GOV. SHEMA VERSUS OPPOSITION
Politicians always know how to twist words and facts to suit their desired purposes and we the masses are always willing to buy wholesale whatever it is they sell and the media promotes their market very well. Example of this is the recent quarrels over the statement of Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State where he referred to those seeking to replace his party in the state as political cockroaches. While I must commend some people for their aptness in bringing Katsina to global scene and the opposition parties for stirring the ruling party up I must also confess that I am not very much impresses with how some of us have gone about this whole thing. Katsina is a very peaceful state because our people are peace loving. We know those who do not like peace and we know those that have attempted to alter our peace in the past. They may try again and again and again but In Sha Allah just like they have always failed in the past they will never succeed at all. At first when I heard about the “very bad statement” Governor Shema made I was shocked. I wondered why a man who has enjoyed the support of the people of Katsina state without hiring crowds or any form of low level politicking like shameful propagandas and violence would stoop so low on his way out. I mean, if he did not have need for it in the past why now? I really wanted to know what must have led to such incidence until I read the transcript. Then it dawned on me that this was the same address that I was present when it was made. The whole publicity made it sound like it was another place if not another Shema. But I was at the venue where the speech was made and nothing close to what some people are now saying was obtainable there. The whole statement was intended in a very light mood. Nobody took it for the face value. People were chanting and talking into the governor’s speech as he addressed us on how he has served the people of Katsina so far and was encouraging us to make use of the facilities he has provided for us. He did not declare war as people are painting it to be. Haba, parents in their heat of passion and even in their very lively moods do make some utterances that when taken at the face value could imply some very terrible things yet nobody takes such things to heart. It is either we all laugh over it or ignore it depending on the mood. Gov. Shema’s political cockroach was just another way of telling us that we should not be distracted by those who seek to destroy his name and good works. He did not want us to take them too seriously. The message was just for us to discard them and not pay too much attention to them. It did not mean we should go and start killing our brothers and sisters like the Tutsi. Everybody in the north and beyond Nigeria knows Gov. Shema to be a very fine gentle man. It is disappointing how mischievously people can make a very light issue too heavy to bear. The aim of these politicians is just to tear us apart as a people and to damage the image of a good man forgetting that as a people we shall still live together and as a leader we will still have need of Shema to always stand in the gap for us whenever the need arises. In the north he is one of our finest and we should be proud of it. Assuming he really meant that we go kill ourselves like cockroaches how many people have been attacked since that day? Nobody! And nobody will ever be attacked because the poor man did not mean what the so called opposition are wanting him to mean and the people who heard him did understand him too well to go about misapplying his words. At least I was there and I can testify to the atmosphere thereafter and how we all took his words. Some politicians are just too dangerous. I will not be surprised if some of the people creating this misconception were equally there that day cheering the good governor alongside the innocent and unsuspecting masses. So before people who do not really understand what is going on in Katsina start condemning Shema for nothing they should ask themselves “if they were shema would they really make such statement to mean what these people are making it to look like and why?”
Abubakar J. Tahir