For those of us who were not born or very young in the 70's to 80's, this article could be enlightening, and for those that were mature enough to witness it, it could be refreshing.
It talks on the interesting, colourful and drama-filled politics of the era, and written by one of my favourite columnists, Mahmud Jega.

[b]
THE COLOUR IS FADING

The death on Sunday last week of Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi was for Nigerian politics something like the washing of a locally made Nigerian fabric that gives off 50 percent of its colour anytime it is soaked in detergent. With the departure of Rimi, after three decades of the serial loss of other colourful politicians, Nigerian politics now resembles a locally-made atampa fabric after several washings.

Rimi had been on the political scene since 1964, but he became an important and very colourful political actor from 1977, when he was a member of the Constituent Assembly. He became well known for his pretty face, his flamboyant dress, his very sharp intellect, his eloquence in English and in Hausa, his storm petrel politics, his fearlessness, his sharp and caustic tongue, and his irreverent attitude towards more senior politicians. His battle cry in 1979 was “Dan Sumaila kafi naira kyawu,” meaning the man from Sumaila, you are more beautiful than the naira. During a NPP rally in 1983, Rimi boasted that all Nigerian women will vote for NPP because of the handsomeness of Jim Nwobodo and himself.

By conservative Northern Nigerian standards, Rimi was always immodest. On the day he swore in his first cabinet as Kano State governor in 1979, Rimi boasted that he had the best cabinet in Nigeria because each commissioner had at least a Master’s degree. It soon transpired that in order to achieve this “feat,” Rimi rejected attempts by PRP’s overwhelming leader Malam Aminu Kano to appoint loyal party men such as Alhaji Muhammadu Dangalam as commissioners.

Maybe Dangalam was too far below Rimi’s standards, but he subsequently became Commissioner for Rural Development under Governor Sabo Bakin Zuwo in late 1983. Rimi’s point was dramatically made in 1985, during the Buhari regime, when the Special Military Tribunal jailed Dangalam 300 years alongside Alhaji Sabo. After delivering his ruling, the tribunal chairman Brigadier Peter Ademokhai asked Dangalam if he understood the sentence, since it was delivered in English. He apparently hadn’t, and Alhaji Sabo announced that he will translate it for him when they get back to Kaduna Prison.

Fairly early in the day in the Second Republic, the powerful Kano State NPN branch learnt to be wary of Rimi because he characteristically gave more than he took in a brickbat political exchange. Attacking him often invited a nasty counterattack aimed at higher quarters. In 1980, Rimi attended a cultural festival in Niger Republic, and NPN men spread the story that he danced with a “Sadakar Yalla,” implying a woman of easy virtue. Rimi immediately counterattacked with a picture of President Shehu Shagari dancing with Ivorian President Houphouet-Boigny’s wife at the OAU Summit in Abidjan. The NPN men were shocked into silence.

Rimi also had with him other men with equally caustic tongues. In 1981, when he queried the Emir Alhaji Ado Bayero for allegedly travelling out of Kano without permission, the PRP House of Representatives member from Birnin Kudu appeared on telly to defend Rimi’s action. Malam Sule Lamido’s hair in those days was thick enough to fill a small bucket; his kubbe cap was perched precariously on top of the hair. Holding a lighted cigarette in one hand, he said, “Yes, the query is in order. Puff. Puff. Ado is a government worker, so he must seek permission before he travels.”

Rimi’s fire-eating rhetoric irked even his formidable political adversaries. His greatest political opponent in Kano, Alhaji Sabo Bakin Zuwo, once said, “You know my problem with Rimi? Utterance! Utterance!”

It was a strange statement coming from Alhaji Sabo, who himself was the father of caustic political utterance. In the run up to the Second Republic, no politician in Northern Nigeria made more effective use of the radio than Sabo Bakin Zuwo, whose death in 1989 removed a lot of colour from Kano and Nigerian politics. In 1978, when Colonel Ahmadu Ali left the Army and joined NPN, he immediately described Malam Aminu Kano as a permanent opposition man. The next day, Alhaji Sabo delivered an answer, saying, “Ahmadu Ali was not promoted in the Army for 10 years! Ahmadu Ali was the one who created something called JAMB, which means Northerners should not be admitted into any university, ”

One day, a radio listener accused Alhaji Sabo of using abusive language in politics. Sabo quickly responded, saying, “I don’t use abusive language at all! But if you insult Malam Aminu Kano, I must find out who is your father, your mother, your village, and the bastard that sent you, ”

Kano had many other fiery politicians, such as PRP’s Danjani Hadejia, who caused uproar in 1979 when he said, “If Malam Aminu Kano is disqualified from these [1979] elections, no one is going to vote in Nigeria! Even if you are [Kano NPN chairman] Sanusi Dantata’s son! Even if you are Shehu Shagari’s son, ”

In nearby Zaria, there was the old NEPU warhorse Hajia Gambo Sawaba, who was in the GNPP and whose tongue was sharp as a rattlesnake’s. The UPN chairman in Kaduna State in those days, Malam Mamman Nasir, was an extremely eloquent politician who easily broke into a song on the hustings, singing “Awo has already swept these elections, so everyone can go home and rest.”

