As Masari Bows Out of Katsina Govt House…

Udora Orizu x-rays the political leadership style of Katsina state Governor, Hon Aminu Masari and his closeness to President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

In less than three weeks, Katsina State Governor, Hon Aminu Masari will round off his eight year tenure. Masari is not new to politics, from the political history of the state, no governor elected, appointed or any political office holder of his calibre matched the kindness or sincere openness associated with him.

Born 29 May 1950, Masari started his working career as a technical assistant in the Department of Hydrological Services, Ministry of Water Resources, North Central State in 1969. He worked in Malumfashi, Dutsinma and Funtua as Chief Procurement Officer at the headquarters in Kaduna. When Katsina State was created in 1987, he was made the district manager in charge of Katsina Metropolis. He later became the Assistant General Manager, and General Manager, Operations.

His entrance into politics came when he was invited by former Governor Alhaji Saidu Barda, and appointed as commissioner for Works, Housing and Transport in 1992.

He soon became a partisan politician, and a member of the National Republican Convention (NRC). He contested for Malumfashi, Kafur and Danja as representative in the constituent assembly in the General Sani Abacha’s organized Constitutional Conference.

Masari was chairman of the Katsina Peoples Front (KPF) with Major General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (rtd) as leader. He was also at the Constitutional Conference of 1994.

Life as a Speaker, Governor

Masari was Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2003 to 2007. He’s known for his political trajectory of speaking truth to power even at the risk of losing his political ambition. As a Speaker, House of Representatives, he was courageous enough to tell former President Olusegun Obasanjo that he had presented his last budget in 2007. When it was rumoured that Obasanjo had a third term agenda, Masari told him that such a move was unconstitutional.

In 2015, he emerged as governor of Katsina State, taking over the burden of running a state facing security challenges. Having several communities in a territory surrounded by a bandit-infested forest, moving on rampage from one village to another, over-running communities, looting property and killing, maiming and abducting locals is enough reason to drive any state governor into despair.

As some of the state governments are applauding the security agencies that are engaging the bandits, Governor Masari has somewhat in defiance of the constitutional road blocks, taken several self-help initiatives to fight-off the terrorists on rampage.

Despite the huge financial burden coupled with the need to handle other areas of needs, Katsina state government is investing heavily on providing security for citizens of the state.

It injected monetary commitments into most of the security operations launched by the police and the military from 2016 to date which include ‘Operation Hadarin Daji’, ‘Operation Sharan Daji’ and the police force’s ‘Operation Puff Ader’.

While these efforts were being made on one hand, the state government was engaging the bandits in non-kinetic approaches on the other hand by mopping up weapons in their possession and systematically disarming and reintegrating them back to society through the amnesty programme that was implemented.

Another move by the governor to help curb insecurity in the state was engaging a private hardware manufacturer who produced 10 Nigerian-made APCs at a fair cost, each to be deployed to one of the frontline local government areas which are Batsari, Jibia, Safana, Danmusa, Dustsinma, Kurfi, Kankara, Sabuwa, Faskari and Dandume. Curbing insecurity in Katsina was so important to him that last year, the State government earmarked N1.5 billion to fight insecurity in the state.

APC’s Formation and Loyalty to Tinubu

As lobbying and negotiations are ongoing on who gets what position in Bola Tinubu’s administration, the President-elect, while making decisions on who his appointees will be should consider competence and what each person contributed to his victory.

Masari’s role in the negotiations that birthed the All Progressives Congress (APC) negotiations which started in October 2010, and culminated in the formation of the party on February 6, 2013, is the stuff of a matured mind and one set to ensure that a matter reached its logical conclusion. That role earned him the position of founding Deputy National Chairman (North) of APC.

In the build up to the election, Tinubu appointed Aminu Masari as an adviser for the party’s campaign council.

Tinubu in a letter said appointing Masari into the campaign council is as a result of his “impressive” political achievements and exemplary leadership.

“By way of this letter, we are pleased to formally convey your appointment as the Special Adviser on Administration and Government of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council,” the letter to Masari read in part.

Masari is known to be one of the strongest backers of Asiwaju. He started supporting him even when those around the president were rumored to be working against him.

He was one of the earliest Northern Governors who did not wait before throwing his weight behind Tinubu. His activism for Tinubu’s emergence was believed to have drawn consequential flak from a section of Aso Rock. The move by Masari to stick out his neck for Tinubu was considered by some as loyalty per excellence.

Even when it was not fashionable to canvass power shift to the South, he never left anyone in doubt, especially those in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) who were against power shift to the south in 2023. He always spoke his mind on why power should be rotated and who is to take over from President Muhammadu Buhari in May this year.

Masari had a meeting in Kaduna with his APC colleagues in the North and sold the idea of supporting Tinubu to achieve his dream to become the next Nigerian President after Buhari.

Campaigning for Tinubu, the Katsina State Governor boasted that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) would win the 2023 general election, despite the current unpleasant socio-political and worsening security situation in the country.

He said among all the presidential candidates for the 2023 elections, the All Progressives Congress standard bearer, Bola Tinubu, is the preferred choice.

“Leadership is about justice to the people, even to animals. Lagos is a mini Nigeria. Both Christians and Muslims, and pagans are in Lagos. At a point in time, you cannot drive in Lagos with your car windows widely open because of thieves. Hardly a day passed without seeing a dead body in dump sites. But when Tinubu became governor for eight years, he brought sanity to Lagos.

“It is baseless to express the fear that Tinubu will islamise Nigeria. It is not true. Did Buhari islamise Nigeria after seven years in office? Did Obasanjo Christianise Nigeria after eight years in office? Did Jonathan make Nigeria a Christian country after six years in office?

I can tell you that if you assemble all the presidential candidates before a blind man, he will choose Tinubu,” Masari had said.

Masari was able to help the president elect, Tinubu garner a total of 482,283 votes in Katsina in the just concluded presidential poll.

As he rounds off his eight year rule on May 29, Nigerians are eager to see what next for Masari and if he will be one of Tinubu’s appointees.

Being a regular discussant with Tinubu, Masari, according to those close to the president-elect, endeared himself to him because of his calm disposition, different from the rambunctious dramatisation of loyalty which pervades Nigeria’s political sphere.