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You will recall that this man, who governed Borno State for eight years between 2003 and 2011, was a strong pillar of the defunct All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP), which later dissolved into the current main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). He was in the Senate between 1999 and 2003, where he represented Borno Central on the platform of the ANPP. By 2003, he decided to run for governor.
He not only defeated the incumbent ANPP governor of the state, Alhaji Mala Kachalla at the party’s primaries (a feat yet to be repeated anywhere in Nigeria since 1999) he also beat the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the governorship election, Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim Imam.
A couple of other things you need to know about Sheriff’s political sagacity in the North eastern frontier of Nigerian politics, include that when he was about to leave power after eight years, he decided to put his political bellboy, Alhaji Modu Fanami Gubio, in his place.
Gubio had already emerged as the governorship candidate of the ANPP before he was shot dead by the Boko Haram boys. Sheriff brought Alhaji Kassim Shettima as replacement and successfully installed him as governor.
It will also interest you to know that under Sheriff’s watch, Borno was the only state in the entire federation that refused to give President Goodluck Jonathan 25 per cent during the 2011 presidential election.
Sheriff’s political influence has firmly kept Borno and Yobe in the kitty of the opposition APP/ANPP/APC since 1999, even when other northern states (like Kano) were either with the PDP or slipped in and out of PDP. It was thanks to him and Senator Ahmed Yerima of Zamfara State that the ANPP survived even after General Muhammadu Buhari abandoned it to form his own Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
Now, perhaps you will begin to understand why President Jonathan considers SAS a valuable political asset when he parted ways with the APC (of which was a prestigious founding father) and joined the PDP? Perhaps you can see why that abominable gesture of opening the Maiduguri International Airport, earlier shut down for security reasons, just to give SAS a red carpet welcome to the umbrella party took place? This same airport was slammed in the face pilgrims who wanted to fly from there to the hajj.
Mind you, what bothers me and any other person who knows the maverick nature of politicians is not that he moved from APC to PDP and was given a red carpet reception.
I am not perturbed by the hypocritical noise APC and its sympathisers have been making about SAS being a Boko Haram sponsor who must be crucified along with a gallant combatant general of the Nigerian Army, Azubuike Ihejirika, who was laughably accused by Australian mercenary, Davis. SAS was a founder of APC, and has always been fingered as the father of Boko Haram.
The party and its supporters protected him while he helped to weld the coalition that became the APC together. But now that he has left for the ruling party, he has become a horned demon.
My main worry about this fellow is that he is an influential and dangerous politician. He is not an exemplary leader. In fact, it is his type of political leaders that have destroyed the North and infected the entire nation with Ebola-grade political volatility. SAS is one of those terribly parochial-minded northern politicians who do not care about other Nigerians who are not northerners or Muslims, even though they badly need their assistance to attain national objectives.
In December 2006, the ANPP launched its presidential campaign in Enugu, capital of the former Eastern Region. Sheriff was a very visible and loud performer on that occasion. But he could not pronounce the name of the vice presidential candidate of his party, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke.
He kept on calling him: “Eze Umoke”! And he punctuated everything said by speaker after speaker with the Muslim chant: “Alhamdulillahi!”
I wondered to myself: this man is shouting Islamic slogans in the capital of the Christian East. Of course, the people there are liberal and wouldn’t mind. But what if the picture were turned the other way round and the event was in Kano or Maiduguri, and a southern Christian punctuated every statement made by speakers with: “Thank you, Jesus!”? Nobody will even try it because if religious riots break out shortly after, he would be blamed for “inciting” it. He might not even come out of the arena alive.
Leaders like Sheriff have thousands of willing al majiri’s ready to ensure that. What manner of man are you if you come to my house and dish rubbish to me which you will never take?
Therefore, it did not come as a surprise to me when, three years later on, the Boko Haram phenom burst to the surface like a monstrous carbuncle on SAS’s nose. Candidates from Sheriff’s Borno and Yobe are often admitted to federal unity schools even when they score zero, just to have intakes from there!
Boko Haram members were youth rendered poor, destitute, uneducated and unemployed by bad leaders like Sheriff but recruited and armed by them to terrorise their political enemies and sustain them in power. What other magic did it take for Sheriff to defeat a sitting governor at guber primaries?
Sheriff created a ministry in charge of (Muslim) religious affairs and funnelled state funds to Boko Haram, a group he was known as its trustee in Saudi “charity” quarters. Did you ever believe there were indigenous Christians in Borno before the Chibok girls were abducted?
Clearly, Sheriff has a bad reputation, though he may be a powerful politician. The state security agencies have questioned him several times, both when he was in the APC and since he crossed over to the PDP. For some reasons that appear queer to the public, he has not been put in the dock, let alone being convicted. But the reputation sticks to him like white on rice.
The president should have kept his distance from him, at least publicly, even if behind the scene the party receives him into their fold. Political parties are like churches. They don’t reject new members, but they can exercise caution on known criminals and expel them when they refuse to change.
That should have been the attitude of the president to SAS. Taking him on his entourage to Chad, as reported, was the height of insensitivity to public opinion and the pains of those who have lost their loved ones, communities and livelihood to Boko Haram.
It was a naked affront to Nigerians. No president should allow his political interests to override the sensibility of Nigerians. Show me your friend, and I will tell you who you are.
It is unfortunate that the horde of advisers and assistants being fed with public resources cannot tell him when political handshake goes beyond the elbow. They are all more interested in being retained after 2015.
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