Not all the fiery politicians in old Kaduna State thought so well of UPN, incidentally. In 1981, I was living in Sokoto when the Speaker of the Sokoto State Assembly Abdullahi Bayero quarrelled with Governor Shehu Kangiwa, was impeached and he soon defected to UPN. A few days later, the Sokoto State NPN invited the fiery Speaker of the Kaduna State Assembly Alhaji Mamman Abubakar Danmusa to deal with Bayero. Appearing on telly in Sokoto, Danmusa said, “When you enter politics, your only prayer to Allah is to end well! Any Northerner, a Muslim, who leaves NPN for UPN, wallahi he has not ended well! Look, rather than join UPN, I prefer to die, ”

Other colourful and eloquent men who did daily battles on Radio Nigeria Kaduna’s great English and Hausa political programs at the time, Politics ’79 and Dandalin Siyasa, included Kaduna NPN’s Alhaji Dauda Mani, GNPP’s Shehu Maigidaje Funtua, the PRP’s extremely eloquent Mataimaki Tom Maiyashi, NPP’s Mr Zom Maigida Kwoi, chairman of Bauchi State UPN Mr. Zagi Dass, and the Bauchi PRP’s fiery chairman Alhaji Hassan Kosashshe.

Nationally, the scene was electrified by the UPN’s two great Directors, of Organisation Ebenezer Babatope and of Research and Publicity M.C.K. Ajuluchukwu, as well as by NPN’s Publicity Secretary, Sulaimanu Takuma.

Then there was NPN’s Dr. Chuba Okadigbo. Late in 1978, UPN leader Chief Awolowo accused NPN of adopting an undemocratic formula of zoning party offices. Many NPN men were denying it, but Okadigbo said on radio, “Chief Awolowo in fact is the chief zoner! He zoned the party chairmanship to himself! He zoned the presidential candidacy to himself! He zoned the party Treasury to his wife! And he zoned a state assembly seat [in Lagos] to his son! So Awolowo in fact is the chief zoner!”

Without all these men on the scene, without Ondo High Chief Gabriel Akin-Deko, Dr. Kingsley Mbadiwe, Alhaji Busari Adelakun, Abdulkadir Young-Sidi, Reverend Wilson Sabiya, Mr. Sam Mbakwe and now without Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi, no wonder Nigeria’s political scene now has as much colour as a local atampa fabric after its tenth wash. [/b]

http://www.news.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17121:the-colour-is-faded&catid=47:daily-columns&Itemid=31

It was as funny as it was interesting.
And as a quick addition, Alhaji Sabo Barkin Zuwo was the Kano Governor that was said to have mentioned 'Fanta', 'Coke' etc as mineral resources in the state.

Yes, I remember those days. One or two events that stuck to my mind are the deportation of Alhaji Shugaba by the NPN federal government. Alhaji Shugaba is from the then Gongola state and a strong man in the GNPP camp that controls Borno/Gongola states. He was making rigging difficult for the NPN with his influence, and then faithful day, in the dead of the night, the Nigerian immigration services invaded his home, abducted him and drove hundred of miles and dump in at the border of Nigeria with Niger republic still in his nightdress and told him never to come back to Nigeria again.

His offence? NPN woke up and decided that day that 58 years old Alhaji Shugaba is not a Nigerian but from Niger republic and has no business playing politic in Nigeria, but they forgot to deport his family too including his living parents. In fact, for three days his family and associates has no idea who abducted him and where he was. However, one of the immigration officials had his conscience pricked and he secretly called his family and narrated what happened. His family went to court and sued Shehu Shagari and his government. Shugaba were not allowed to come back until the case went all the way to the Supreme Court and that was almost a year later. So if think PDP is bad today, it means you did not meet NPN.

