Following the rejection by President Bola Tinubu of cabinet suitability of former Kebbi State Governor Atiku Bagudu who is believed to be under international security radar for many years now over an alleged yet-unresolved money-laundering racket, concerned stakeholders in the stakeholders of Kebbi State have again thrown up Associate Professor Haliru Bala Jikan-Daudu of the University of Port Harcourt who is currently serving as the Federal Commissioner representing Kebbi State at the National Population Commission (NPC).
Last Thursday’s last-minute unveiling at the Senate in Abuja of President Bola Tinubu’s first batch of 28 cabinet nominees from 25 states excluded Kebbi, Kano, Lagos and another eight states for inclusion in the coming batch of nominees. Sources attributed the exclusion to stiff contestations among interests reportedly steeped in high-wire local politics of credential, competence, character and national acceptability.
Competent sources in Birnin Kebbi told this newspaper that with Atiku ex-Governor Bagudu’s rejection due to a damning security report already in possession of the president and since the stakeholders had also ruled out three other persons widely considered paper-weight nominees lacking top notch, notably a former governor of the state, Usman Saidu Dakingari, a failed governorship candidate in the state, Abubakar Gari Malam and a former human rights activist, Bukhari Bello, the coast has become clear for Professor Haliru Bala Jikan-Daudu.
It was also learnt that recently, a group advocating the best foot forward for Kebbi State allegedly dismissed the suitability of Dakingari, Gari Malam and Bukhari Bello as the State’s credible ministerial nominees, saying that the president’s unveiled list had clearly shown his direction and the caliber of people of his choice.
The group comprising young progressive intellectuals in the state under the auspices of Progressive Actors for a New Kebbi State (PANKEBBIS) in a statement in Birnin Kebbi yesterday jointly signed by its coordinator, Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Aliyu; and secretary, Comrade Zamzam Rilwanu respectively, disclosed that a recent study it conducted revealed that concerned stakeholders in the state prefer fresh faces and fresh ideas of how to lift the state beyond where it is now.
” Our people now prefer fresh faces and such people with unequalled academic credentials such as Professor Haliru Bala Jikan-Daudu who left the North West and moved to the South West to do post-graduate studies at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife before going to South South to take up teaching appointment at the University of Port Harcourt thereby gaining immense academic and work experience that had enabled him to build a wide network of people with ideas and knowledge of how other leading parts of the country developed’’, said Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Aliyu.
“Today, as the Federal Commissioner representing Kebbi State at the National Population Commission (NPC), he has widened the network by meeting former deputy governors, ambassadors, leading private sector moguls, SSGs, Heads of Service, etc. Professor Haliru Bala Jikan-Daudu is at home with every critical segment of Kebbi State particularly loved and lauded by our revered traditional rulers, clerics, the middle class, artisans and people on the lowest cadre of life. He lives in the heart of Birnin Kebbi with his doors wide open to all. Every Keke knows his house. This is the kind of people our President wants in his cabinet. We are proud to have him’’, he added.
The group noted that majority stakeholders across different levels and demographics in the state are tired of old, failed and faded characters to represent them henceforth, adding that they were rooting for a paradigm shift from transactional politicians to highly educated and exposed persons with proven record of competence, diligence and performance in their past or current assignment.
“Not surprisingly, Associate Professor Haliru Bala Jikan-Daudu’s name is on many lips in Kebbi State now. Our people want the president to talent-hunt a credible and competent hand in the person of Haliru Bala as a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Our support to APC and to the president in the last elections was total. Atiku Bugudu lost his bid for Senate because he lost the people. Even when he couldn’t travel abroad for eight years due to what we heard was for fear of arrest, his election flopped. Our quest to see Haliru Bala emerge as minister is justified, legitimate and merited because he is competent. He ticks all the boxes’’, Dr. Ahmad Aliyu declared.
