In 1992, during the Third Republic, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso was the Deputy Speaker. At that time, he brought in a young 29 year old youth as his Personal Assistant. Kwankwaso did not abandon him after that first opportunity. When he was elected Governor of Kano State in 1999, he retained the same young man as his Personal Assistant. When Kwankwaso lost the governorship in 2003 and was appointed Minister of Defence, he again took the same person along with him to Abuja as his PA. From 2007 to 2011, when Kwankwaso was appointed to head the NDDC, that same individual remained by his side.
In 2011, when Kwankwaso returned to Kano for his second term as Governor, he elevated him from Personal Assistant to Principal Private Secretary, and shortly after appointed him Commissioner of Works. In 2015, Kwankwaso offered him the Kano Senatorial District ticket, though circumstances later changed and he did not contest. After the fallout between Kwankwaso and Ganduje ahead of the 2019 elections, Kwankwaso single handedly handed the governorship ticket to this same man. That decision angered many senior members of the Kwankwasiyya movement, who went as far as calling Kwankwaso an enemy, and even then the 2019 victory was hijacked from them.
Yet again in 2023, Kwankwaso picked, supported, and anointed the same person, and today he is a sitting Governor in Nigeria. That young man is Abba Kabir Yusuf, the current Governor of Kano State. And now, after all this history, he wants to betray Kwankwaso, and some people are celebrating it, seeing nothing wrong in it. To be sincere, if you are on that side, it says a lot about the kind of person you are.
Monsur Ayanwale Bakare
The former DG of SSS, Yusuf Magaji Bichi, has turned an otherwise elite, professionally-run service into a graveyard of career aspirations, an orchard of nepotism and an armed corps of 40 Blantyre Crescent. He lowered the recruitment bar, removed multi-layer screening process to recruit personnel who couldnβt even pass Halogen Security aptitude test.
Bichi arguably recruited the highest number of Cotonou βgraduatesβ into the service. He willfully extended the tenure of some retired directors in his good book for years, killing the ambitions of the aspiring directors.
He allowed his wife to lord over the service, influencing recruitment, promotion and discipline. As a peasant socialite and novo riche, she always oppressed people with a superfluity ofΒ everything at the expense of public funds. She moved around in a long motorcade with dozens of Tavor-wielding personnel, harassing motorists. She was a stormy petrel who was majorly in the news for either assaulting her tailor for failing to meet a deadline or picking a fight with opposition politicians.
His impudent, spoiled brat son shrugged off public criticism to gleefully display a fleet of luxury cars on social media. At the expense of public funds, he has a number SSS operatives giving him cover at football arena, nightclub and political campaign rallies.
The new DG should review the cases of detainees, be professional in the discharge of his duty and keep his family away from meddling in the affairs of the service. The service does not only need a factory reset but flushing!