Another one was in the old Imo state, the race between NPN and NPP was tight although NPP always has an upper hand and in those days, carpet crossing were very few. In the Imo state house assembly, NPP has the majority but NPN has sizeable number in the house, GNPP has four members, UPN 2 and PRP 1. It was pure democracy, no violence of any sort, no rigging. My father was a member of the assembly and he told a story that stuck with me. He said that his party (NPP) were campaigning around Umuahia zone were NPN has it gubernatorial candidate (Dr Nwakanma Okoro) from and during the rally, they were told how an NPN loud mouth in the area (Ojo Nmaduekwe) boasted that they will win a sea slide instead of landslide in the area.
In his response, Chief RBK Okafor who was an NPP giant in Imo at the time chuckled and told NPP supporters never to worry, that Ojo Nmaduekwe is so unpopular that even if they (NPP) fielded a goat against him, that the goat will win by that sea slide Ojo is talking about and so it happened.

Nevertheless, in the year 2010, Ojo was Nigerian foreign minister!
That shows you the quality of leadership in Nigeria and those Nigeria tend to force on the Igbo nation as their leaders.

The politics of those days were indeed interesting and hilarious, even if primitive.

Jarus:

The politics of those days were indeed interesting and hilarious, even if primitive.

Our children will some day look at what we now call politics and most likely pass the same remark. However I strongly believe those politicians set the tone for whatever we are seeing today.

Cases like the violence that that erupted in ONDO during the AJASIN vS Omoboriowo tussle and the unprecedented rigging that saw OLUNLOYO defeat Bola Ige in OYO are scenes that have not been repeated in our political theatre.

For those of us who were not born or very young in the 70's to 80's, this article could be enlightening, and for those that were mature enough to witness it, it could be refreshing.
It talks on the interesting, colourful and drama-filled politics of the era, and written by one of my favourite columnists, Mahmud Jega.


THE COLOUR IS FADING

The death on Sunday last week of Alhaji Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi was for Nigerian politics something like the washing of a locally made Nigerian fabric that gives off 50 percent of its colour anytime it is soaked in detergent. With the departure of Rimi, after three decades of the serial loss of other colourful politicians, Nigerian politics now resembles a locally-made atampa fabric after several washings.

Rimi had been on the political scene since 1964, but he became an important and very colourful political actor from 1977, when he was a member of the Constituent Assembly. He became well known for his pretty face, his flamboyant dress, his very sharp intellect, his eloquence in English and in Hausa, his storm petrel politics, his fearlessness, his sharp and caustic tongue, and his irreverent attitude towards more senior politicians. His battle cry in 1979 was “Dan Sumaila kafi naira kyawu,” meaning the man from Sumaila, you are more beautiful than the naira. During a NPP rally in 1983, Rimi boasted that all Nigerian women will vote for NPP because of the handsomeness of Jim Nwobodo and himself.

By conservative Northern Nigerian standards, Rimi was always immodest. On the day he swore in his first cabinet as Kano State governor in 1979, Rimi boasted that he had the best cabinet in Nigeria because each commissioner had at least a Master’s degree. It soon transpired that in order to achieve this “feat,” Rimi rejected attempts by PRP’s overwhelming leader Malam Aminu Kano to appoint loyal party men such as Alhaji Muhammadu Dangalam as commissioners.

Maybe Dangalam was too far below Rimi’s standards, but he subsequently became Commissioner for Rural Development under Governor Sabo Bakin Zuwo in late 1983. Rimi’s point was dramatically made in 1985, during the Buhari regime, when the Special Military Tribunal jailed Dangalam 300 years alongside Alhaji Sabo. After delivering his ruling, the tribunal chairman Brigadier Peter Ademokhai asked Dangalam if he understood the sentence, since it was delivered in English. He apparently hadn’t, and Alhaji Sabo announced that he will translate it for him when they get back to Kaduna Prison.

Fairly early in the day in the Second Republic, the powerful Kano State NPN branch learnt to be wary of Rimi because he characteristically gave more than he took in a brickbat political exchange. Attacking him often invited a nasty counterattack aimed at higher quarters. In 1980, Rimi attended a cultural festival in Niger Republic, and NPN men spread the story that he danced with a “Sadakar Yalla,” implying a woman of easy virtue. Rimi immediately counterattacked with a picture of President Shehu Shagari dancing with Ivorian President Houphouet-Boigny’s wife at the OAU Summit in Abidjan. The NPN men were shocked into silence.

Rimi also had with him other men with equally caustic tongues. In 1981, when he queried the Emir Alhaji Ado Bayero for allegedly travelling out of Kano without permission, the PRP House of Representatives member from Birnin Kudu appeared on telly to defend Rimi’s action. Malam Sule Lamido’s hair in those days was thick enough to fill a small bucket; his kubbe cap was perched precariously on top of the hair. Holding a lighted cigarette in one hand, he said, “Yes, the query is in order. Puff. Puff. Ado is a government worker, so he must seek permission before he travels.”

Rimi’s fire-eating rhetoric irked even his formidable political adversaries. His greatest political opponent in Kano, Alhaji Sabo Bakin Zuwo, once said, “You know my problem with Rimi? Utterance! Utterance!”

