Talking silly on Bauchi (I)

Written by Adamu Adamu
adamuadamu@dailytrust.com

When I left the country four weeks ago, I didn’t imagine that the course I would be attending here in London would be so intensive that I wouldn’t have time to write my column or do any other thing for that matter. That was why in my last column on June 26, 2009, I didn’t think it necessary to give notice of my impending absence, which would be for eight weeks. I thought that I would be able to write in between classes.

So, when the editorial page editor of Daily Trust called me around 9:00 p.m. the following Thursday, asking whether they should expect my column, I apologized and told him that even the mere act of having to respond to him at that time was a major distraction. I therefore asked him to tell the editor to put whatever other material they had at hand; and I went back to class.

And because I normally don’t read our newspapers online and the editorial page editor hadn’t alerted me, I was unaware that one Mustapha Chaji, who wrote from an e-mail address—carried in the Daily Trust [9/7/2009], had sent in a series of questions for my attention. The questions were about the situation in Bauchi State—the corruption going on there, the de-decamping of Governor Isa Yuguda from the All Nigeria People’s Party back to the People’s Democratic Party from whence he came and the impeachment of Alhaji Garba Mohammed Gadi, his deputy and other related issues—and what he sees as my role or my silence in all this. It was the following week that several friends called or texted asking me to read it; and by the time I did so, it was too late for me to write last week.

In the past my attitude even to reasonable rejoinders to my column had been to accept but ignore them. It was not as a result of hubris. I never responded to well-intentioned rejoinders, because I respect views that differ from my own, so much so that I am ready to state mine only once, even though as a columnist I could have chosen to have the last word. But, of course, this is not a rejoinder to anything that I have written or implied.

Some of the issues raised in the write-up don’t make much sense at all, or they are observations that should have been more sensibly directed at the ANPP to answer or comply; and, where they referred to me and what he saw as my role in Yuguda’s gubernatorial candidature, they were pure fabrications and involved lies—well beyond what could betaken as fair comment. And, in any case, it is not clear why my views on Bauchi State should assume the importance they seem to have for him. While such expectation of my conduct as a journalist may be legitimate and may even signal public approval, I stand in no need of it; and, in any case, nothing prevents the critic from doing what he accused me of not doing, especially since he is not incapable of writing accusations.

And whether all that was prompted by facts on the ground or by some unstated, it certainly took off at a tangent that ignored its own context. The writer was imputing motives behind what he saw as my silence, portraying my friendship with Governor Isa Yuguda as the reason for that silence.

Chaji is unhappy that I wrote about Ahmadu Mu’azu but hadn’t written about Isa Yuguda, though from his tone there might have been more to it than that. As it were, I wrote twice about Mu’azu, who, incidentally and, perhaps unknown to the critic, was as close a friend to me as Isa is; and if that friendship didn’t stop me from throwing those challenges at him, a friendship to Yuguda couldn’t have been a reason for me to shield him or even wish to do so.

And because that friendship is not something that has been taken advantage of, it is not something that should ordinarily have been known to the writer, which points to the direction of motive. Be that as it may, I would have written even more on Mu’azu if he had persisted with those barefaced denials; and, especially, had he handled the issue with the seriousness it deserved, instead of giving it to some clowns to handle for him. But he wisely allowed the matter die down quietly after.

But I didn’t write what I wrote about Ahmadu Mu’azu as a citizen or spokesman of Bauchi State or as his enemy: I wrote what I wrote as a journalist; and it was not my goal, as Chaji said, to debunk his portrayal as an achiever. If Chaji had been a regular reader of this column, as he said he had, then he had not been a careful reader of it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have missed the point I made that I didn’t write about Mu’azu because he was corrupt per se. I wrote because he tried to deny an allegation that he was; and, at that time, he even enlisted the help of Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi to help him amplify that denial. This nation might have tolerated corruption, but it should never be allowed to accept that it could also tolerate insult to its intelligence by those who daily inflict, and then add salt to, our collective injuries.

Then, as now, I have maintained that unless a journalist wanted to undertake comprehensive panorama on general gubernatorial corruption, it would have been unfair to write a one-off on anyone of them. To some, this distinction might not mean much, but to me, as a journalist who wanted to be fair, there was all the world of a difference between taking Mu’azu on, on what he had personally and publicly claimed, and which was specific to him; and singling him out and blaming him for all the corruption in which all the governors were then wallowing—and letting the others go scot-free.

The nation has the right to ask why this has not been done, or why this has only been done selectively; and the journalism profession will be hard put to explain; but no one has the right to ask Adamu Adamu why he has not done this in general or in any particular case. Anyone who accused me of silence over what was happening in Bauchi State therefore might as well have accused me of silence over what was happening in every other state, because I hadn’t written on the corruption or deputy-gubernatorial impeachments going on in any of them. And no law says only the corruption in your state of origin should interest you or be a matter for your column or be a sensible ground for taking you to task.

Or, if friendship with governors is for Chaji and all the others who think like him a good ground for suspicion, they should, for instance, have remembered to accuse me of silence and shielding Governor Ibrahim Shekarau from criticism with respect to what happened between him and General Muhammadu Buhari. Shekarau is to me a longer-lasting friend than Isa had been and he also has had problems with his deputy and both of them were close to the General. And throughout 2003 I was virtually Shekarau’s sentry standing by Buhari’s side.

This, certainly, was a write-up I wouldn’t have bothered to answer except for two reasons. First, many people have asked me to respond, even though they should have known better. This response to it, therefore, is more in deference to their wishes than to the substance, logic or merit of the content of that write up. And second, perhaps this trivialization of the matter by the write-up may have now created an opportunity for me to seize and address the whole issue of my involvement with the government of Bauchi State, especially for the sake of the many friends who, falling for this type of warped logic or any other, had been genuinely anxious on my behalf.
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