By Mohammed Alfa Lawan
When I read on social media an article by Binta Spikin, a fairweather aide to Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, putting vague defence and showering all kind of praises on her boss, I was not taken by surprise because she’s defending her source of income over the dirty job she was employed for.
When DAILY NIGERIAN published the dollar videos in October 2018, Binta was nowhere to defend Ganduje as she was then in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with her boss Rabiu Suleiman Bichi, who was then the caretaker chairman of the party in the state.
I knew she was so delighted with the story as the video played a significant role against the victory of Ganduje’s second term bid as no responsible citizen would vote for a governor filmed collecting kickback from contractors.
Like cameleon, Binta is changing her colour to adapt to her new habitat, where she now forages to take care of her miserable life. If she is actually standing by the truth as she wanted her readers to believe, one wonders why she did not defend the governor when the videos were first released.
It’s obvious that Binta was oversimplfying the issue and was not aware of the frenzy efforts the governor and his people made in stopping the video from going to public.
It is clear Jaafar was not serving the interest of anybody as it is the duty of journalists to expose wrongdoings in public service. The role and responsibility of the media is to hold public officers to account. It doesn’t matter whether that public officer is a father, grandfather or an old man; so far as you’re in public service, the media can expose your wrong doing for the benefit of the society. This is what Jaafar did and has earned him much respect in the profession.
Before he published the videos, which every right-thinking person knew to be genuine, he was reported to have subjected the clips to rigours of verifications to clear the doubts. Since the governor opted for legal redress, what brought the police into the matter again?
It is ridiculous that Binta was writing from the both sides of her mind. In one breath, she said the case is ongoing in a court of law, in another she said Jaafar could not prove his case in the court!
What Bintas of this world do not know is that even if the court would pronounce Jaafar guilty, the world knows he is not. That the tribunal, court of appeal and supreme court declared Ganduje winner of 2019 Kano governorship election, does not erase the fact that he rigged election.
I don’t know what the police are after on a case that’s before a court of law. It is obviously clear that the Kano State Government is behind the ordeal of Jaafar for no reason other than to humiliate, embarrass and detain him for exposing corruption of a corrupt governor.
Binta’s defence is lacking in logic and too shallow for readers to understand where she was heading to.
There is currently a civil case before a court of law. As it appears, he failed to influence the decision of the court and the judge in Kano. Seeing how the judge is handling the case with professionalism, the governor in now trying to use the police to harass, intimidate and detain a journalist for exposing his official misadventure.
The world saw Ganduje in broad daylight stocking dollars in his ‘babbar riga’, although he said it’s fabricated and went to court. The question now is why is he bringing the police into the matter again while the case is ongoing? Binta should ask herself this.
Binta in her article was seen confusing herself that the case was civil and at the same time criminal; when does she arrive at this?
Where were Ganduje’s lawyers that couldn’t determine that the case was criminal then and did not file criminal charges against Jaafar, but ended up filing a case before Justice Suleiman Na Mallam?
Love for political office and roaring avarice did not let a political hack called Binta Spikin standout in any endeavour she partook. From attempting to be a journalist/writer to spending years trying to be a politician, Binta’s life is a compass for failure.
As a writer, the death of her obscure column in an ailing publication was predictable. From factual and lexical deficiencies to solecism, an Op-Ed editor would have to spend days re-writing and putting the piece into perspective. Her thoughts as a “writer” are as finely lined as her set of dentition.
In the political turf, Spikin’s political harlotry is prototypical of ‘kilaki’, who shamelessly and cheaply changes bedfellows as often as a tricyclist picks passengers on a busy Kano highstreet.
Mr Lawan, a journalist, writes from Abuja.