A Risky Visit

Ali Modu Sheriff

Security considerations coalsce with other factors to abort a planned presidential visit to Borno State
By Sani Mohammad, Maiduguri
T he last few weeks, have not been the best of times for Governor Ali Modu Sheriff of Borno State. Inspite of the ups and downs associated with governance, coupled with the sleepless nights he had preparing for the first ever State visit of the President to Borno State since the former Senator assumed power in 2003, his dreams of showcasing what the administration considers as “the mother of all achievements” was somewhat shattered by the cancellation of the visit at the last minute.

As at the time of filing this report, no official statement has been made, intimating the citizenry on why Mr. President shunned the State. In a telephone chat with the Government House Director of Press, Alhaji Usman Chiroma, The Source was told that the cancellation followed what the Federal Government described as, “Pressing national issues involving Borno and Plateau States,” the states intended to be visited by the president. “If there is any further information from the Villa, you will be the first to know,” Chiroma promised.

However, there have been a divergence of opinion on this rather amazing circumstance. There are those who believe that the President may have been scared away by security reports. Others have argued that the proposed President's visit was truncated by the State chapter of the People's Democratic Party (PDP). In fact, there are those who believe that the President used the opportunity to punish Governor Sheriff for the hide-and-seek tactics he adopted during the battle for the actualisation of the third term agenda.

Indeed, The Source's investigations reveal that all the reasons adduced by the various groups in Borno, regarding the failed State visit of Mr. President, are correct, except that there are undercurrent issues which underline the entire ‘ Palaver' .

Competent sources close to the Villa told The Source in a telephone chat that, “Governor Sheriff killed himself”. The source explained that there were series of security reports which on their own were qualified to disqualify Borno State from being visited by the President. But the President appeared less perturbed by those reports, as according to some Borno officials, “he couldn't have turned down Sheriff's invitation”, considering, according to the President, the fact that there was an avalanche of projects waiting to be commissioned in the State.

Following this development, however, The Source was told that the President invited the Governor and intimated him on the security situation in Borno State where upon the governor was said to have assured him (President) of a hitch-free visit.

Soon after that meeting, according to a source, issues regarding insecurity were laid to rest, until the Governor made a public broadcast through the State SSG, Ambassador Baba Ahmed Jidda, to warn trouble makers of the impending consequences of their intended action.

In addition to the broadcast, The Source gathered that Governor Sheriff wrote to the Presidency about plans by some PDP stalwarts in Abuja who reportedly met at the residence of former Governor of the State, Kachalla, to concretise a plot to cause mayhem during the President's visit.

In an undated letter which was copied to the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and other security outfits at the Presidency, Sheriff alleged that at the meeting which was attended by 20 PDP top notchers in Borno, personalities which included among others, Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim Imam, Kachalla, Mohammad Umara Kumalia and the Minister for Women Affairs, Hajia Inna Chiroma among others,plans according to the governor, had been perfected to distrupt the President's three day official visit.

This, The Source gathered, may have put spanners in the wheels for the Borno helmsman, as it further sought to confirm the existence of insecurity in the State. To drive the final nail on the coffin of the visit, the family house of Senator Abba Aji was reportedly set ablaze, raising tension and insecurity in Bama town, headquarter of Bama Local Government Council.

Instructively, to the Borno PDP, the cancellation of the Presidential visit was a thing of joy. Speaking with The Source in an exclusive interview, a member of the PDP who spoke on condition of anonymity hinted that, “Governor Sheriff wanted to use the President's visit to deceive the world: He wanted to show Mr. President some few projects which he completed two years ago, to win the President's sympathy against his case of financial misappropriation presently before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) ” .

Remarkably, a member of the EFCC (names withheld) had told The Source that the President has been assisting victims of financial misappropriation, those whose cases are pathetic. Hear him: “When you have a pathetic case, the President in his wisdom would only tell you to refund what you have been accused of, and the matter is put to rest. He had done this to many held in the EFCC net before.”

The Source gathered that the governor had, indeed, planned to convince the President that, contrary to what he was charged by the EFCC and the Press for he had done a lot for the State. But aware of these plans, the State PDP vowed to frustrate this move, a situation they felt could crush Sheriff's re-election bid, come 2007. Only recently, the EFCC had vowed to stop all erring governors and public office holders from contesting elections in 2007.

A source closed to the villa had hinted that in other to frustrate the President's visit to Borno, the State PDP top notchers had met more them 15 times, designing various strategies to forestal the visit. One of the argument they put forward, and which seems to have gained grounds before the President was that it was the Presidential grant released for the visit that Governor Sheriff used to accomplish some of the projects.

This feeling has been heightened because about 10 days before the President's visit was due new contracts were awarded in the State. For example, the new conference centre at the Government House, the dualisation of the Maiduguri-Jimtilo road and some others only began with the visit of the President in mind.

In fact, two days before the proposed visit, many projects earmarked to be commissioned by the President were still not completed, while others were receiving finishing touches. At a point, the State's Commissioner for Health, Dr. Asabe Vilitar Bashir, almost lost her job for failing to move at the required pace.

Remarkably, the advance party of Mr. President which arrived Maiduguri a few days before the visit, confirmed to the Villa that work were still going on in almost all the places to be commissioned, hence he (the President) was shocked, considering the fact that the governor had told him that the projects to be commissioned were completed about two years ago.

