BY : BALOGUN ABIDEEN

It is undoubtedly true that Mallam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu is one of the finest , gentle , courageous and intelligent fellow Kwara state has ever produced.
He is a media mogul with age long broadcasting experience.

He has worked in different forums of almost all endeavours, widely traveled, refined and also has a good command of the English language.

He also speaks French language and Fulfulde perfectly. He is an extra ordinary being with lots of charismatic background.

Mallam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu is presently the DG , National Broadcasting Commission NBC, a commission that regulates broadcasting organizations in Nigeria.

He was appointed DG in 2016 and ever since he resumed office , the commission has continued to gain accolades from the numerous projects and achievements of the commission.

For those who know IMK as he was fondly called, he is a disciplinarian to the core, an incorruptible man but fearless in his dealings. This reserved characters have gotten him into smears of lots of fights with friends, cronies and even many of his bosses.

Presently, he along side three others are facing corruption charges slammed on them by ICPC. This has gotten many of his admirers and supporters disturbed. But for many that has been following the twist of events in the commission closely, this is one out of the many ordeals which Modibbo has been going through and will likely continue to endure until he leaves the office.

For records purposes, National Broadcasting Commission is a parastatals under the Ministry of information and culture in Nigeria headed by Alhaji Lai Mohammed. Coincidentally , both Alh. Lai Mohammed and Mallam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu are from Kwara state.

But , since the resumption of Mallam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu as the DG NBC, he has been in fierce battle with the Minister.

Many have wonder what the problems could be , but it is not far fetched, Alh Lai Mohammed is so bittered that Modibbo Kawu who does not appear on the list of preferred candidate for the job made it to the office.

Alh Lai Mohammed and his boss Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu had preferred a candidate from their camp, whom they had hoped can be maneuvered to do their biddings in the broadcasting industry in Nigeria.

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu haven understood the gigantic effects of broadcasting in democratic Nigeria , had preferred having the media waves controlled from his corridors of power.

But it is bygone, Mallam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu belongs to a northern political power bloc, they are the power brokers in the northern hemisphere in Nigeria. This helped him in clinching the job but this also set him up against the political titans of the South West.

Since then, the battle lines was drawn and Alh Lai Mohammed started working against for the the DG NBC. The intrigues never became glaring to outsiders and even the board members; this is because the constitution of the board members too was an intrigues of a power play between the two powerful political blocs .
This is it, the Tinubu camp being powerful power brokers in the West having many representatives , Alh Lai Mohammed is one . While the northern political power brokers got their representatives; Modibbo Kawu to represent them as DG NBC.

Though both of them belongs to APC in Kwara state, they are both powerful political holders in the state but with their focus on getting down the Saraki political dynasty, they both pretended to be allies even when Alh Lai Mohammed continued to stack the DG with lots of queries on each and every slight provocation.

Lai Mohammed, in many occasions continued to boycott lots of assignments, occasions and meetings that came from NBC .

However, the many intrigues between the two continued for years, and they managed each other until very recently when Mallam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu aired his interest to become the governor in Kwara state.

Alh Lai Mohammed only sees Modibbo Kawu's interest of becoming the state governor as a slap in his face and deployed all his political clouts in making his ambition fruitless.

Alh Lai Mohammed out of his desperation told many people that Modibbo Kawu never hinted him of his gubernatorial ambition. He criticised Modibbo Kawu that he got to know of his governorship aspirations from campaign posters and phone calls.

For many who know Lai Mohammed very well, he is an acquisitive, avaricious, bribable, corrupt, covetous, grabby, miserly, money-grubbing, selfish, sordid, stingy, unethical, unprincipled, venal, domineering and overzealous politician Nigeria has ever produced. He went all out just to stop Modibbo Kawu's gubernatorial ambition, he got it and Modibbo Kawu loss out.

Even with that ,Alh Lai Mohammed never backed down on his outburst on Modibbo, haven considered Modibbo Kawu a brighter chance of becoming a minister in the next dispensation, he is desperately out now to show him a way out of NBC by all means.


The current ICPC case indicting Modibbo Kawu and two others is another strategy used by the same camp to weaken Modibbo Kawu.

They want him smeared and smashed of corruption charges and embezzlement allegations even when the same Lai Mohammed was the one that signed the #2.5 billion for the digital switchover projects.

In sincerity, NBC as a Commission has it's own conducts and the rules of guidance; the DG cannot sign a project above #3 million but the minister being the head of the ministry can sign above that.

Alh Lai Mohammed signed the money for the DSO projects after he was convinced of the dealings ; but while ICPC reached out to him for investigation , he denied any knowledge of the contracts.

The DG NBC Mallam Moddibo Kawu has exclusively responded to many of the ICPC media frenzy about this case.
He also said that the ICPC reports are untrue as he argued that he has nothing to hide and so is ready to respond to any investigation if need be.

