By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi
Shiekh Aminu Ibrahim Daurawa and Murja Ibrahim Kunya saga has left many people with sour test in their mouths, many of which are unnecessarily for the wrong reasons. In the process, there emerged winners and losers.
But before I go further in this discourse, let me confess that I am also a ‘Bakane’, before someone asks the irritating question of what my business in the matter is?
I said that I was a ‘Bakane’ because my mother of blessed memory was a full blown Bakanuwa. She came to my hometown with her parents as a 13-year old girl. Her father was a trader and decided to settle in Malumfashi, where years later my mother met my father (a Bakatsine) and got married to him.
My second wife is also a full blown Bakanuwa, which makes me a ‘Bakane’ from my wife’s side, as late Mamman Shata would say. That is why I am interested in Kano state.
About two months ago, on 7th February to be exact, I wrote an open letter to the Kano State Governor, Engineer Abba (Gida-Gida) Yusuf Kabir, named ‘an open letter to Governor Abba (Gida-Gida) Yusuf Kabir’. The nomenclature Gida-Gida has become a household name well beyond the borders of Kano State where the bearer of the name is the number one citizen.
In the said letter, some of the advices I freely offered to the Governor was for him never to take sides in his dealings with the people of his dear state, Kano.
One of my reasons was that Allah did not make him number one citizen in the state for him to deliberately take sides in matters of the state.
I suggested that the governor should be fair to all regardless of the role they might have played in his emergence as the Governor and number one citizen in Kano, his home state.
My reason, as I said, was that Allah decided that out of the millions that populate Kano State, it was he that was to become the number one citizen. And He, not a particular individual or particular individuals, was the One who choose him to be Governor so that he could be fair to all within human capacity, because Allah Himself has said in the Holy Quran that He Would not burden the (human) soul with that which it cannot bear.
But his earlier support for Murja against the actions of the Kano Hisba led to the resignation of its head, Shiekh Aminu Daurawa, a loser, even if temporarily and a victory for Murja, who is known to be a good reader of the Holy Quran, an age-long supporter of the Governor’s and a leading Tik-Toker, who dominates the field among the womenfolk in the north.
A famous Kannywood actress came out in a video in support of Murja, alleging that “all her traducers are members of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) like myself”. She therefore pleaded with the governor not to mind the traducers. Another plus for Murja.
But when the ‘fire’ ignited by the resignation of Sheikh Daurawa was too much for the Governor to bear, he made a u-turn and berrated Murja Kunya for disrespecting the Ulamas, of whom Shiekh Daurawa is a ranking member. This is a minus for the Governor.
This is not the only minus for the governor, as one young man, who claimed to be in the Kwankwasiya movement and a supporter of the governor before the saga, appeared in a video accusing the governor of being an Islamic illiterate, who according to him, did not attend any known islamic school in his younger days.
The governor’s supposed mentor, the Presidential candidate of the NNPP, Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, who was also a two-term Governor of the state, also took a carpeting from an Islamic preacher, who alleged that he (Kwankwaso) was also an Islamic illiterate, who had little knowledge of the religion. For that allegation, he was also a loser.
A ranking politician in the state, who seemed to have no problem with the resignation of Shiekh Daurawa, went on air in the state Television calling on the Kano state Governor to “borrow a leaf from the Katsina state Governor, Dr. Dikko Umar Radda in appointing the new chairman of the Hisbah Board”. That Governor Abba (Gida-Gida) should tell the people of Kano state not to expect any favours from him when the Hisbah do its job as expected of them: Without fear or favour.
This was stated by Dr. Radda when he launched the Katsina state version of the Hisbah Board, which makes the Katsina state Governor (also) a winner in the saga even though outside his state.
But the young man gave kudos to the former Governor of the state, Dr. AbdulLahi Umar Ganduje, whom he alleged to be well versed in the Islamic faith, which he further alleged, earned Ganduje the nomenclature of ‘Cardimul Islam of Kano state’. This makes the immediate past governor a winner in the saga.
The free women or prostituse (known in the Hausa language as karuwai) and their male counterparts or the effeminate males (known in Hausa language as (‘yandaudu) had a field day in the state capital with jubilation, celebrating the resignation of Sheikh Aminu Ibrahim Daurawa from his post.
Shiekh Daurawa was known as the head of the Kano State Hizba, the police of sorts that make sure that people within the state behave according to the Muslim Code of Conduct, or the Shari’a if you like. These groups of people (karuwai and ‘yandaudu) are in their perverse ways also winners in this saga. Their victory was also short-lived, as Shiekh Daurawa soon recanted his resignation as Chairman of the Hisba Board in the state.
It is my candid opinion that the Shiekh Daurawa and Murja Kunya saga would have been unnecessary if the governor had kept his support for the famed TikTok to himself.
Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.
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