Perhaps, no past or serving governor has been as consistent, principled and focused to a cause as Alhaji Balarabe Musa, a former governor of old Kaduna State. In fact, the left wing politician and social crusader, has for over 38 years, been canvassing for a new social order in Nigeria.
In 1979, he was impeached as governor, but undaunted, he had continued soldiered on with his crusade.
The removal, rather than diminish Musa, burnished his image of incorruptibility.
Consequently, when the military struck in 1983, he was given a clean bill of political health, while his traducers were sent to jail. In 1990, he joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP), a political party formed and funded by the then General Ibrahim Babangida regime.
The party, by political inclination, was “a little to the left” and like a magnet, that phrase attracted the former governor.
In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and Mikail Gorbachev, the 8th and final president, resigned from office as he created the Commonwealth of Independent States. Regardless, Must still stuck with socialism and till date, the octogenarian hasn’t renounced the ideology.
Right now, politics has become cash and carry but he still plays politics of principles and conviction.
Significantly, Musa has transformed over the years from a politician to a statesman, whose obsession is nation building and not winning elections.
Severally, he has intervened to resolve national crises, irrespective of partisan or ideological differences. In 1993, he opposed the annulment of June 12 presidential election on principle. The election was won by Chief M.K.O Abiola, a southerner.
However, Musa rose above class differences and denounced the injustice done to Abiola.
He, alongside Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and General Muhammadu Buhari (now president) protested against the flawed 2003 elections in Abuja despite being ideological strange bedfellows.
Largely, the mass action was successful and the arrowheads went their separate ways afterwards. In 2012, nine years later, he joined forces with labour leaders and political activists, including the current Customs boss, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd); Comrade Shehu Sani (now a serving senator) and Barr. Festus Okoye (a human rights lawyer).
At that time, the Goodluck Jonathan administration jerked up fuel prices and all over Nigeria, people came out to protest the hike. In Kaduna, Musa and the aforementioned were in the trenches with the masses, “fighting the anti-people policy,” as he puts it.
Severally, he has been at the barricades, protesting, agitating and denouncing the establishment over unpopular programmes and policies. Ironically, Musa is a product of the establishment that he rails against.
In fact, he is a blue blooded aristocrat, having been born to the District Head of Kaya, a Village in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna State in 1938.
At birth, he had all the perks, privileges and affluence of the local bourgeoisie, but he opted to be with the masses. Similarly, Musa has never been an “aluta” chanting, goatee bearded and angry unionist.
By 1953, when he completed secondary school education, he was among the first set on northern educated elite, with all the attendant privileges.
That year, he joined the Northern Civil Service as an Accounts Clerk.
Thereafter, he was sent to England for further studies by the regional government alongside the likes of Alhaji Aliko Mohammed and others.
Subsequently, he qualified as a Chartered Accountant and with that qualification, he moved to the top echelon of the civil service.
Musa, at various times, was a lecturer at the Institute of Administration Zaria, the precursor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU). Similarly, he was Company Secretary and Chief Accountant of Broadcasting Company of Northern Nigeria (BCNN), as Radio Nigeria Kaduna was then referred to. In 1979, he retired from the civil service and joined politics, culminating to his election as governor of Kaduna State.
He was however impeached by the House of Assembly in 1981, over “irreconcilable differences” with the National Party of Nigeria (NPN)-dominated legislature.
In spite of his pedigree, political antecedents and his accomplished public service, Musa has gained nothing in any material sense. Specifically, a three bedroom bungalow, a monthly pension of N741,000, a 1,200 acre farm and an old Mercedes Benz car are his only possession.
At 80, the former governor still drives himself, without a police orderly. Above all, no government monument, public building or even street has been made after him in Kaduna State.
In an interview with New Telegraph, he explained how he acquired the bungalow and three mud houses, one in Funtua, a town in Katsina State, and two others at Hayin Banki and Badarawa, all slums within Kaduna metropolis.
“Actually, the bungalow was built by Northern Nigerian Development Company (NNDC), as part of its Home Ownership Scheme,” Musa told our correspondent. Basically, the scheme was instituted to help civil servants own houses and 11 of them were built along Aliyu Turaki Road, Kaduna.
The NNDC built similar houses in other major towns in the North and sold them in 1972. At that time, a three-bedroom bungalow cost N20,000, but prospective buyers, according to Musa, were expected to make an initial deposit of N1,500. Musa said he wanted one of the bungalows, but couldn’t afford the deposit, even as Company Secretary of BCNN. At that time, the top management of NNDC were his friends.
“So, they arranged to rent the house to Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) for two years,’’ Alhaji Balarabe recalled, “and the cost was N2,400, that is N1,200 per annum.”
Out of that amount, Musa paid the deposit but instead of pocketing the balance, he gave the N900 to the authorities.
That action, according to him, brought down his monthly Code Number, “so that the deductions will be within the limit that could allow me to have enough to sustain my family monthly.”
Similarly, he bought the Funtua mud house for his mother, the Hayin Banki and Badarawa ones to accommodate his relatives and house helps.
The bungalow and three mud houses, according to the former governor, were the assets that he declared, when he assumed office in 1979 and they are still the properties he owns after about 40 years. Significantly, the bungalow is a modest accommodation and in these times, even a councilor can boast of a better abode.
Clean and Spartan, the building is weather beaten as the paint has faded and a few disused vehicles strewn the compound. In particular, the sitting room is not befitting of a man of Musa’s status.
The rug is threadbare, the settees are old and dilapidated and the single ceiling fan is creaking. Similarly, old pictures of Malam Aminu Kano, Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and former comrades-at-arms dot the walls, so are photographs of his student days and his official portrait as governor.
Generally, the house is of an old design, with furniture and fittings fit for the museum.
In contrast, Musa’s successors live in opulence. Specifically, Alhaji Abba Musa Rimi, the man who took over from Musa, lives along Ohinoyi Road, a high brow neighborhood in Unguwar Rimi GRA. In addition, Alhaji Dabo Mohammed Lere, the second civilian governor of the state, lived at West Jabi road, opposite President Muhammadu Buhari’s personal office in Kaduna.
Similarly, Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi’s palatial mansion is located along that road, adjacent Buhari’s office.
In addition, his other house is at Sambo Close, a quiet haven near DITV/Radio station. Similarly, his country home at Makarfi, by local standard, is an eye-popping edifice on the town’s outskirts.
Likewise, Namadi Sambo, Makarfi’s successor and former Vice president, is tucked away at Camp Road, an elitist enclave where another former governor of the state, Col Abubakar Umar (rtd); ex-Military Administrator of Lagos State, Brig. General Buba Marwa (rtd) and several political big wigs as well as business moguls live.
However, the family of late Patrick Yakowa, Sambo’s successor, lives in a modest bungalow at Imam Close, Unguwar Rimi GRA, about 1,000 metres from the former Vice president.
Similarly, the immediate past governor of the state, Alhaji Ramalan Yero, lives around that neighborhood on Lamido Crescent, close to President Buhari’s personal residence.
Significantly, all the former governors have monuments or edifices named after them, but Musa has none in his name.
In fact, there is no major road in the entire state that is named after the most popular governor Kaduna ever had.
However, a fellow governor in the second Republic, Lateef Jakande of Lagos State, named a street in Ikoyi area of the state after Musa. Clearly, this is a classical case of a prophet not being honored at home.
But Musa is none the least, disturbed. He said: “When you are involved in politics of principles, things like this happen.”
