INSIDEPOLITICS Uneasy calm as 5 Kano lawmakers get six-month suspension over Sanusi
The six-month suspension recently slammed on five members of the Kano State House of Assembly by Speaker Abdulazeez Garba Gafasa has been generating uneasy calm and raising questions.
The Assembly was thrown into chaos over the report of its committee that investigated allegations against Muhammadu Sanusi II, who was later in the week deposed by the state government as Emir of Kano.
The Speaker of the Assembly, at the resumption of sitting on March 16, said the five members were suspended for misconduct and violation of the rules of the House.
The suspended members are Garba Yau-Gwarmai (APC), representing Kunchi/Tsanyawa constituency; Labaran Abdul Madari (APC), representing Warawa constituency; Isyaku Ali Danja (PDP), representing Gezawa constituency; Mohammed Bello (APC), representing Rimin Gado/ Tofa constituency, and Salisu Ahmed-Gwamgwazo (PDP), representing Kano Municipal.
Meanwhile, they have been questions as to whether due process was followed in the suspension of the lawmakers.
This is even as some observers have argued that the suspension was not a unanimous decision by the Assembly based on constitutional provisions.
There were allegations that the leadership of the house acted the script of the ‘powers that be,’ in suspending the lawmakers.
It was reliably gathered that trouble started when a group known as Society for the Promotion of Education and Culture and one person submitted petitions to the Assembly, seeking the investigation of former Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II.
The petition by the group was signed by one Mohammed Bello, while the other one was signed by Mohammed Mukhtar Ja’en Yamma.
The petitions were read by the chairman of the House Committee on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, and member representing Sumaila constituency, Hamza Massu.
According to the petitions as presented before the legislators, the former emir should be investigated over his alleged nonchalant attitude, which they said was against the religion, culture and tradition of Kano people.
It was also gathered that the petitioners presented some videotapes as part of evidence to back their petitions.
Following the presentation of the petitions, the legislators deliberated and ordered the standing Committee of the House on Complaints and Petitions to commence action.
But shortly after the committee was mandated to commence the investigation, a member representing Dala constituency, Lawal Hussain (PDP), suggested that the content of the petition should be read on the floor of the House.
However, the Speaker briefly explained to him that according to section 3 (b) of the House rule, there was no need for further explanation of such petition in public.
Ironically, one of the groups that allegedly submitted a petition to the House against the then Emir of Kano came out later to deny writing any petition.
It was gathered that residents of Ja’en community in Gwale Local Government Area of the state, who were said to have written one of the petitions, came out to dissociate themselves from the action.
The denial followed the initiated probe of the emir by the state House of Assembly based on the petition received from two different bodies, one of which was said to have been from Ja’en Yamma.
Ja’en community, under the aegis of Ja’en Concerned Citizens Initiative, accused the Assembly of trying to use them to depose former Emir Sanusi for political reasons.
The community, in a statement dated March 6 and jointly signed by the chairman of the organisation, Tameem Bala Ja’en, and secretary, Ibrahim Yahya Ja’en, said: “We, the residents of Ja’en will never tolerate the humiliation or disgrace of any respected person in the society to achieve selfish political goals.
“In conclusion, Ja’en community remains loyal to the Kano Emirate and the Kano State Government. May Allah protect Kano from all evil plans and grant us peace and good health.”
The statement also revealed that the residents condemned the petition against the emir and challenged the Assembly to produce the petitioner if he really existed.
According to a source, the House agreed to deliberate on the issue, only for its leadership to ‘single-handedly’ change the date for the deliberation, which gave rise to the rowdy session.
However, amidst the disagreement on the matter on the floor of the House, the Kano State Government went ahead to announce the dethronement of former Emir Sanusi.
It was after the dethronement that the leadership of the House announced the suspension of some members, accusing them of misconduct and violating the rules and regulations of the House.
“The five members were suspended for violating the rules of the House, especially Order IV, sub 4 a, b, d. They also disrupted the sittings of the House and prevented proceedings. They behaved violently and even attempted to snatch the mace, in a clear attempt to sabotage the House,” the Speaker said.
A source in the House revealed that the rowdy session, as seen by the public in a viral video, was as a result of the refusal of members to unanimously adopt a request by the executive on the dethronement of Sanusi.
The rowdiness started when a committee saddled with the responsibility to investigate Muhammadu Sanusi II, attempted to submit its report on the floor of the Assemby.
According to the source, many members were of the view that there was a violation of the provision of fair hearing, and therefore, disagreed with the request; hence the rowdy session, which forced the House to adjourn its sitting.
The rowdy session was said to have ensued because some members suspected that the committee had recommended the dethronement of Sanusi without conducting a thorough investigation into the petition sent to the Assembly.
