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We’re in Difficult Times

By newswatchngr.com 01/02/2012 00:26:00

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Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, governor of Kano State, speaks to Anza Phillips, assistant editor, on the recent Boko Haram attack in Kano city. Excerpts:

Newswatch: Before now, Kano was relatively peaceful. We can no longer say Kano is peaceful following the recent attacks on the city by Boko Haram. What do you think is responsible for this?

Kwankwaso: We are yet to confirm exactly those who are responsible for these attacks. The security agencies are still working with the aim of finding out who has done that and why they did it. Unless they finish that, it is very difficult now to speculate as to who exactly did what and why they did what they did.

Newswatch: We learnt that the leadership of Boko Haram wrote to you informing you of their intention to attack Kano several weeks before they carried out the attack on the city on Friday, January 20, 2011. Did you not get their letter complaining of certain grievances?

Kwankwaso: You see, there are so many letters going round the state. Some good, some bad. But what we do know from our own end is that the state government has not arrested anybody. In any case, we have no agents whose responsibility is to go and arrest anybody. We have the police; we have men of the SSS as well as the military. And they have their mandate as to what to do here or anywhere in the country. These security agencies don’t take order, or command from me.

Newswatch: But as the governor of Kano State, constitutionally, you are the chief security officer of your state.

Kwakwanso: Of course, I am the chief security officer, but if there is anything outside there, the police don’t take directives from me to go and do what they should do. So, some months ago, I heard that some people were arrested and I made it clear that Kano State government never arrested anybody. And we did ask the security agencies in the state and indeed in the country to release any person who was not found guilty of any offence. And I said if they are found to have committed an offence in the opinion of security agents, then they should be charged to court. That was the position of the state government, and it is still the position of the state government. And I want to make that clear that, the Kano State government has taken this position from the beginning.

Newswatch: Not too long ago, some people attacked the Government House in Kano. And now we have January 20, 2012 multiple bomb attacks on the city. Some say this is an indication that your administration is not getting it right.

Kwankwaso: The attack on Government House on January 9, 2012, had to do with the character of our opponents. I was here in Kano between 1999 to 2003 as the governor of Kano State. After that, between 2003 to May 2011 when the government was in control of our opponents, we never allowed our supporters to even loiter around the Government House. We never allowed our supporters to do anything to embarrass the state and the government because I am a believer on democracy.

In 2003 when I left government, I had to go to the incoming governor, Ibrahim Shakarau and congratulate him in his house. I went with all my commissioners at that time and my deputy governor. Later, I held series of meetings with politicians, the Ulamas etc during which I asked that the incoming administration should be supported, and I left the scene for the next eight years. That is democracy. And eight years after, here am I in Government House, Kano, again as the governor. Now, what happened on January 9, 2012 was simply that, our opponents organised the attack on Government House, Kano. They broke the Government House fence. We know Kano very well. We were born and brought up here in Kano. Our parents and great grand parents are Kano people. So, in Kano, things don’t just happen like that.

Newswatch: How do things happen in Kano?

Kwankwaso: People just don’t wake up and go to Government House and start breaking the fence to the Government House. You don’t do that. If it happens, then it is organised. If we had wanted, we would have broken this fence one million times when we were outside Government House for eight years. There are those who believe that they are supper human beings, they think they can do miracles and that they are different from you and I, who think that whatever they imagine before they go to bed, they will wake up and see it done. People attempted to bring in a new religion to Kano. They are just there. And I always tell them to come and thank Kwankwaso.

Newswatch: Why should they come and thank you?

Kwankwaso: Because we saved them. If they had succeeded in putting their stooge in Government House, they would have thought that they are extraordinary human beings. But we helped them by way of taking the governorship that was wrongly in their hands for eight years. We squeezed their hands, took it away from them and eased them out of Government House. And I say they should thank us because now, they will feel that they are only human beings and not better, rather they are worse than most people. That’s the implication of what happened. So, the attack had to do with the machinations of our opponents. They know it as much as we do. We have been in the business even before them and we know how it goes. I didn’t create or remove the subsidy on oil to warrant the attack on Government House on January 9. That was the business of the federal government.

Newswatch: Some Nigerians think the Boko Haram attacks are religious attacks aimed at some ethnic groups living in the North. This has led to calls by some people that people from the South-East geopolitical zone living in the North should leave the North and go back to the East. Don’t you think this portends a great danger for the unity of this country?

Kwankwaso: These are quite difficult times. Each time comes along with its peculiar challenges. When we started in 1999, we had challenges of that time. That was when people from the North living in the south were being killed either in Sagamu or Lagos or in the East. We had so many cases where people were bringing corpses from that part of the country for burial back home in the north, and vice versa. We had many problems.

Today, we have our own version of the challenges. You know even during the eight years that I was not in government, there were many challenges too. Here in Kano, we had a period when we had riots. Now, we have got this issue on our hands. I think what is important is for all the leaders across the country to show serious understanding of the circumstance. Secondly, people should be talking and looking for areas where this problem exists. I personally believe that it is possible to sort out this problem and allow Nigeria to make progress. This is the time people should avoid bringing politics into this particular issue. We have had situation here in the past where so many people were killed, many of them from Kano, some from other states in the North, others from the South. Many of those who were killed, in fact, if not all of them, had no idea of what was happening. What we need now is to join hands to work in the interest of the country.

Newswatch: What measures have your government taken to forestall a repeat of these attacks, and to secure lives and property so that people of the state no longer live in fear?

Kwankwaso: The primary responsibility of any responsible government is the protection of lives and property. Let me also point out here that the recent attacks had nothing to do with Christians or Muslims. I want to inform you that we had more Muslims killed than the Christians killed. You had more indigenes of Kano who were killed than people of other ethnic nationalities.

Now back to your question, let me tell you that we are a very serious people here. We are working round the clock to ensure that the state is secure and that lives of all the people living in Kano are protected as much as we can. The security agencies as well as the government are working round the clock to ensure peace in the state. But you see, some of these things are not the type you begin to sing with.