Mallam Kawu confidently affirmed that the whole deal is open and he has nothing to fear and reaffirmed his age long support for the fight against corruption anytime anywhere.

Pinnacle won an open competitive bid in 2014 to be appointed the Second National Signal Distributors for the DSO.

In fact, For that license they paid NBC N680million. That’s the single biggest contribution to the DSO so far! There were discrepancies in their license and they went to court against the NBC, for two years, until Modibbo Kawu was appointed DG in 2016.

He got them out of court and they accepted to return to the DSO process. The Commission appointed them as the Signal distributors for the Abuja, Kaduna, Gombe and Asaba switchover. They delivered the Abuja Switch over in December 2016 and Kaduna in 2017. They are concluding work in Gombe and Delta now as we speak.

For their work, they were paid N2.5b in May 2017. Meanwhile, ITS the first signal distributor, had been paid N1.7b in 2015. At the time, the Naira exchanged at N160 to the Dollar. When Pinnacle was paid N2.5b in 2017, the exchange rate was N380 to the Dollar.

These payments had been done on the basis of the FG White Paper on the DSO. That’s the instrument of the process. As well as the FG directive that all payments for DSO be approved by the Hon Minister of Information and that’s exactly what we did with the process and payments.

Although ICPC said they received a petition from a faceless person as the basis of their action. And that was the basis of their original press release that had several factual errors and is also the basis of their alleged court action as carried by the media.

And one will be surprised when the news kept maintaining that the money in contention is for migration of telephone line from analogue to digital platform. This is laughable as National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) have nothing to do with telephone lines.

The statement is also the substance of their alleged court arraignment that we just keep reading on online outfits like any other Nigerian.

For those that followed Modibbo Kawu's life history diligently, he has maintained certain basic standards all his life. And those standards and values are guiding principles in his public and private life.

They didn’t change in just two and a half years of work as DG NBC. He had 42years of professional media, ideological, family, historical and political life. The standards are consistent for him.

He have also held other political and professional responsibilities over the past 42 years ; he is dedicated to the good of our country and never forget the values of his background and forefathers.

But for Alh Lai Mohammed, his stories in Kwara state only is a story of a disgusting episodes. Many Kwarans are opposed to representing the state as a minister.
Many Kwarans and his Oro kingdom brothers never count Alh Lai Mohammed serious in anything. He is a Lagos politicians as many will call him and Lagos is where is loyalties belongs.

It is a glaring fact that Alh Lai Mohammed was never a political gladiator to reckon with reasons why nobody celebrate him as APC leader in Kwara. He is not among movers and shakers in politics in Kwara.

His selfishness is legendary and uncoated; his son is an elected honourable member in Lagos state while Alh Lai Mohammed can not boast of two to three people he facilitated employment for as a minister Kwara.

Non of is political assistants is from Kwara state as he as for long have that firm characters never to align himself with Kwara state reason he is bent in getting the charismatic Modibbo out of office .

The many suspicious political manoeuvering during the last APC primaries in Kwara is another testimony of the intrigues in Alh Lai Mohammed bad political dealings. He was alleged of manipulating the results in favour of those he collected kickbacks from.

Many of the dramas unfolded after the primaries when there was never any primaries that took place in APC in Kwara ; yet Alh Lai Mohammed was quick to return to Abuja to fine tune the political coup in favour of those he collected money bags from. What an aberration !

This same Lai Mohammed was accused by a gubernatorial candidate in Kwara state in public forum that he dumped him after collecting bribes from him .

Today , the many manipulation of Alh Lai Mohammed in Kwara state as been uncovered and many elected members in Kwara state are very careful dealing with him, reason many of them as continue to ignore him in many meetings including the governor elect.

Though , it is very clear to all and sundry that the power shift in Kwara is revolutionary in nature and the collapse of Saraki hegemony can never translates to a shift to Lagos political dominance.

In all , Alh Lai Mohammed should know by now that all his shoddy dealings has been uncovered and he will get all resistant from all Kwarans. He will never succeed in reversing Kwara back to the days of backwardness and political godfatherism. Kwara of today belongs to all Kwarans.


https://globalete.com/2019/04/17/%ef%bb%bfbut-what-was-his-crime-lai-mohammed-vs-modibbo-kawu/

Pile of gibberish. Kawu Modibo should go and defend himself in court instead of dragging Tinubu and party politics into his personal ordeal. If he indeed did nothing wrong, he should have nothing to fear. Just present your facts in court and stop planting propaganda, conspiracy theories and falsehood all over the media.

The writer really need to do a lot of editing to this epistle.

That said, why should we be disturbed about the clash of interest between two politicians? Let whosoever has been indicted and charged by ICPC go to court and clear himself.

Enough of media trial.

the write up was sponsor by kawu, although I personally like kawu to Lai, is a rubbish epistle to tarnish the image of Lai.