By Emmanuel Ado
Winston Churchill, an inspirational statesman and orator who led the Great Britain to victory in the Second WorldWar, once said: “Politics is more dangerous than war, for in war you are killed only once”. This apt quotation is exactly the lot of Dr Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto, the governor of Sokoto State who the Aminu Tambuwal-backed opposition have brutally murdered many times over, since May 29, 2023, when he was sworn in as the 19th governor of the Seat of the Caliphate. From the posture of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), it appears that the vicious and malicious attack; the campaign of calumny, the misinformation and vile propaganda against Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto and his family would not abate any time soon, because they seem to believe these negativities would help them to defeat the governor in the 2027 general elections.
It must be noted that Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto’s only “unforgivable crime” is his defeat of Saidu Umar, the PDP governorship candidate, in the 2023 governorship elections.
But despite the orchestrated attacks and the jaundiced narrative by the opposition, that portrays Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto as vicariously guilty of virtually every crime committed within the boundaries of Sokoto State, simply because he is the governor and the nominal Chief Security Officer, the governor has continued to deliver impactful projects to the people of Sokoto State. It certainly won’t be a surprise if tomorrow the opposition stoops so low to accuse him of being responsible for casualties of the Ukraine and Russian war, or the reasons why couples are unable to have children. Nothing is beyond the dark hearts of the Sokoto State opposition elements.
The interesting thing is that the opposition knows that Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto is not a violent person. But, like Chairman Mao of China once said, a revolution is not a tea party, so they owe him no sympathy in their desire to politically finish him. While the continued demonization of the governor might be having some impact beyond the shores of the state,within Sokoto State, the governor powerfully backed by Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, has continued to wax stronger and stronger due to his impressive performance.
Governor Ahmad Aliyu fully understands that uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, and that the unwarranted attacks are part of the occupational hazard of the job; the reason why he has obviously decided to continue “suffering in silence”, because he equally knows that speaking out would be misconstrued by the well-oiled opposition machine to mean a signal to his supporters to retaliate the attacks against him.
Having established the background to what has led to the offensive article under reference: “Silencing Hamdiya: Targeting Critics Instead Of Criminals And The Question Of Police Transparency, By Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, we will attempt a robust rejoinder so that readers would be in a better position to appreciate the issues.
First, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim has showed a poor grasp of constitutional issues as regards the war on terrorism, i.e. that the war is solely that of the Federal Government of Nigeria, the limited powers of the Sokoto State Government, the responsibilities of the Nigerian Police Force(NPF) and the fact that Hamdiyya Sidi is a political operative.
Hamdiyya Sidi, might just be 19 years old, but she has shown an amazing talent in hoodwinking the likes of Adam Ibrahim and some other opposition elements, some of whom have thankfully abandoned her matter following confirmation that she was being used for political purposes by the vicious opposition camp.
These are the facts as opposed to the tales by moonlight by the likes of Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. It is an undisputed fact that Hamdiyya Sidi was arrested by the Nigerian Police for inciting the people to violence and not because she criticized Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto’s handling of a war that, strictly speaking, is not his call. It is also a statement of fact that Marafa Yakubu, the Village Head of Sabon Birnin Daji, in Wurno local government area, officially reported Hamdiyya Sidi to the Police when she started inciting the women to violence contrary to her stated mission of rendering assistance to them.
Considering the security challenges Sokoto State is facing, especially in that axis of the state where Wurno is located, the Village Head was right as a government appointee to have alerted the police, an action which helped avert the breakdown of law and order.
It is equally a fact that Ahmed Rufai, the Public Relations Officer of the Sokoto State Police Command, confirmed this sequence of events and that Hamdiyya Sidi admitted breaching public order in a widely reported public statement. It should be noted that up to this point, the governor did not feature until after her arrest when all hell broke loose, primarily because her sponsors had achieved their first objective.
And like Ahmad Rufai, the Police Public Relations Officer categorically stated in his statement, that the likes of Abubakar Adam Ibrahim would certainly not stop the police from performing their legitimate duties of law enforcement. In his words: “One of our constitutional responsibilities is to investigate crimes both simple and capital in nature, to this end, the case of Hamdiyya Sidi is no exception”. On that note, the campaign of calumny against the police by Ibrahim has spectacularly failed.
No doubt, it has become fashionable for fame-seeking opportunists and political opponents like Abubakar Ibrahim to drag Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto’s name into any crisis to demonize him, towards the sole objective of reducing his popularity to ensure his defeat. And because they have an agenda, they can never be persuaded by the facts.
Abubakar Ibrahim, did not unconsciously fall for the antics of Hamdiyya Sidi, a very strong political operative with close ties to the opposition PDP because, like Hamdiyya Sidi, he is part of the plot to brutally savage the hard earned reputation of Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto, the amiable governor of Sokoto State. Hamdiyya has acted her role in the script and handed the baton over to the likes of Ibrahim to further the media trial and the summary conviction of the governor.
