Rimi did not achieve all his objectives – Lili Gabari
After the death of the first civilian governor of Kano State, Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi, in 2010, interviewed one of his closest political associates, Alhaji Lili Gabari, at the deceased’s residence along Durbin Katsina Road, in Bompai, Nassarawa GRA
Rimi died an unfulfilled man. What was late Rimi’s greatest worry in the life?
The late Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi wanted to have an opportunity to rule the country and put it back on the path of progress. The country was in total disarray. Our goal, therefore, was to correct these wrongs so that the masses will be liberated and have a sense of belonging. But very sadly, these changes became difficult to implement due to reasons not unconnected with the elite who have taken over the system and blocked the common man from participating in making decisions that will shape his future and the future of the country. The elite constitute only three percent of the entire population of the country, but they are the ones that control its affairs. Recently, for instance, the people that are representing us in the National Assembly have been struggling to enact a law that will require one to obtain university degree before he/she can be elected as a law-maker. To me, there is no reason for that. It is understandable that running a country or local government will require a literate and knowledgeable person, but it is an injustice for someone to say that the person who is going to be your representative must be a graduate.
Can we assume that Rimi became hypertensive due to these problems?
I cannot say. But I think he had been harbouring these thoughts in his mind. Only God knows exactly how he became sick; he had been seeking cure for that ailment and had travelled a lot for it.
What can you attribute the mammoth crowd that gathered at Rimi’s funeral prayers to?
That was a statement to people to fear God in all their dealings. Nigerians are mostly inclined towards acquiring power and worldly possessions, and it is often lost on them that they may acquire the power and collect all the wealth they want, but when they die nobody is concerned. But look at this man, people believed he was fighting for their cause; therefore when he died, they poured out in thousands to register their grief. Even the few of us who were close to Rimi never had an inkling that his death could muster such a mammoth crowd. Rimi got that honour because of people’s belief that he was their hero.
What would be the future of the Change or Santsi faction of the progressives which he was leading?
Daily Trust on Sunday,
We have started working to get a new leader for the Santsi ideological bloc who will succeed Rimi. Talks have gone far in that regard and we have started thinking that the closest person to Rimi, even if he was not in power, was Sule Lamido. Considering that the two had been together for a long time, we are weighing the possibility of naming Lamido as Rimi’s successor.
Would you oblige other members of the movement if they chose you to succeed Rimi?
No, I will not, because there has always been someone next to Rimi. That person was Sule Lamido; he was more close to Rimi than myself, and as long as he is around, I don’t think I’m qualified to lead Santsi. I have personally endorsed Lamido and think if he takes up from Rimi, a lot of uncertainties bedeviling the party will be reduced. And I believe he will foster unity among the factions and forge us ahead. We will sit with other members to address the power vacuum immediately we finish mourning Rimi.
What would become of politics in Kano in his absence?
Definitely, politics will continue and I have a feeling that a lot of changes will take place on the political terrain. There was this argument that Rimi was a clog in the wheel of political progress in Kano; now that he is no more, the truth is going to come out. However, he had taught us never to destroy the (progressive) ideology and had instructed us to always embrace dialogue to sort out differences with other proponents of the movement. Based on that, we listed our conditions for the way forward for the Peoples Democratic Party in Kano. Some of the conditions are that the electorate should be allowed to choose who will contest for elective positions, be they gubernatorial, council chairmen or presidency. We also suggested that only political appointee offices will be shared among party members from the party’s various subdivisions. Daily Trust
It is believed that prominent persons usually manifest signs of their death in words or actions days before it occurs. You were with Rimi not long before he died. Did he show any premonition of impending death?
You know when Rimi died I was out of the country. I, therefore, did not have the opportunity to be close to him before he passed on. When he died I was in Cairo, preparing to leave for Malaysia. But on hearing the news, I cancelled the trip to Malaysia and returned day before yesterday (Tuesday).
Do you think Rimi had achieved the goal of his lifelong struggle?