To some other opinionists, the Federal Government had hit the State below the belt. One Alhaji Usman Kolo, an All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) top notcher in Yobe State, told The Source that if the President was determined to visit Borno, all the so-called security reports not withstanding, he still would have done so.

Kolo: “The security situation in Borno is not worse than those other places the President had visited in the country. President Obasanjo visited the Niger Delta region in the heat of trouble; he visited Kaduna when the religious war was raging at its peak; the President visited Jos, the capital of Plateau when the city was boiling. However, that of Borno is quite understandable, since the demise of the third term agenda, Sheriff has lost out in the good books of Mr. President. He expected the governor to come all out to fight like our own Bukar (Yobe governor), but rather he was playing hide and-seek; and the President read between the lines. So people won't be wrong if they attribute the whole thing to the hangover of the third term agenda”.

In tracing the factors that have been responsible for the cancellation of the President's visit, a top member of the ANPP who chose to speak on anonymity told The Source that, in addition to the “treacherous intent of the State PDP,” the governor himself did not help matters.

He said: “We know that the State PDP never wanted the President to visit Borno because of the mother of achievements we have recorded, but our governor is not helping matters. He had allowed people to come in between him and the press. The press who are supposed to tell the world the true situation of things in the State are seemingly at parallel lines.

“So, without the press by our side, the State PDP has all the chance and opportunity to tell all the lies in the world about Sheriff and his developmental programmes. I wish to appeal to you pressmen to save the regime, because the PDP is far more closer to the President than we in the ANPP”

A source at the Aso Rock Villa who had earlier declared that, “Sheriff killed himself” noted that whatever security report was written about Borno State should not be a surprise to the governor because, “one of the unfortunate security reports at the disposal of the Federal Government is that, even when thuggery is known to be a nationwide saga, no governor spends so much to keep thugs like Ali Sheriff”.

However, The Source's investigations reveal that whoever wishes to debunk these security reports would have a tough time doing so because, the State Security Service at Abuja has, according to one of its officers, “hard rock facts” with regards to “the governor and his tamed lions”. “These “hard rock facts”, they maintain, make it easier for any kind of security reports to gain easy entry into the President's heart.

Incidentally, in 2003 when Alhaji Kaka Mallam Yale, the former Konduga Local Government Chairman, and later Chairman, “ SAS Campaign Organisation” was discussing with some journalists on the performance of ex-Governor Kachallah, he had outrightly condemned views held in favour of Kachallah as a man of peace. Yale had told the journalists that “Borno is originally a peaceful State”.

Today as the picture stands, things appear to have changed. The question arising therefrom is, why is the State changing from its original status as a “ Home of Peace ”?

From The Source's investigation, Aso Rock is aware that thuggery in Borno is a big business; thugs under Sheriff were sponsored for Hajj pilgrimage, and awarded heavy contracts; given expensive cars and showered with mouth-watering offers. To this effect, The Source learnt, the PDP is planning to equip itself strong enough for future challenges.

Remarkably, any one that breeds lions, it is said, ends up in a lion's belly. This is exactly the circumstance confronting Governor Sheriff at the moment. With thugs around him, the governor took top chance any possibility for violence in Borno State; unknown to him that the reverse is the case.

For example, when Muslims in Kano held a rally to protest the offensive Danish cartoons against Prophet Mohammed, a similar thing was earmarked in Borno. But while Governor Ibrahim Shekarau of Kano tried successfully to ensure a peaceful rally, he (Sheriff) was optimistic that nothing would happen— but it did and with devastating consequences.

When during the last Constitutional Conference also, Governor Adamu Muazu of Bauchi State was pondering on how to host the zonal hearing Conference in the midst of highly intoxicated anti-third term agitators, Sheriff volunteered to host it. The result was almost a source of embarrassment to the personalities at the conference, as youths numbering about a hundred held placards at the entry gate of the venue singing and chanting war songs “ Bamaso, Bamaso, Bamaso”, meaning, “we don't want the conference, we don't want it."

Just one year into his administration, Sheriff's thugs had protested naked at the Government House, Maiduguri, demanding for some kind of attention. Also, a few months ago, the thugs were said to have been given two million naira by the governor but they rejected the amount on the grounds of its inadequacy. Added to these were the series of clashes recorded in the State between thugs belonging to the governor and others, perhaps of the PDP.

The question on many lips in Borno today thus is, what is the prospect of democracy in the State, when every politician is planning to raise his own army of touts from neighbouring countries, ostensibly in response to Governor Sheriff's style of politicking?

However, the cancellation of the President's visit raises more questions than answers. “When would the President be satisfied with the security situation in Borno, when the touts have continued to grow from strength to strength?” many Borno indigenes ask.

Instructively, the 754 Housing Estate built since 2004 is waiting to be commissioned. Last year, another 500 Housing Estate named after the late SSG of the State, Alhaji Abba Gana Terab, was built. While the former had been unoccupied for two years, waiting to be commissioned, the latter has remained equally unoccupied for about six months— also waiting to be commissioned.

Early this year, there were media reports on the extent of damage at the 754 Housing Estate following its continuous unoccupied state. Now that no one knows when the President would be visiting the State, are they still going to remain unoccupied and awaiting commissioning?

Also, with the mounting pressure from patients at the State Specialist Hospital - which, of course, prompted to construction of the Bulunkutu General Hospital, would this completed Hospital remain unused till such a time when the President finds it conducive to visit the State? The questions are endless — but there are hardly answers.