It was a strange statement coming from Alhaji Sabo, who himself was the father of caustic political utterance. In the run up to the Second Republic, no politician in Northern Nigeria made more effective use of the radio than Sabo Bakin Zuwo, whose death in 1989 removed a lot of colour from Kano and Nigerian politics. In 1978, when Colonel Ahmadu Ali left the Army and joined NPN, he immediately described Malam Aminu Kano as a permanent opposition man. The next day, Alhaji Sabo delivered an answer, saying, “Ahmadu Ali was not promoted in the Army for 10 years! Ahmadu Ali was the one who created something called JAMB, which means Northerners should not be admitted into any university, ”

One day, a radio listener accused Alhaji Sabo of using abusive language in politics. Sabo quickly responded, saying, “I don’t use abusive language at all! But if you insult Malam Aminu Kano, I must find out who is your father, your mother, your village, and the bastard that sent you, ”

Kano had many other fiery politicians, such as PRP’s Danjani Hadejia, who caused uproar in 1979 when he said, “If Malam Aminu Kano is disqualified from these [1979] elections, no one is going to vote in Nigeria! Even if you are [Kano NPN chairman] Sanusi Dantata’s son! Even if you are Shehu Shagari’s son, ”

In nearby Zaria, there was the old NEPU warhorse Hajia Gambo Sawaba, who was in the GNPP and whose tongue was sharp as a rattlesnake’s. The UPN chairman in Kaduna State in those days, Malam Mamman Nasir, was an extremely eloquent politician who easily broke into a song on the hustings, singing “Awo has already swept these elections, so everyone can go home and rest.”

Not all the fiery politicians in old Kaduna State thought so well of UPN, incidentally. In 1981, I was living in Sokoto when the Speaker of the Sokoto State Assembly Abdullahi Bayero quarrelled with Governor Shehu Kangiwa, was impeached and he soon defected to UPN. A few days later, the Sokoto State NPN invited the fiery Speaker of the Kaduna State Assembly Alhaji Mamman Abubakar Danmusa to deal with Bayero. Appearing on telly in Sokoto, Danmusa said, “When you enter politics, your only prayer to Allah is to end well! Any Northerner, a Muslim, who leaves NPN for UPN, wallahi he has not ended well! Look, rather than join UPN, I prefer to die, ”

Other colourful and eloquent men who did daily battles on Radio Nigeria Kaduna’s great English and Hausa political programs at the time, Politics ’79 and Dandalin Siyasa, included Kaduna NPN’s Alhaji Dauda Mani, GNPP’s Shehu Maigidaje Funtua, the PRP’s extremely eloquent Mataimaki Tom Maiyashi, NPP’s Mr Zom Maigida Kwoi, chairman of Bauchi State UPN Mr. Zagi Dass, and the Bauchi PRP’s fiery chairman Alhaji Hassan Kosashshe.

Nationally, the scene was electrified by the UPN’s two great Directors, of Organisation Ebenezer Babatope and of Research and Publicity M.C.K. Ajuluchukwu, as well as by NPN’s Publicity Secretary, Sulaimanu Takuma.

Then there was NPN’s Dr. Chuba Okadigbo. Late in 1978, UPN leader Chief Awolowo accused NPN of adopting an undemocratic formula of zoning party offices. Many NPN men were denying it, but Okadigbo said on radio, “Chief Awolowo in fact is the chief zoner! He zoned the party chairmanship to himself! He zoned the presidential candidacy to himself! He zoned the party Treasury to his wife! And he zoned a state assembly seat [in Lagos] to his son! So Awolowo in fact is the chief zoner!”

Without all these men on the scene, without Ondo High Chief Gabriel Akin-Deko, Dr. Kingsley Mbadiwe, Alhaji Busari Adelakun, Abdulkadir Young-Sidi, Reverend Wilson Sabiya, Mr. Sam Mbakwe and now without Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi, no wonder Nigeria’s political scene now has as much colour as a local atampa fabric after its tenth wash.

http://www.news.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17121:the-colour-is-faded&catid=47:daily-columns&Itemid=31



It was as funny as it was interesting.
And as a quick addition, Alhaji Sabo Barkin Zuwo was the Kano Governor that was said to have mentioned 'Fanta', 'Coke' etc as mineral resources in the state.

Those days which I witnessed were socio-politically wild and eery... Uncharted territory! The era of Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO), Kingsway Stores, Samford & Sons, Gary Coleman and Different Strokes, Good Times, C.ock Crow at Dawn, Bongos Ikwe, Fela, Bob Marley, Jackson 5, Temptations, PLANTA...