“Kwankwaso is a great achiever,” FFK said on January 2, 2014 in Kano, as he shoveled food into his king-sized mouth.
“The man is presidential material,” he added as he gobbled the food, served by a Fulani steward, Malam Jamma.
After leaving the dining table of his cosy suite at a guest house located within the Kano Government House, we came out to the living room, where he addressed the journalists I assembled for him.
I’m not writing this piece to spin but to set records straight, which I always do on varied national issues. Second, I am a full Hausa man, not Fulani. Third, my current responsibly in the mainstream journalism practice does not demand réclame.
But even while working with Kwankwaso as a media aide, everybody who knows him will attest to the fact he always discouraged issuing rejoinders. He enjoyed responding by himself. Once consulted before going to press, Kwankwaso would say “just leave them, there will be time for that.” And the time won’t come. The best I did to clear his name or promote his achievements at the time was to bypass him.
Well, FFK first started addressing the Kano journalists by criticising the former president, Goodluck Jonathan for hiring snipers to kill some politicians and then skidded off the topic into hagiography on the then Governor Kwankwaso.
“Honestly, I am very impressed with the effort Governor Kwankwaso has made in transforming his state. I am here to discuss national issue with him and I took time to go round the town to inspect some of his projects.
“I am quite impressed with what he has been doing.
“If such developments delivered by Kwankwaso is from state level to national level, and if we had a president that is capable of doing what Kwankwaso is doing in Kano, Nigeria would have been a much better place,” he said.
FFK was in Kano to see the then governor, Rabi’u Musa Kwankaso, and go round to see his achievements and he spent a couple of days enjoying the hospitality of the Fulani city of Kano under the leadership of the Fulani man he now chooses to castigate.
After leaving Kano, FFK thereafter intensified his criticism against President Jonathan in different fora, jumping from one state to another.
While speaking on Obasanjo’s letter to Jonathan on Channels TV, FFK said: “I believe that Obasanjo’s letter will end up ensuring President Goodluck Jonathan’s fortunes as President of the country post 2015 may not be realised.
“I believe this is the end of Jonathan and I believe this is the end of the PDP as a party, unless Jonathan retraces his steps,” he said.
Two months after his visit to Kano to criticise Jonathan for training snipers to kill politicians, FFK met the then President Jonathan in the Villa on April 9, 2014. The rest is now history.
But if one is to chronicle the number of times FFK regurgitated and ate up his vomit, one can write volumes of books. One can come up with an unabridged thesaurus of aspersions FFK cast on the North. His slur on Fulanis and chutzpah on Muslims have encyclopedic voluminosity.
But FFK’s ethnic supremacism is fake as he drops it either to the lure of lucre or the lure of luscious lasses. He would abuse a Fulani man today and the following day impudently say he has Fulani blood in him. He would call Fulani people vagabonds, but you will see him tomorrow in a Fulani man’s house – begging for bond. He would abuse Muslims today and tomorrow say his original name was Abdullatif. He would say a combination of Buhari and Tinubu would make the best presidential ticket, and tomorrow say Muslim/Muslim ticket is wrong. What manner of a man!
The question is: what did Kwankwaso say that elicited FFK’s affront against him and the entire Fulani people? Kwankwaso rightly objected to the Yoruba elders’ call for the ejection of Fulani people from the South-West following the abduction of the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae.
The lead paragraph of the story as published by Vanguard of October 26 concisely reveals what Kwankwaso actually said.
“Former Governor of Kano State, Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwakwanso has taken exception to a call by some leaders from the South West for the exit of Fulani herdsmen from the zone, saying the call was not in tandem with the spirit of unity that binds the nation together,” says the lead.
Is talking about the unity of this country “impudence”? FFK chose the word “shut up”, allegedly said by Kwankwaso, to latch on in order to gratify his vitriolic instinct, while in actual sense Kwankwaso didn’t say that.
With people like FFK twisting statements to spite ethnic rivalry, the unity of this country is elusive.
