So Boko Is Haram After All? By Hamza Ibrahim

The choice of the title name above may come as a surprise to some. Yes Boko is actually haram to many communities in northern Nigeria. While the much dreaded Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati popularly callled Boko Haram is killing our children, destroying our places of worship and decimating our sources of livelihood, another set of Boko Haram living in our midst – these ones, very selfish, greedy elites who show disdain to western education as a way of subjugating the masses to perpetuate the status quo reign with impunity. This is another type of Boko Haram receiving so little coverage but wrecking so much havoc.
Boko is Haram is in my local government, Dawakintofa LG Area of Kano state. Yes western education has become a sin for anybody dreaming to make himself or herself available for any elective position in that area. Dawakintofa local government is one of the oldest local governments in Kano State with a rich history, culture and entrepreneurship. The local government is blessed with vast natural and human resources.
Bordered by two major dams named Thomas to the east and Bagwai to the west, it has vast agricultural lands for irrigational farming and high quality clay for ceramic and domestic use. Dawanau market -the largest food market in West Africa and the biggest mechanic village in northern Nigeria (kwakwaci mechanic village) are located in Dawakintofa local government area. The local government stands tall in human resources. A former acting governor (Late Alhaji Abdu Dawakintofa), a former deputy governor (Engr. Magaji Abdullahi) and the current incumbent deputy governor (Dr.Abdullahi Umar Ganduje), a former surveyor general of the federation (Surveyor Muhammad Nadu Yahaya), a former elected senator of the federal republic ( Dr.MaikanoRabiu) all come from Dawakintofa local government. This in addition to several former/current state and federal commissioners, federal and state civil servants and businessmen. Despite been endowed with all these resources, the local government is left behind in terms of physical, social and other infrastructural development compared to its contemporaries like Bichi, Gwarzo and Dambatta local government areas.
From my submission above, it is doubtless that Dawakintofa is rivalled by a few local governments in northern Nigeria in terms of human and natural resources, henceforth you will agree with me, this community deserve the best in terms of quality leadership and representation at the local and federal levels. The community needs some body with vast experience and capacity in management and administration. Somebody who can effectively utilize human and capital resources to move the local government forward to achieve greatness in the field of education, healthcare, youth and women empowerment, business and farming.
Therefore, when the APC guidelines for the upcoming local government election in Kano state were spelt out, so many candidates including this writer expressed their interests to contest the chairmanship of the local government. Among the fourteen (14) candidates are seven graduates, four NCE/DIPLOMA holders and three (3) secondary school certificate holders. Four out of the seven graduates are actually having post graduate degrees in management, health management, engineering and public administration.
The expectations were high and the public opinion were full of optimism that this time around Dawakintofa would get it right considering the need to consolidate the gains recorded and sustain the legacy of honesty, transparency and efficiency represented by the Kwankwasiyya government of Engr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. In Dawakintofa, all the candidates were called to the house of his Excellency Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje - Kano state deputy governor. Present to witness the emergence of the candidate were the former deputy governor- Engr Magaji Abdullahi, former elected senator Dr. Maikano Rabiu, former Technical adviser, presidential task force on power, former project team lead Public works SURE-P, and currently senior special assistant to the Governor on projects Engr Muazu Magaji, former chairman Dawakintofa LGA Alhaji Saleh Kuidawa, former commissioner of transport and agriculture Alhaji Alasan Dawaki, Executive Secretary, Kano state relief agency Alhaji Ali bashir and all the caucus members of the party represented by the former executives of defunct ANPP, CPC, ACN and Kwankwasiyya. The event was chaired and moderated by the former surveyor general and current commissioner for land and physical planning Surveyor Nadu Yahaya. I am taking time mentioning all these names for you to appreciate the quality of the people that were mandated to produce a credible chairman for Dawakintofa local government. www.eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/download/629/69
The criteria adopted by the party to choose the candidate was that of consensus and in line with this, the candidates were asked to first of all introduce themselves, their educational attainments, their experience and their plans and blueprints for Dawakintofa. All the candidates introduced themselves including the writer. The writer took time to inform the gathering about his numerous achievements including his educational attainments (the writer has three degrees), his experience in the medical and managed care including his sojourn in the pharmaceutical industry. The candidates were subsequently asked to go and sort out among themselves and produce the most acceptable and the most credible candidate. After deliberations, we arrived at AlhajiHamisuDanguguwa - a master’s degree holder, a former administrator, a current chairman of caucus APC D/tofa, a member Kano state CRC committee and Chairman revenue committee D/tofa LGA. He was elected by 11 out of the 14 candidates. He was elected not because he was the most educated among us, but because of his track record of honesty, background and experience. The outcome of our consensus election was communicated to the enlarged caucus. While some members like Eng. Muazu, Dr Maikano and Eng. MagajiAbdullahi applauded our decision and congratulated the winner, the chairman and moderator of the event Surveyor Nadu Yahaya rejected our collective decision and instead asked the enlarged caucus to proceed with fresh selection process in the absence of the majority of the candidates and other caucus members. The outcome of his election produced the least educated candidate - a secondary school certificate holder, and a drug addict.
If this is a surprise to you, events which followed will be a shocker. The chanting of "saiJahili" meaning up illiterate resonated among some of the caucus members. If the behaviour of the crowd could be forgiven due to their ignorance and low understanding of the importance of education in today's politics, what could explain the behaviour of the former surveyor general of the federation - a quantity surveyor of international refute, and a deputy governor (a phd holder)  who endorsed this criminality and illegality? When elites are openly showing disdain to western education because of their narrow interests, what do you expect from the majority of the uneducated population? This is the politics in Dawakintofa local government of Kano state and by extension politics of Northern Nigeria.
As it stands now in my local government, it is a sin to present yourself as candidate for elective position as long as you are educated. In fact, it will count as a disadvantage for educated among us to bid for elective position. But how did we arrive at this unfortunate ugly situation? Some of our leaders and elders who immensely benefited from western education free of charge at a very young age have now turned against education because of their very greedy and selfish tendencies. These very selfish old men (in their late sixtees) are toying with the lives of the majority of the population and the future of our children in order to protect their narrow, parochial interests. They have been using all the available weapons to divide and further subjugate us. They have successfully pitched the masses against the educated; the town dwellers against the rural dwellers and in the process promote mediocrity, rancour and disunity among us to perpetuate the status quo. They are promoting hatred towards any educated person attempting to climb up. See this article.
The danger here is that the majority of our uneducated population are encouraged to show contempt and disdain to western education and by extension discourage their wards from attending schools. This explain why some warfed minds are not interested in pursuing higher education since all its required is minimum of secondary school certificate to contest for elective position (this is one area our elected legislatures should look in during the amendment of constitution).
This is the legacy our educated elders are leaving for us. This is the legacy an incumbent deputy governor- who is a PHD holder, and a former surveyor general of the federation and a current commissioner are leaving for us and our children. These are people who immensely benefited from western education, but are doing all they could to jeopardize the lives of their citizens by entrusting the lives of thousands on the hand of uneducated drug addict because of their selfish political ends.
The people of Dawakintofa, Kano state and by extension the people of northern Nigeria must sit up and face these unpatriotic leaders who have outlived their usefulness and are hell bent on destroying our future and that of our children otherwise BOKO WILL BE PERMANANTLY HARAM IN OUR COMMUNITY
Hamza Ibrahim Baba writes from Abuja
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