The irony is that Hamdiyya Sidi, the supposed “victim” at the center of the controversy, has been given a fair hearing by the Nigerian Police and has apologized for actions until the opposition reactivated her for their project 2027.
Hear Ibrahim: “As far as bizarre decisions go, this has to be one of the most discombobulating ones. It is even more confusing considering that this woman is only 18 and is not even a major voice on social media. Most crucially, her video, recorded among victims of banditry, was not an attack on the government but an impassioned appeal to address the insecurity in the state”.
The opposition continues to engage in self-defeating argument. In one breath, they describe her as an activist and in another as a helpless innocent woman that shouldn’t be held accountable for her crimes simply because of her age. And when it suites them, they put her age at 18 years, but her official age in her statement with the police is 19 years. Whether she is 18 or 19 years, Hamdiyya Sidi is an adult that can stand trial for attempting to breach public peace. Nor is the fact that she is not a “major voice on the social media” enough reason for her to have falsely accused Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto of doing nothing when he has in fact been up and doing, and expect not to be charged to court for her actions. Accepted that Hamdiyya Sidi, like Ibrahim, has the constitutional guaranteed right to free speech, but it is a right that must be exercised within the ambit of the law. The access to social media doesn’t mean freedom to incite the people against the government; it’s a freedom that must be exercised with responsibility.
For the benefit of the likes of Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and other uninformed persons, the responsibility to secure the sovereignty of the nation is that of the federal government and not of the several sub- nationals like Sokoto State that have been forced to perform a part of the role that is exclusively that of the federal government because it is their people that are being raped, killed, and subjected to other forms of inhuman treatment.
For the records, the Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto administration has rightly placed combating security challenges on top of its agenda. It has established a Community Corps to primarily gather intelligence and has invested heavily in the construction of military bases at Ilela for the armored corps. It has also provided other logistics support for the security agencies, like the provision of buffalo vehicles; and built access roads to help the security agencies respond promptly to the attacks.
But Sokoto State Government is only a sub-national government, so it lacks the coercive power to really go after the terrorists and it is certainly not the constitutional responsibility of Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto to construct military bases. Yet the likes of Hamdiyya Sidi would accuse the governor of doing nothing, rather than directing their criticism to the federal government.
And while criticizing the governor, they have refused to list other initiatives within his constitutional powers that Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto should take that he has not taken, in the bid to take the war to the terrorists operating in his state.
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, his sponsor and fellow travellers, being interested parties in a stable and prosperous North, should urgently impress on President Bola Tinubu to fulfill his campaign promise by ordering the recruitment of more men and women into the security forces. Clearly, the less than 300,000 strong armed forces, is overwhelmed and over stretched by the various crises confronting the country.
There is no doubt that only a massive recruitment will give the security agencies the much needed capability. And apart from increasing the booths on the ground, the recruitment would also drastically reduce unemployment among the youthful population.
It awful how Ibrahim or any sensible person can describe the verbal tirades against the governor by Hamdiyya Sidi as a mistake, or as Hamdiyya Sidi only asking a simple question: “If he (the governor) and his family faced the horrific violence that has befallen countless women across the North—women who have been violated in unspeakable ways, sometimes in front of their families—would he remain so indifferent?” Agreed that she has a right to free speech, but she certainly went over the board in wishing the governor and his family ill.
About the attack of Hamdiyya Sidi, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Sokoto State Government instigated the attack on her nor does it support her attack. After all, what does the governor stand to gain from mistreatment of an accused person who should only be arraigned before a court of competent jurisdiction! Again, did the Abubakar Ibrahim also look at the possibility that the stakeholders that Hamdiyya Sidi had emotionally swindled decided to take out their frustrations on her? She came promising the poor people palliatives, and heightened their hopes only to start raining insults on the governor and instigating them to forcefully occupy the government estate under construction at Wamakko.
We have seen mob actions at accident scenes, but no governor has been held responsible simply because he is the governor. Why is Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto being held responsible for an action that he knew absolutely nothing about?
Adam Ibrahim, Amnesty International and other organizations calling for the immediate release of Hamdiyya Sidi are just furthering their own agenda, hoping that putting the governor on the spot would stop the police from prosecuting her. They simply want to browbeat the police into submission. And the police have rightly refused to be intimidated from carrying out their legitimate duties.
The other falsehoods by Ibrahim about the Nigerian Police can be better addressed by the Police Force Public Relations Officer.
It is scandalous for Abubakar Adam Ibrahim to hold the government responsible for whatever misfortune that Hamdiyya Sidi allegedly suffered in the hands of unknown assailants. Ibrahim reminds one of the adage that the easiest way to hang a dog is to give it a bad name. Despite the falsehoods, the fact is that the Sokoto State Government had absolutely no hand in the matter. The police arrested her. The police are prosecuting her and not the Sokoto State Ministry of Justice. It is those who made the video go viral that, in the first place, orchestrated the crime and they are very happy with the result, since it gave them the arsenal to keep attacking an innocent man.