Reacting to the matter, one of the affected lawmakers, Garba Yaú Gwarmai, representing Kunci/ Tsanyawa constituency, said they were not surprised at the action of the leadership of the House.
According to him, the order 2 of the rule of the House was completely violated and due process was not followed in their suspension.
He, therefore, said their suspension was not valid, adding that they remained active members of the House.
“The allegation of misconduct against us ought to have been presented before the House Committee on Ethics and Privileges. That was not done, and we were not given the right to fair hearing. We are representatives of our people and law-abiding citizens.
“What the leadership did was totally illegal; and as far as I am concerned, the suspension is invalid. Moreover, none of us received any notification to that effect. What was done to us was just a sign of the Assembly’s leadership deficiency,” he said.
A former majority leader of the House, who is also among the suspended members, Labaran Abdul Madari, representing Warawa constituency, described what happened as drama, saying the sections quoted by the Speaker as being violated had nothing to do with what happened.
According to him, Order 8 of the House rule should have been followed to the letter before any action is taken against any erring member.
“The Speaker came with his prepared speech and just made the announcement. It is a total violation of the constitution, as well as the House rules.
“As I speak to you now, none of us received any official correspondence informing us that we have been suspended. We are not in conflict with our political party or the Kano State Government. This is just our in-house crisis on the leadership of the House.
“Let me tell you that as far as we are concerned, we remain active members of the House,” said Madari.
Speaking on the issue, a Kano-based legal practitioner, Jamilu Ali’u, said the step taken by the leadership of the House on the five suspended members was “unconstitutional and unjustifiable,” adding that the affected members have not been given a chance to fair hearing as stipulated in Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
According to him, the affected lawmakers can approach the court to seek redress, just like in the case of the Deputy Senate President, Omo Ovie Agege.
Attempts to get the reaction of Speaker Abdulazeez Garba Gafasa were not successful as he failed to return calls to his phone.
However, the commissioner for information in Kano State, Malam Muhammed Garba, said the state government was not responsible for what happened in the House as they have been operating independently.
By Taiwo Adeniyi, Ibrahim Musa Giginyu, Kano & Risikat Ramoni, Lagos
Asibi Dagi cut short her sleep and rose early to go to the pond in Damgbma. The woman, about 60 years old, took five bowls, hoping to be the first person to scoop water from the pond when she left her home at 5am. But Mary Enoch, a housewife, was already there. Mary left her house earlier. Asibi had to wait in queue for her turn to scoop water.
The waiting finally paid off and it was Asibi’s turn to scoop water. The time was 10 am. Two hours later, she was still stooping the little water in the pond. She would scoop for few minutes, then wait for the water to resurface.
This year’s World Water Day is titled, ‘Water and Climate Change’ to raise awareness on how water can be used to curb climate change.
Asibi’s situation at Damgbma, an agrarian community in Jiwa ward of the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) in Nigeria’s capital city, shows the position of the United Nations, that extreme weather events are making water scarce, more unpredictable, more polluted, or all three. Humans need water to survive, as do all the systems we rely on: sanitation, health care, education, business and industry.
The community is few kilometres from the Umaru Musa Yar’adua Road that leads to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, but the residents are among the 144million people globally who drink untreated surface water, according to a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF).
There are machanised boreholes in the community, but none serves the residents appropriately. A resident, Timothy Musa, said the men in the community had to dig the ponds deeper so that the women could get enough water.
The WHO and UNICEF, in a report in June 2019, stated that one in three people globally did not have access to safe, drinking water.
“Some 2.2 billion people around the world do not have safely managed drinking water services, 4.2 billion people do not have safely managed sanitation services, and 3 billion lack basic hand-washing facilities,” the report stated.
Kelly Ann Naylor, Associate Director of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, UNICEF also said, “Mere access is not enough. If the water isn’t clean, isn’t safe to drink or is far away, and if toilet access is unsafe or limited, then we are not delivering for the world’s children.”
World Water Day presents an opportunity to explore the accessibility of residents to potable water. The community head, Ismaila Magaji, said they had been without safe drinking water until 2016 when some corps members donated a machanised borehole to them.
He said the people celebrated the donation. “We were happy and celebrated it in a big way. We danced all day because for over 50 years we had been drinking from the stream,” he said, adding that they guard it jealously.
But the borehole, donated by the Monday Sanitation Community Development Service group, led by Nwokolo Carl, did not stop them from going to the pond to scoop water. He explained that because of the pressure on the borehole, it gets faulty regularly.
In Konkole II, a community in Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja, residents also depend on streams as the mechanised boreholes there are either faulty or insufficient.
The community head, Ibrahim Mai Unguwar, said the over 300 families in the community depended on the borehole; hence the water is inadequate. As such, people frequent the stream.
