COMMENT ON YOUR ESSAY ON FROM NEPU TO ASARA.
Dear Dr. Anwar.
I have read your piece on the present politics of Kano. I have the following quick comments to make.
1. I was expecting a scholarly discussion of the issues from you, but, alas, I found only personal vitriol on, mostly, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Indeed, most of what you have to say about him are contentious, and is not likely to convince any critically minded reader of your piece, largely because of the personal innuendos and the tendentious attacks on RMK, the Kwankwasiyya movement, the NNPP, and the unwaranted and unproven references to the sittjng Govetnor, AKY.
I think you should be above some of your comments in that piece. I certainly don’t share your personal attacks on Kwankwaso, the NNPP, and the Kwankwasiyya movement. I find your comments careless, full of vitriol, and sensational. I don’t see how it adds to any careful discussion on the history of Kano politics. You’re not likely to convince any critically minded reader about the issues.
2. Why must modern Kano politics be based on the NEPU? Must Kano politics be stuck with the NEPU legacy? Note that things have changed, the people are not the same as in the 1950s, and the conditions that brought about the emergence of NEPU are no longer the prevailing ones today.
3. Your use of the word “asara” (loss) is unfortunate; it indicates that nothing better has emerged, and no progress has been possible since the NEPU days. That’s patently hard to accept as a credible basis for historical discourse on Kano politics.
4. Your apparently hateful and unrestrained comments on the person of Kwankwaso, the Kwankwasiyya, the NNPP, and the sitting Governor are just unfortunate, and any critical reader can see those as mere personal attacks, not cool, objective analysis.
5. The all-or-nothing approach to politics is just a crudely religious view of politics in which there must be saints and sinners. The very arena of modern politics cannot be about “clean” political acts or pristine praxis. That’s the message to we moderns from Niccolo Machiavelli. He shows that one cannot be morally good among people are not themselves morally good or honest brokers, unencumbered by self intetest.
One reason why RMK is more politically successful than Shekarau or Ganduje is precisely because he has been more adept than all the others in adapting politics to the prevailing moment and conditions.
6. Your piece does not explain why RMK, despite his alleged “flaws and faults” has been able to keep a large following. Your view that he only attracts peasants and the urban riff-raff is simply not accurate. Frankly, you’re intellectually above this because I am also a Kwankwasiyya man and I know that the movement has a lot of highly educated independent individuals, and who are NOT tied to any political appointments.
7. Your piece does show RMK as a cult or cultic figure. Dr. Anwar, you’re a highly educated and well-trained academic historian and political theorist, but I am amused that you missed the fact that modern politics is about charismatic figures—- Bismarch, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Awolowo, Mandela, Putin, etc. And wasn’t Aminu Kano himself not a cult figure on your definition?
8. One problem with intellectuals is the failure to be deeply critical of theor sources of information. For example, take the figure of Danazumi Gwarzo, one of your informants. Study for a while his political career, his opportunistic posturings, his empty-headed political views, and his personal emotional crisis. Had you done that, you’ve been more circumspect in relying on his views of RMK or the Kwankwasiyya. Who would believe anything Danazumi says about RMK? Only the most gullible! It’s like asking Ganduje what he thinks of RMK!
9. Frankly, I was taken aback, even shocked, that you could write that piece. First, it was full of personal vitriol, probably envy and malice towards RMK and his followers, movement, and the sitting Governor, RMK. I’ve always suspected that RMK and his political movement are the target of envious and malicious people. I say this because, in modern Kano politics (modern since 1999), many people just can’t understand why anyone, any politician, would or could command the loyalty and following of such a large number of people from many sectors of society. Aminu Kano did that for a while.
Since Aminu Kano, Kano politics has had no charismatic figure with a massive aura except RMK. Yet, most people are temperamentally and culturally unhappy with that. So, in a conservative political tradition and context such as Kano’s, young people and other educated people are yearning for a political leader that traverses the complex political terrain, locally and nationally, and they happened to have found one in RMK. To explain this as simply the result of peasant and urban riff-raff following is to miss the point, in fact, to deceive oneself.
10. Finally, dear Dr. Anwar, I think that that piece that you wrote doesn’t give a good account of your political standing, education, wide public experience, and your demonstrated astute account of the politics of Nigeria since 2015, about which you wrote an excellent book.
In conclusion, I think you should either rewrite it completely or withdraw it from the public.
Kind regards and best wishes, IBK.
