Presidential Scorecards-Ibrahim Shekarau

The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), previously known as All Peoples Party (APP) has since 1999 usually been the second largest political grouping in Nigeria. It has since lost that position to the ACN. In 1999, the APP won nine or so governorships, all in Northern Nigeria. The party contested the 1999 elections in alliance with the Alliance for Democracy (AD) with Chief Olu Falae of AD as presidential candidate and APP’s Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi as his running mate. ANPP’s strength has since been whittled down through defections, opportunism and other crass behaviour by its governors and leaders such that ANPP now controls only Kano, Borno and Yobe states. Its leaders have often acted as agents and allies of other political parties (AD in 1999 and usually PDP since then) rather than advance the party’s institutional interests.

The party is clearly a conservative, Northern-based party and may be regarded as the “party of Shariah” as virtually all its governors led its implementation in the Northern States in 2000-2002, after then Zamfara State Governor, Sani Yerima led the way. ANPP’s presidential candidate in the 2003 and 2007 elections was General Muhammadu Buhari who has since left to form his own party. Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau has been governor of Kano State since 2003 on the platform of ANPP. It is difficult to associate the ANPP with any economic or developmental agenda or any articulation or defence of the national interest. Its governors (including a succession of national chairman and most of its governors have been content with co-sharing the “dividends of democracy” with the PDP, starting usually with declared or undeclared alliances or “government of national unity” and culminating frequently in wholesale cooption and decampment to the PDP!

Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, the party’s presidential candidate for the April 2011 general elections is 55 years old and was born in Kano the son of a police officer. He received a Bachelors of Education Degree in Mathematics/Education in 1977 and worked as school teacher, civil servant, college principal and permanent secretary in the Kano State civil service before resigning to work with Alhaji Aminu Dantata as private secretary from where he contested and won the governorship against then incumbent Rabiu Musa Kwankaso of the PDP. News reports record that Shekarau as governor opposed polio immunisation (he claimed on BBC Hardtalk some days back that he merely suspended the programme) on the suspicion that it was an attempt by World Health Organisation (WHO) to make Muslim women less fertile! Shekarau has indeed anchored his governance philosophy around twin concepts of human development and social justice with stricter implementation of Shariah law as its linchpin.

Indeed Shekarau in an advance post-mortem of his period as governor declared on December 31, 2010 that “Shariah implementation remains one of the cardinal features of this administration. It represents a key aspiration for the good people of Kano and one which our dear party, the ANPP was entrusted to uphold. Over the past seven and a half years, the period since we assumed office, the aspiration of our people for Shariah has been met foremost, through the establishment of a foundation that will be difficult to scrape (sic) off through any executive feat (sic). Six agencies have been founded, backed with enabling laws, to develop programs, pursue and implement components of Shariah social policy in a way that will be sustainable”. The governor celebrates the state’s Shariah Commission; Hisbah Board; Zakkah and Hubsi Commission; Ramadan Feeding Initiative and other Shariah-compliant initiatives which are evidently popular with Kano indigenes. The governor also touts the rehabilitation of six schools; conversion of Vocational Training Centre, Dambatta to a full boarding technical college; recruitment of over 7,000 teachers; an initiative to increase planting of maize; investment in health infrastructure and rural electrification, amongst few others.

It is difficult to define Mallam Shekarau’s policy focus if he is elected president. The party has not published any manifesto or policy document on the internet. In his speech on August 5, 2010 declaring intent to run for presidency (accessible on http://www.shekaraufornigeria.org/speeches), Shekarau was long on rhetoric, but short on vision, policy or strategy! To his credit, he appears to have presided over a relatively peaceful and harmonious period in Kano, though his ardent Shariah advocacy and clear rejection of secularism may prove challenging as president over a multi-religious nation. It is difficult to find strong reasons recommending Shekarau for Nigeria’s presidency. His tenure in Kano has been pretty unremarkable and undistinguished. He has however picked a fairly-competent, though perhaps dated running-mate in Chief John Odigie-Oyegun who was a federal permanent secretary and Edo State governor before joining the ANPP.

I score Shekarau 6 for personal qualities; 4 on vision and leadership; 3 for policy platform and manifesto; 3 on economic management; 5 on anti-corruption; 4 for international relations; 5 on national unity and stability; 6 on democracy and institution-building; 3 for human rights, press freedom and open society; 5 for administration and execution and 6 bonus marks for his running-mate totalling 50 out of a possible 110 marks.