“We start using the borehole by 6am and lock it by 3pm,” he said, adding that some residents buy sachet water from Tungan Maje, another community about 7 kilometres from the community.
While rural dwellers depend on ponds, streams and mechanised boreholes, residents in the urban and sub-urban areas are not spared from water challenges. In several parts of Abuja, people depend on water vendors, personal boreholes in their residences, while few area councils get water from the water corporation.
Reacting, the supervisory councillor for works in the Abuja Municipal Area Council, Adamu Jagaba said government was aware of the water challenge in Damgbma. He said the council had awarded a borehole project.
In Kano, residents are at the mercy of water vendors. With its growing population of about 15million people, demand and supply of potable water have increased over the years. However, many water users in the state have resorted to the use of boreholes.
A visit to Dakata, Hotoro, Tarauni, Brigade, Ladanai, and Sauna within the state metropolis revealed that people rely on boreholes as their main source of water.
Engineer Habibu Musa of Hotoro quarters in Nassarawa Local Government Area said they had since given up on potable water supply from the state government. He said their main source of water had been the wells and boreholes.
“You see, conservation and efficient utilisation and management of potable water resources will not be possible without sufficient knowledge of water demand and supply processes. It is disheartening that for years, several governments at various instances had failed to address this issue because they lack the political will to make it realistic,” he said.
It is a common scenario in the state to see long queues of water vendors at commercial borehole centres and other water sources. The irony is that the scenario is also visible in some Government Reservation Areas, which ought to have steady water supply.
It was gathered that 25 litres of water cost between N25 and N50 in the metropolis.
A water vendor on Zaria Road, Malam Isiye Muttaka, said they joined the queue as early as 5:00 am every day to be able to meet up with their customers’ water demand. According to him, it is from that point that they supply water to various locations in the city. He further revealed that distance and rate of demand influenced their sales.
A resident of Dakata quarters, Mr. Steven Ogah, said there had not been water in his tap for over 20 years, adding that they had since lost the hope of having potable water. “Every year, we keep hoping that there would be a change of attitude to water supply in our area, but we are always disappointed. We now solely depend on boreholes,” he said.
When contacted, the Chief Pressure Secretary to Governor Ganduje, Malam Abba Anwar, said the state government had entered into an agreement with the French government on how to boost water supply in the state. He said there’s an ongoing work on the Tamburawa water treatment plant for expansion to full capacity.
He called on the people of the state to exercise patience as government is working round the clock to ensure an improved water supply.
In Lagos, some people enjoy pipe-borne water while others don’t even know that such a thing exists. In places like Ejigbo, Isolo and environs, there has not been public water supply for many years, and it appears the people have lost hope.
But a resident of Ebute-Metta, who identified himself as Gabriel, told our correspondent that people in his area, Apapa Road, Otto, Iddo and environs enjoyed regular water supplied by government.
He said, “Sometimes we have water for two weeks uninterrupted, but once they take it, we may not have it for three weeks.”
He said that when there’s no water from the tap, they would patronise truck pushers who sell 50 litres at N50 and 12 kegs at N500.
Despite the efforts of the Lagos State Water Corporation, those who have access to water said it was not fit for consumption. According to Daniel, for the first two to four hours the water will flow, it will be dirty; hence nobody makes any attempt to drink it. However, after a while, it will become clean.
He said the bill for the water supplied by government was usually between N1,500 and N2,000 every month.
A resident of Shomolu, who identified himself as Damilare, also said, “We generate our water. If we had water from government, no one would dig any borehole. Here, truck pushers supply water to the masses because there’s no public water.
Also, Bolaji, who lives in Itire, said government water in her area could work for one month and not work for another two months.
She said, “The bill they give to us is outrageous. It can be as high as N5,000 sometimes. When we didn’t pay at a time, they cut off our supply. We cannot even drink the water, so we fetch drinking water from a nearby borehole.”
The Lagos State Government has water supply channels all over, such as Iju waterworks, Adiyan waterworks, Apapa-II and many others.
In his reaction to the water situation in Lagos, the group managing director/chief executive officer of the Lagos Water Corporation, Muminu Badmus, an engineer, said, “Presently, we supply 210million gallons of water per day to meet water demand in Lagos.’’ He, however, noted that water supply is not regular in the state because of population explosion, power challenge, activities of road construction, ageing infrastructure, among others.
He said the state was working on a 70mgd Adiyan phase Il water project to serve over 3million residents in the western and eastern axis of the state. “The facility is 80per cent completed, while we await the third phase of the water scheme, which will include upgrading of Adiyan 70mgd to 140mgd, and the introduction of renewable energy options in some of the water treatment processes and construction of associated network.