“Guide Us Unto The Straight Path”
Kano, Getting it Right*.
Be it as a City, Kingdom or State, Kano has always held its pride of place in the rich history of Nigeria and West Africa for centuries. Located in the Sahel, south of the Sahara, Kano is a major route of the trans-Saharan trade, and has been a trade and human settlement for millennia (Wikepedia).
The pride and position of Kano in the North and Nigeria in general has, however, experienced some notable setbacks of late, arising principally from the now familiar leadership selection question that has been the bane of many states during our recent democratic and governance experience nationwide.
Leadership, or quality leadership, to be specific, has always been the major difference between and amongst societies that have gone on to progressively develop and others that have spectacularly failed in that regard. The very essence of leadership has been defined as its purpose, and the purpose of leadership is to accomplish a task. That is what leadership does – and what it does is often more important than what it is or how it works”. (Col. Dandridge M. Malone).
Indeed, several examples abound where strong, purposeful and competent leadership provided by focused leaders has succeeded in moving and comprehensively transforming societies and nations from the precipice of national decay to prosperous and forward looking societies. Such examples can, indeed, be found both in the distant past and in more recent times, and these include the now familiar story of Singapore under Lee Kwan Yew, Malaysia under Mahathir Mohammad, Russia under Vladimir Putin and, more recently, Rwanda under Paul Kagame, amongst many others.
Coming closer home though, the problem with our leadership selection process is fast assuming the status of the conventional problem with the weather; everyone knows and talks about it, but nobody seems to be able to do anything tangible to change the situation. However, much unlike the case with the weather systems where there is practically little or nothing at all that anyone of us can do as humans to change the course of nature, the problem of our leadership selection process is well within our powers and wherewithal to work and improve upon, but we have somehow always failed to do those vital things that are required to make the desired difference.
Kano State has had its own fair share of purposeful and focused leadership, dating back to the time of the late Military Governor, Audu Bako, who is reputed to have built most of Kano’s modern landmark structures. A strong supporter of women’s education, Governor Bako pushed for the establishment primary, secondary and teachers training colleges for women and children, and he also produced the first plan for the development and promotion of tourism in the state. He also constructed several dams to boost agriculture in the state, earning him the name of the father of Kano’s green revolution.
The late Abubakar Rimi of blessed memory also made significant progress in the area of promoting quality education, with many of the secondary school graduates of his era making waves in the field of medicine and other professions both in Nigeria and the world over today, even as the administration of Governor Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau made human development the cornerstone of its administration. Mallam brought moral and ethical compass to bear in governance in Kano.
Rabiú Musa Kwankwaso also recorded giant strides in education through the massive sponsorship of students and the establishment of two Universities in the state.
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The clear roadmap charted by our pioneer leaders and designed to provide a clear pathway for the socio-economic development of the state has, however, been completely jettisoned and abandoned by our recent leaders, many of whom saw no compelling need to address and prioritize the major issues facing our state, and build on the legacies of their predecessors.
As a result, Kano, today, is still yearning for purposeful leadership perhaps more than ever before to provide the effective good governance that is required to tackle the myriad problems bedeviling virtually all sectors in the state.
A recent study by Musa Balarabe Musa of Community Participation and Support to Education (ESSPIN) Kano, indicates that only 10% of children in public primary schools can read, write and do simple arithmetic, even as most public school teachers do not keep proper lesson plan and other child records.
In addition, a 2018 report reveals that 65% of primary school teachers in the state are unqualified, according to the records from the Kano Zonal Office of the Teachers Registration Council (TRC), just as another report identified the prevalence of insufficient teachers in rural schools on the one hand, and overstaffing in urban schools, on the other, amongst many other issues. This is aside the large proportion of out of school children in the state, which was put at 1,496,736 according to UNICEF figures for 2020, making it the highest in the North and Nigeria in general.
In the health sector, the maternal mortality rate for Kano was put at 1,025 deaths per 100,000 live births, with the Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education, CHRICED, decrying that 70% of maternal funds meant to address maternal, newborn and child healthcare were being diverted and used to pay salaries and other running and operational costs, resulting in gross underfunding of maternal healthcare in Kano State (Vanguard Newspaper, April 13, 2021).
In addition, most of the primary healthcare centres constitute an eyesore and lack the very basic facilities such as electricity, water and other necessary amenities. While a significant proportion of the state’s annual budgetary provisions running into billions of Naira is yearly being sunk on physical infrastructure, the very essence and soul of education and healthcare delivery, which squarely rests on manpower, equipment, training and staff welfare have sadly been relegated to the back burner.
The prevalence of drug abuse in Kano State has been put at 16% by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), representing one in every six persons aged between 15 and 64 years. Kano, according to the figures released by the NDLEA Chairman, Brigadier Buba Marwa, has close to two million drug users abusing tramadol, codeine and other cough syrups, other than cannabis. This has, no doubt gradually and painfully destroyed families over time and propelled criminal activities, thereby depriving the state of valuable manpower in virtually all sectors of economic activities.
These, and many other similar issues affecting all sectors in the state, along with the evident lack of the desired leadership to navigate around the issues and comprehensively resolve them, have largely been responsible for the evident slow pace of development in Kano State, and it requires an entirely new way of thinking on the part of the state and its leadership to change the narrative for the better.
It is in the light of this, coupled with the compelling need to significantly alter the current not-so-pleasant narrative around the course of the development trajectory of the state that this series came about. It will attempt to pick one issue at a time to comprehensively discuss and address them, with a view to educating and convincing my fellow Kanawa that with the desired kind of purposeful and focused leadership and public endorsement and support, Kano will be well on its inexorable path to regaining its lost glory and position as the premier state we all desire it to be and will be proud of.
The ultimate goal is to place Kano on a high pedestal of economic growth and prosperity, with Education, Agriculture, Commerce and First class healthcare delivery system as the major fulcrum and focus amongst other competing needs.
Bashir I. Bashir
Kano, January 9, 2021