This is something you have to look from two different perspectives. On strictly personal level, you will say Rimi did not achieve his objective, being that he did not realize the dream of ruling this country and giving it the type of good leadership that it has never seen before, the quality leadership he gave to Kano as PRP (Peoples Redemption Party) governor. But if you view it from the angle of his followers, to us Rimi attained his goals as a leader. I don’t think there was a time in this country that somebody’s death has brought together such a large crowd as we have seen during Rimi’s. To us, it was a great achievement.
Can Kano get another man like Rimi in terms of popularity?
You know God is omnipotent. He can, in His wisdom, raise a person that can surpass Rimi. God has monopoly over His servants and can make them whatever He wills. But as at now, I don’t think there is one man that has contributed in the way Rimi did. We are praying that another person will emerge to take up from where he stopped.
People are fond of attributing heroism to leaders who did not steal while in power, but I think that is not how a hero should be defined. You cannot be a hero unless you first protect the dignity of your subjects, save them from falling victims
of dehumanization, abuse and so forth. If you allow the contrary to any of these to subsist under your reign as a leader, you are not a hero - no matter your level of sincerity. Likewise, if you protect people’s dignity as a leader, but you misappropriate their wealth, you are not a hero. Rimi was a hero because he guarded himself against stealing public money and also protected the dignity of his people.
Just recently, he declared on the radio that when he left government in 1983, he had not up to N50, 000. You see, surely people have to thank him for leading an economically prosperous state like Kano without delving his hands into public purse. Therefore, Rimi is my hero. I have no other hero that can compare with him.
Can you reflect on some of your struggles with Rimi during PRP days?
You know I was a stakeholder in the PRP from the time Rimi joined the party up to when he became governor. We toured eastern Kano with him on a campaign for senatorial seat before he was asked to substitute Salihi Ilyasu as governorship candidate for our party.
I don’t want to start mentioning here that he built roads and this and that, because these are projects that any other person could do if funds are available. But there are things that you cannot do even if funds are available, like the issue of cancelling haraji (head tax), jangali (cattle tax) and ushira (money paid to traditional rulers by family of the dead). Again, Rimi ran a system of government that gave independence to his commissioners to freely run the ministries they superintended. What he wanted from his commissioners were only reports, but he didn’t interfere with the workings of their respective departments. He only intervened when there were complaints about a particular commissioner.
Was it true that his supporters advised him against proscribing the taxes in order not to court the anger of the traditional rulers?
That is not true. The issue of scrapping haraji and jangali was treated with a lot of secrecy; it was the last set of the PRP’s leaders that were informed about it. Therefore, even the party members did not know about it until it was announced. So, even the public was surprised when the policy was disclosed. The party had set up a committee and had received comprehensive reports on the amount that was collected as tax and the corresponding expenditure in the collection process, which was more than what was generated. It had also been briefed on the type of abuses which defaulters were subjected to. That’s how the PRP took the decision to abrogate the taxes, but the declaration to that effect was saved for the swearing-in day. Ushira was one of the greatest dehumanization that our people suffered in those days, such that if your relation died you would be less concerned with the death than the thought of your district head or ward head, who would demand that you give an estimate of the deceased wealth, from which you would be asked to pay 10 percent to the traditional ruler before you are allowed to bury your loved one. In the case where the deceased had not left anything, you will be forced to source for the 10 percent before he was buried. How can you compare Rimi’s administration with the style of
leadership today?
There are differences, but as I have said I’m not surprised because socio-political dynamics change with time. One cannot expect what happened in Rimi’s days to be replicated now. Left to me, even the political problems we are facing here and there nowadays are showing that our politics is growing. In those days, we were talking of abuses, beatings, forced labour on emir’s farms, but now the dynamics have changed and we are now talking money politics. There will be a time when we will move from where we are now to another higher level. Other nations passed through these stages before they gained political stability.
Why did Malam Aminu Kano insist on Rimi as a substitute for disqualified Salihi Ilyasu?
