamu Attah of Kwara. Of these five, Ajasin regained his governorship at the Supreme Court. Alhaji Abba Musa Rimi, who succeeded Balarabe Musa in Kaduna, did not contest in 1983.

In other words, Goni was one of the first among the 1979 set of governors to go into retirement, three months earlier than his colleagues such as Alhaji Lateef Jakande of Lagos, Alhaji Auwal Ibrahim of Niger, Chief Sam Mbakwe of Imo, Chief Melford Okilo of Rivers, Chief Bisi Onabanjo of Ogun, Alhaji Abubakar Tatari Ali of Bauchi, Mr. Aper Aku of Benue and Chief Solomon Lar of Plateau. Dr Garba Nadama of Sokoto, who succeeded Kangiwa in 1981, also made it to the end. Goni was one of the youngest governors elected in 1979 and was a senior civil servant before that.

Several factors add up to explain this former governor’s relative poverty; he said in the Daily Trust on Saturday interview that he can afford to buy only one newspaper a day, which is Daily Trust. One possible reason is that he has been in retirement for four decades. Goni is one of only five living governors of the 1979 set, the others being Jakande, Nwobodo, Balarabe Musa and Alhaji Auwal, the current Emir of Suleja. Anyone who becomes a governor at a young age is in danger of being a former governor for several decades, with all the social stress it entails. Maybe this is why many former governors migrate to the Senate or seek to become ministers, in order to reduce the retirement period.

Another possible factor is that Goni lost his re-election bid in 1983. That was likely to be a big dent on his personal savings. I do not know if Goni had a civil service pension at the time he quit in 1978 and entered politics. Then also, Goni attempted an unsuccessful political come back in 2011. Such adventure is often not helpful to one’s resources. On top of all that is the fact that Alhaji Muhammadu Goni completed many good projects in 1979-1983, which was proof that he was an upright man who did not loot public funds. So his personal reserves were low to begin with.

In the Daily Trust on Saturday interview, Goni complained that today’s rulers do not go to him to seek advice. In Nigeria today, even people who were governors up to two years ago are hardly consulted by their successors, not to mention a man who was governor four decades ago when the public service still used manual typewriters and cyclostyling machines. I am not saying that this solid Nigerian tradition of ignoring elders is a good one. With the benefit of hindsight alone, a former governor has a lot of useful security, project execution, financial, personnel and political advice to offer his successors.

Goni also said of Borno’s two recent governors, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff completely disregarded him and Governor Kashim Shettima treats him like a father but does not go to his house to seek his counsel. From what we can see from afar of these two men’s temperament, this is not surprising at all. Sheriff has one of the biggest egos in Nigerian politics, evidenced by his relentless determination to kill PDP in order to avenge for PDP governors’ attempt to use and dump him. He is not the kind of man to show regards to a predecessor. Shettima on the other hand is one the most gentle persons in Nigerian politics, polite, bookish, self effacing and averse to controversy, except on two occasions.

His 2013 statement that Boko Haram was better armed than our military rang true in Nigerians’ ears but in President Goodluck Jonathan’s ears, it sounded like treason. Only the Dasukigate affair settled this question once and for all. Shettima’s statement last year that many NGOs were feeding fat on IDPs also sounded controversial---to UNICEF and UNHCR. He later exonerated those two. Given that Goni gave Shettima a tough election fight in 2011 followed by a bitter court case, I think regarding Goni as a father without going to seek his counsel is not very bad. There are hundreds of former governors and ministers in Nigeria. Since people are not going to their houses to seek their counsel, each and every one of them should please write a book. One day someone will read it.