Late Military Administrator of old Kano State Police Commissioner Audu Bako who governed the state for 9 years, 1966-1975 under the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon died pennilessly. In fact, his family had to run around and pay his bank debt.
During the Second Republic, former President Shehu Shagari dispatched somebody to Danmarke village in present Zamfara State to fetch the former Kano State Military Administrator, only to be told that he had died. But in 1993 the former Military President General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida issued a Federal Government Gazette that returns properties of those who served under Gowon that late Murtala Mohammed confiscated when he sacked Gowon in 1975. Former Commissioner Usman Farouk, Ikemba Odumegwu and late Audu Bako are among those listed in the Gazette that will benefit from the exercise.
Police Commissioner Audu Bako did not leave behind fiscal cash, but he left chains of houses, farms and landed properties in Kano but in spite of the Federal Government Gazette and directives to Kano State Government to release Audu Bako’s properties to his children 28 years after his death, the children are yet to get the properties. They then went to court and the judgments they got directing various Kano State Government to return their father’s properties to them has even formed a booklet, some highly placed people in Kano who have converted these properties to their personal use have over the years made it difficult for them to return to Audu Bako’s children even though during the administration of Dominic Oneya he handed over the certificate of occupancy to the children of the deceased.
Neptune Prime’s correspondent, Saleh Inuwa met one of the late Military Administrator’s daughters, Hajiya Zainab Audu Bako who contested for the House of Representatives on defunct CPC ticket for Tarauni Federal Constituency and she granted a hot and earth-shaking interview to us.
EXCERPTS OF THE INTERVIEW
Neptune Prime: Hajiya, we are meeting for the first time, tell us who is Zainab Audu Bako?
Zainab: I am Zainab Audu Bako and I was born on the 25th of January 1967 in Kaduna State. I went to Kano Capital School from 1973-78, later I went to St Louis Secondary School Bompai and passed out with Seven Credits in 1983. From there I went to London Hotel Travel and Training College and Studied Bakery in 1987, then later I got married and honestly, I was locked up. I mean I was put in Purdah Kulle in Hausa but later my husband died suddenly and I went back to school and studied Information Technology and I passed out with distinction. In London too my overall result was a distinction. Now I am a widow, a single mother of four children and that’s me.
NP: Tell us about your parents
Zainab: Well I am the last child of late Police Commissioner Audu Bako who was the first Military Administrator of old Kano State. My father is late we are eleven in my family, 5 male and 6 female but we lost 3.
NP: Tell us how you met your husband and despite your beauty and charm, you are still single?
Zainab: It’s a long story, long laughter. I met my first husband here in Kano, and you know I lived all my life in Kano. I was born in 1967 the year my father became the Military Administrator of old Kano State. From Government House, we moved to Gyadi-Gyadi and later to Tarauni. I met my husband here we got married but suddenly he died in 1992 his name is late Badamasi Bashir Ibrahim after that I remarried and got three children but we later separated due to some differences
NP: As a single mother, couple with other responsibilities, how will you cope with the demands of politics?
Zainab: Well, my political mentor has always been Dr Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, all my life I have being a struggler even when I was married I also double as an entrepreneur. I struggled to make ends meet being a Muslim woman, I shy away from office work I prefer to be self-employed since the death of my first husband and my separation from my second husband I took full control of my family affairs. My children are with me and I copied this type of life from my late father Audu Bako, I prefer to be independent and I am happy to be independent
NP: Are you now saying bye-bye to marriage at only 50 years?
Zainab: Not at all but my last born is 9-years-old, I prefer to train my kids. To marry now will be a problem, at my age getting married is not my priority. I want to see my children grow, I want to give the best training to my children and give my children the quality time that my parents did not give to me.
NP: Okay why did you contest for the House of Representatives on a defunct CPC ticket, what do you have in store for Tarauni people?
Zainab: Well though I lost had it been I won the seat, I have been an armed chair critic for a long time now and I want to be fully involved in the processes that will uplift the standard of living of my people. Already we have a disciplined Chairman in the person of Honorable Ahmadu Haruna Danzago, which I will collaborate so that my people will get dividends of Democracy. I told you, our roads in Tarauni are bad, thousands of our youths are jobless, and some of them are on drugs while others do jobs like political thuggery. I want to change all that and by the grace of God give them meaningful life. I see single mothers here finding it difficult to put food on their table, some cannot even take care of their children. All this makes me sad and so I want to come out again in future and be part of the solution. Most of our women here are not educated, the only way one can help them is through soft loans so that they can be self-dependent and self-employed. I don’t want to be like other Legislatures that once elected you will never see them again, but it’s sad that I lost due to party crisis
NP: You said some Legislators even when they are visiting their Constituency use tinted cars to avoid people, is that why in spite of your background you are not staying in G.R.A or a house surrounded by a fence and fierce-looking dogs?
Zainab: Exactly I want to live in the midst of the local people. I am a local person, remember also when the Murtala group toppled Gowon’s Government they seized all my father’s properties and in 1993 General Babangida as head of state then directed that all properties confiscated by the Murtala regime be returned in Kano State. Up to date, they did not implement the IBB Presidential directive, our properties are still with Kano State Government and as such we never share our father’s properties because practically there is nothing to share. The Federal Government returned the properties to us, but Kano State Government is still hanging on to them, every day you hear people commending our father as the founder of Modern Kano yet we are being denied his properties. Since creation, I am proud to say no Governor has performed like late Audu Bako except Kwankwaso and Rimi in some cases, so staying among the rich is not what I admire because I am a direct victim. I prefer to stay with the masses, my mother live in Gyadi-Gyadi, a poor settlement.
NP: Why can’t you take the Kano State Government to court?
Zainab: We went to court, but because some influential people in the State are interested in the matter, since some of them are sitting on the properties they frustrated the case let me tell you something during one of our sittings, during Kwankwaso Government in 2002 former Governor Shekarau was then the DG Finance and Administration Cabinet Office. He used to be there and take minutes after such meetings he will tell us to take it easy, that if he was the Governor he will release the properties to us but, when he became Governor we wrote him several letters to visit him and discuss the matter, he never replied us for eight years. In fact, his Government agreed to buy one of the properties. Where KNAUDA is now located is my father’s property, we even discussed how much they will pay but up to now a kobo did not reach us and even rent they are not paying up to the Ganduje Era.
NP: Part of properties to be returned or returned by IBB to your family no fiscal cash?
Zainab: No fiscal cash in fact we had to pay back the loan our father took from the bank. He was an honest administrator. He died penniless everything was seized after the military coup they went house to house after that my mother stayed with me here in Kano and my late father went to his farm in Dan Market in Zamfara State, where he died.
NP: What about the allegation that he died a frustrated man?
Zainab: No, he did not die out of frustration even at that time Shagari looked for him to give him a ministerial appointment. But his time was up and he died, but he was a successful farmer. I am proud of him as my father was a simple man, he used to take fura even with the commoners and he never drove in a tinted car.
NP: Let us come to politics again why are you in P.D.P instead of A.P.C?
Zainab: You see I have come to realize that Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso is one politician that has done a lot to develop Kano and its people. So I have no choice but to be his supporter so that if he becomes the President of this country, he will definitely arrest the total mess the country is going into especially in terms of security. People are being killed today like chickens and the government has completely failed to arrest the situation. If you listen to most of the FM Radios in Kano, you will hear my jingles promoting the presidential ambition of Kwankwaso to be the next President of Nigeria while at home, we are working hard to defeat APC in 2023.
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