But if you view it from the angle of his followers, to us Rimi attained his goals as a leader. I don’t think there was a time in this country that somebody’s death has brought together such a large crowd as we have seen during Rimi’s. To us, it was a great achievement
It was not the insistence of Malam Aminu. What happened was that after the disqualification of Salihi Ilyasu the party leadership became engrossed in who would substitute him. We were sort of confused. We had already started shopping for a candidate before we remembered Rimi. So we said, ‘since he had been cleared for the Senate, why shouldn’t we nominate him as the party’s gubernatorial candidate?’ So we decided to give him the party’s ticket, while we also shopped for Adamu Gaya to contest for the Senate in his place. All this was the unanimous decision of the party, not that of Malam Aminu.
What is the truth about the speculation that Rimi and Malam did not reconcile before Malam’s death?
Sincerely, this is an area that we don’t usually want to go into. Malam was a leader desirous of respect; he liberated and enlightened the masses. But I think you journalists add fuel to issues of misunderstanding between personalities. Otherwise, disagreements have been part of history of human relations. Whenever power is won or wealth is acquired, strange dispositions will begin to creep in, and that is exactly what happened in the PRP, which is different from the allegations being bandied about, which purported that Rimi betrayed Malam or it was Malam who erred. I don’t accuse either of them; I only believe that the things that happened were destined to happen. And as I’m talking to you, there is still coherence between the factions that sprang up in the wake of that controversy.
What can you say of the claim that Rimi had shelved his progressive credentials before he died, especially as he kept jumping from one party to another?
These were developments that were forced on him by necessity. Whenever he appeared to have changed course or abandoned his ideology, keen observers can notice that he has been blocked from realizing his ambition, and therefore he was trying to go around the obstacle. However, it is also obvious that whenever Rimi was making such strategic moves, he would never go to a conservative party; he would align with the progressives instead. That is why he did not join the NPN (National Party of Nigeria) or the ANPP (All Nigeria Peoples Party), because they are conservatives’ parties.
I will give an example here. In 1999 Rimi threw his support behind Abdulahi Umar Ganduje’s aspiration for Kano governorship, but Engineer Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso emerged as the PDP’s candidate. As leaders of the party, we did not find it easy to convince Kwankwaso to accept Ganduje as running mate. However, when he finally agreed, the merger brought victory to us because we won the governorship race and all but a few seats in the state house of assembly. But when it came to the time of implementing agreements of the merger, Kwankwaso reneged. That angered Rimi, and he could not do anything because Kwankwaso was wielding power, and in addition to that, he had endeared himself to the national body of the party. Therefore, Rimi decided to leave the party for another progressive party where he thought he could realize his dreams.
You were close to Rimi, what was the secret behind his fearlessness and doggedness?
That was just how God wanted him to be. God has a way of molding people’s behaviours; some can entertain fear even where there is nothing to fear. Majority of Nigerians fall within this category. For example, people fear traditional rulers a lot even when there is nothing fearful about them. What is frightening about a traditional ruler; what can he do to you? He cannot harm you; you will never benefit from him. Yet people are afraid of them. You will hear them say they play important role in calming the public whenever there is crisis. As if somebody was there praying for problems so that they could be invited to mediate. These are theories being propagated in order to blindfold the people. But everyone knows that traditional institutions have never brought anyone any good. Otherwise, think of our brothers who were sold to the Arabs and Europeans as slaves, they were sold by our traditional rulers. These people should be asking us for forgiveness, not for positions or inclusion in the constitution. Therefore, all of us know that those people we often fear pose no threat to us at all; they shouldn’t be feared and that does not stop at Rimi alone, all of us are proponents of that ideology. Therefore, it is no secret.
Did the party ever need to call Rimi to order over some of his comments interpreted as disrespectful to elders?
It was a particular section of the community that regarded Rimi’s comments as uncouth.
What lesson do you think can be learnt from Rimi’s death?
Leaders should shun deceit and insincerity because the masses will not respect them in the end. If people want to be heroes like Rimi, they should be sincere and fearless in speaking the truth.