Kaduna was and still is the centre of political power game in the defunct Northern region. Political power, which by fortune, resides in Kaduna attracted to the city industrial, commercial projects that were generating a multifacet led activities that kept productivity machines humming all day long. No wonder eyes of industrial baron, entrepreneurs and political leaders in the North are on the city as they put a premium price on the happenings in the capital city.
As the capital of the region, power brokers and of course, their principals, could not afford to be away from Kaduna, the field, where power game was played and still played.
That, perhaps, is the major reason powerful politicians of Northern extraction would never joke with Kaduna either in their scheme of things or their calculation to remain relevant in the political power game. From colonial masters’ days to the defunct first republic and the emergence of the military dictatorship in 1966, Northerners who were in power, those seeking power and even power brokers were always in Kaduna to keep watch over the prize, power. You can not blame them for not dosing or losing concentration and attention on it, as they do not want to be schemed out of the power game.
Mafia, a derogatory word to describe criminal gang borrowed from Italian underworld life was first used in Nigerian political terrain to describe a group called Kaduna Mafia.
Mafia as a word, for a bad reason, is popular among not only politicians in Nigeria, but also among folk who are apolotical. It used to describe a group who has an agenda, scheme or programme that they want to pursue for the benefit of its members. The word, however, was in the earliest of time, first used to describe a group of Northern influencial persons who were politically savvy that came together after the first military coup in 1966 to protect the interests of Northern region. Their base was Kaduna. This made the city even more popular. The defunct Northern region could be said to be the highest loser in the coup.
It lost the first Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the maiden Northern colonel region premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, not to talk of many Senior Military Officers such as Maimalari and many others.
The Western region lost its premier, Chief Ladoke Akintola and high ranking Military Officer that included Brigadier Ademulegun and others, while the Middle West lost the country’s first finance minister, Sir Festus Okotiebor. Only the defunct Eastern region did not lose a political office holder or a Military Officer.
The Northern rookie politicians who saw the horror and devastation wreaked on the Northern region political leadership by the coup that could be described as Igbo or Southern coup, came together to proctect the Northern region interests which was their intereds. To them, the best place to do that was Kaduna, the capital of the Northern region. That, perhaps, was why they were called Kaduna Mafia. Sadauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, ruled the region from there. Kaduna as a town or city was never captured by the Fulani jihadist.
That is why the city has no Emir as Gwandu, Zaria or Kano. Though Kaduna has no Emir, but it is not a secret to those are versed in the politics and history of the region that every Emir in the Northern region has a palace in the city. The Northern hawks called Kaduna Mafia maintain presence there too.
In an embellished description, observers have called Kaduna the citadel of powere game. In the defunct First Republic, Kaduna was the city where legislative acts and executive orders from the office of the premier emanated. If the claim of political philosophers that politics is the key stone in the socio-arch that dictates pace of things, then all other spheres of life get their orders for development and growth from dictation of politics and power stakeholders.
The most beneficiaries of the military government who are Northerners, those have been heads of state, governors, ministers, not to mention commissioners all have mansions, houses not to talk of firms who are engaged in different lines of production for their economic advantage in Kaduna.
To all these people, Kaduna is a home. It must be keenly watched to prevent anything untowards happening there to obstruct or upturn the apple cart.
Most of those who started the Kaduna Mafia to champion the cause of the Northern region, the immediate inheritors of power after the coup, the senior military men of Northern extrationm are mostly die-hard, dye-in-the cotton conservatives.
They ogled over their investments and interests and would not tolerate a radical to preside over the affairs of Kaduna or Kaduna State.
It was, therefore, not a surprise that when the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was defeated at the governorship election of the state in 1979 by the People’s Redemption Party (PRP)’s governorship candidate, Mallam Balarube Musa, through coalition of parties, the Unity Party of Nigeria, (UPN), Nigeria People’s Party (NPP) and the Great Nigerian People’s Party (GNPP), the conservative element’s who were in the majority in the Kaduna House of Assembly impeached Governor Musa.
Kaduna is more than a metropolis or capital of the state that bears the same name Kaduna State, to those who hold lever of power, political power in the Northern part of Nigeria.
To them, Kaduna, a capital city that derives its name from a river in the community, is where people talk power, debate power, share power among themselves as stakeholders. The city that nestles in the savanna plain of the North central geo-political zone of Nigeria had earlier been a capital city, the defunct Northern region, before the creation of 12 states by the military government of General Yakubu Gowon.
Kaduna is the last city in the Northern region that they evolved from what was earlier called the Northern Protectorate to be capital. Zungeru and Jebba had been city of political power from where political decisions that shaped the administration of the protectorate under the colonial masterrs, the Britons were taken. Lord Luggard reigned supreme as a symbol of British authority in Kaduna before the Northern and Southern protectorates were amalgamated in 1914. Despite that the amalgamation started the process that eventually made Lagos the capital of Nigeria, it did not in any way reduce the importance or the status of Kaduna in the affairs of the Northern region even after Nigeria obtained her independence from Britain in 1960.
The Luggard House in Kaduna was the place where political stakeholders in the Northern region gathered to take decisions to dictate the direction or path, way forward for the region and even Nigeria. Whether a Notherner was from North-West, North-East or Middle Belt called North-Central, Kaduna was the power centre of the Northern region. Kaduna’s firm grip on political lever of the Northern region attracted many other good things to the city.
It became the commercial nerve centre of the Northern region, playing host to many firms, organisations, corporations, ministries, government firms and military schools. These include Military School, for primary education, Nigerian Defence Academy, for secondary education, producing Military Officers cadre and Staff College where Senior Military personnel knowledge is deepened and become masters of martial art. Besides, Nigeria Defence Industry is also sited in Kaduna. The firm produces military hardwares such as arms, ammunition and perhaps small explosives, grenades to mention a few.
Railway Corporation, to the best knowledge of the colonial masters made Kaduna a rail line junction where train that takes off in Lagos, going to Port-Harcourt must first reached in the far North before turning at Kaduna junction and heading for the Southern city of Port-Harcourt. Why the colonial masters did that was best known to them. They could as well run a rail line from Lagos to Port-Harcourt without going the long journey of first getting to Kaduna. That perhaps was one of the reasons the power brokers in the Northern region can not joke with Kaduna. It is a city that gives them a sense of beloging and power.
– Tajudeen Adigun
08039180360
