The announcement of Dr. Hadiza Abubakar Balarabe as the running mate to Governor Nasir El-Rufai in the 2019 gubernatorial race in Kaduna state was expectedly a jolting piece of news received with variegated responses in divergent circles. To her friends, especially those who had worked with her as professional colleagues, superiors and subordinates, it would have been difficult for them to figure out the reasons that informed the decision of Malam El-Rufai. Dr. Hadiza, to this group, is rather known and respected as an incisively intelligent, self-effacing, and almost taciturn but a diligent professional with a single-minded commitment to her duties as a physician and administrator.
The news would similarly have been an astounding shock to some of the conventional political gladiators used to the traditional setting of rewarding political prominence and clout with political positions as exalting as that of a deputy governor. To these people, the slot should have gone to one of their members who has paid his or her dues based on the criteria of long term membership and social or political stature, wealth and other sundry qualifications conventionally deemed to attract support and votes of the electorate. On such scale of evaluation, Dr. Hadiza Balarabe, albeit her sterling track records as an accomplished medical doctor and a bureaucrat of repute, is yet as such considered a political neophyte.
The emergence of a female gubernatorial running mate, even a flag bearer, will not come as a big deal in Nigeria, South of the Niger. Not so in the North where paternalism and misogynistic culture and tradition in the garbs of religion are used to keep the women folk at the back stage of political limelight or leadership. As it is, only a Nasir El-Rufai could have dared to upturn the established order as brusquely as he has done in his choice of Dr. Hadiza as his running mate in what looks a titanic contest.
In Kaduna state, where the standard power sharing formula has been long accepted as a balancing equation between the geographical and cultural divide of the “Muslim North” and the “Christian South”, a Christian-Christian ticket or, as it is in the on-going scenario, a Muslim-Muslim ticket, would come to many actors and spectators as an aberration. But to the maverick, some would say, controversial, cantankerous or radical El-Rufai, the so-called established political order is a hogwash that is not anchored on reason, logic or common sense. He is out to prove his belief with the choice of Dr. Hadiza who, though an indigene of the South of the state, is a Muslim like himself.
The choice of a Muslim running mate from the Southern zone of Kaduna state has further expectedly inflamed a lot of other passions. It is, to certain narratives, an affront or insensitivity to the religious sensibilities of a significant segment of the population. Less charitable opinions in this context have called out Governor El-Rufai as a religious bigot with an agenda of islamisation of the state. However, to those who are close to him, El-Rufai can be anything but a religious fanatic or a bigot with such a degree of fervour of his faith to the point of embarking on what is a perilous, gruesome and impractical mission in Kaduna state.
A more rewarding and rational explanation for the choice of Dr. Hadiza is simply the same as the one that informed the selection of Barnabas Yusuf Bala, “Bantex”, in the run up to the 2015 version of the race. Acquaintance, close contact and appreciation of exceptional intelligence, quintessential track records and other attributes of the two would have been the visible criteria used by El-Rufai. That is vintage El-Rufai from his experience in the private sector though his has an “accidental emergence as a player in the public arena”. The man has consistently shown the streak of an avid respecter for capacity in the selection of his team mates.
Hadiza Balarabe Abubakar would have had the edge over the other contenders as a result of her famed diligence and capacity demonstrated as the director of the FCT Health Department while El-Rufai was Minister. Hadiza was requested by El-Rufai to take up the office of Executive Secretary of the Kaduna State Primary Healthcare Agency obviously and essentially with the aim of having her do for her state of origin, the sort of outstanding services she had been rendering at the national level. She has not disappointed. She has since assumption of office, engendered a transformation in the state primary healthcare delivery system.
From 2016 to date, primary healthcare centres in 255 wards, hitherto known as dispensaries, have been refurbished and upgraded from their former dilapidated conditions to healthcare delivery centres of excellence. At these facilities today, there are to be found medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists with drugs and provisions for admission of patients. The dazzling feats of this humble but incisively intelligent, focused and honest, self-effacing woman of Numana extraction, would most surely have further endeared her in the reckoning of El-Rufai.
The consideration of political expediency and propriety advanced against the choice of Hadiza as a prospective deputy governor is fast giving way to trepidation in some political camps and optimism to those who had entertained some reservations in the ruling APC in the state. Talk of the tumultuous number of women from across religious, ethnic and socio-cultural divides that have been surging towards the APC in clear craving for her emergence as deputy governor. The metamorphosis of Dr. Hadiza metaphorically from a lamb to a roaring lioness is at once a source of disappointment and an amazing positive development. That is, depending on which side of the divide one stands.
In a nutshell, days to go before the historic event of 2019 gubernatorial election in Kaduna state, the advice to those still encapsulated in primordial ethnic, religious or cultural cocoons will do well to see the emerging light. The sail is on, ship in your best interest or, ship out and be left out there.
In the words of Barnabas Bala, outgoing deputy governor and pioneer secretary general and designer of the logo of the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, SOKAPU, religion and ethnicity have got nothing to do with it. “The attempt to paint the Kaduna State Government and its leadership in religious garbs must stop. It is a government within which we as Christians proudly serve, and which makes its decisions only by the oath of office to which we have all sworn and the constitution.” No one could have put it more succinctly.
Ahmad is a Kaduna based public analyst.
