Today’s topic made me recall an incident that happened while I was serving as the Special Assistant Media to the then President of the Senate, Senator Adolphus Wabara, in 2004. Wabara had asked me to follow him to the office of the Clerk to the National Assembly (CNA), the administrative head of the legislature. We had entered the lift, accompanied by the retinue of security details, and as the doors were closing for the lift to move, the former Senate President saw a Senator trying to walk through the security barriers at the main entrance. He quickly ordered the lift to stop, alighted, and waited for the senator to get close. After they exchanged pleasantries, he joined the lift, and we accomplished the original mission. When we returned to the Senate President’s office, I asked him why he had to stop the lift just to greet a senator who wasn’t even aware of his presence in that lift, and he simply said, ‘Taiwo, everything is an impeachable offence, now. Not greeting somebody good morning can amount to an impeachable offence these days.’
The words of Senator Wabara were apparently lost on the deputy governor of Kano State, Alhaji Aminu Abdulsalam, who was last Thursday served with some articles of impeachment by the Kano State House of Assembly, principally because he refused to join Governor Abba Yusuf’s defection party from the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Though the articles of impeachment would not say it exactly the way I put it, every adult knows that it is when love is missing that the list of offences grows. Our people say the witch cried today, the child died the next morning, who doesn’t know that it is the witch who shouted yesterday that killed the child? Despite all pretentions that all was well between the Kano State House of Assembly and deputy governor Abdusalam, the cock crowed on Thursday when 33 of the 44 members of the House signed an impeachment notice which was served on the deputy governor. In his case, he doesn’t need to commit any offence. In fact, rising faster than the governor in an event (maybe to observe the national anthem) could amount to an impeachable offence. Now that the gloves are off, the House of Assembly has slammed Abdusalam with alleged gross misconduct, bordering on abuse of office and breach of public trust. It is clear that without the defection saga, Abdusalam would not stand charged with such hefty allegations. That tells us that even though Section 188 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) empowers the House of Assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against a governor or his deputy, such processes in this clime are largely emotion-laden, and low on facts of the matter. But the Constitution mandates them to raise articles of impeachment, which must be clearly spelt out. Yes, they would do that, even though they only have a half-hearted belief in the veracity of the allegations.
Section 188 (1-9) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) lists the processes that would lead to the removal of a governor or his deputy from office. In section 188 (11), however, the constitution says “gross misconduct means a grave violation or breach of the provisions of this Constitution or a misconduct of such nature as amounts in the opinion in the House of Assembly to gross misconduct.” So, if the House of Assembly has that latitude to determine what amounts to “gross misconduct,” Kano’s deputy governor, Abdusalam, should have known that the Wabara postulation is applicable at all times. I have been told that the man has been dutifully handling his assignments since his boss defected to the APC, but in truth, he should know that a wink not properly directed could amount to gross misconduct in his case.
But what happened to the efforts of former vice-president Atiku Abubakar to cure this tendency to unilateral determination of issues regarding the alliance between the executive office holder and his running mate? It would be recalled that the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo tried all it could to determine Atiku Abubakar’s tenure by insisting that the word “associate” as contained in Section 142 of the 1999 Constitution had been violated when the then vice president started romancing the opposition between 2006 and 2007. Though the matter was not tabled for the National Assembly to size up as a matter of gross misconduct, Atiku had taken the case to the courts and was eventually left off the hook by the Supreme Court, which ruled that once the office holder and the “associate” he nominated in that case, President Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar, are elected, the said associate becomes an entity to himself, and could choose to adopt another political party, while still occupying the office. Section 187 of the 1999 Constitution contains a similar provision for the holder of the office of deputy governor. It reads: “In an election to which the following provisions of this chapter relate a candidate for the office of Governor of a State shall not be deemed to have been validly nominated for such office unless he nominates another candidate as his associate for his running mate for the office of the Governor, who is to occupy the office of Deputy Governor; and that candidate shall be deemed to have been duly elected to the office of Deputy Governor if the candidate who nominated him is duly elected as Governor in accordance with the said provisions.”
The keyword for the Obasanjo crew at the time was associate. Did Atiku become Obasanjo’s foe when he started romancing the Action Congress (AC) at the time? You will recall that the Adamawa politician eventually contested the 2007 presidency on the ticket of that party because the Supreme Court said no to the question above. That ruling eventually sustained Atiku in office until the end of Obasanjo’s tenure on May 28, 2007.
So, why is Abdusalam, Kano’s deputy governor, not benefiting from the ruling of Nigeria’s apex court? As an associate of Governor Yusuf, has he become the governor’s foe by staying put in the NNPP? You can say that his fate is propelled by the tyranny of the majority or the conspiracy of political forces, which latched onto the provisions of the constitution in Section 188 (11).
Deputy governors hold one of the most endangered offices in government, and the constitution should be blamed for such a precarious situation. Aside from establishing that office, the constitution did not assign any other role to the office holder. So, they are called spare tires in the system, even when their allies see them as governors-in-waiting. They are pushed wherever the governor likes, and they are expected to tag along with the governor, whichever political direction he faces. They are also not to step out of line to seek the office, even after staying loyal for eight years. That is why you can count on your fingers the number of deputies who have ever succeeded their bosses since 1999. Of the 10 deputy governors who have succeeded their bosses, only two- Mahmud Shinkafi, who took over from Sani Yerima in Zamfara in 2007, and Abdullahi Ganduje, who succeeded Rabiu Kwankwaso in Kano also in 2007, were backed by their bosses to emerge. Most of the cases that we have seen came through rancorous impeachments or the death of the office holder. For instance, Goodluck Jonathan emerged as governor in Bayelsa State after the impeachment of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha in December 2005, Adebayo Alao-Akala reigned for 11 months following the impeachment of Governor Rashidi Ladoja in January 2006, Virginia Etiaba also succeeded Peter Obi on his brief impeachment in 2006, Ibrahim Gaidam became governor following Mamman Ali’s death in Yobe in January 2009, and Lucky Aiyedatiwa succeeded Rotimi Akeredolu in Ondo after the latter died in 2023. Patrick Yakowa succeeded Namadi Sambo as Kaduna governor following his appointment as vice president in 2010, while Ramalan Yero succeeded Patrick Yakowa on his death in a helicopter crash in 2012. In Adamawa, Bala Ngilari replaced his boss as governor following Murtala Nyako’s impeachment in 2014. Even though David Umahi, who was deputy to Governor Martin Elechi of Ebonyi State, became governor after his boss, he was never supported by Elechi, and his victory was akin to a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Fate, rather than deliberate political actions, has so far informed the rise of most of the deputy governors to the position of governors since the restart of democracy in 1999. The figure is alarming, only two out of ten. Eight of the cases so far recorded came through the hands of fate or some raucous impeachment processes. So, who will save the deputy governors? Only when sincerity of purpose takes over our government houses, when the governor stops perpetually watching his back because a deputy is in the wings, and when political maturity is played above democratic totalitarianism, then sanity can prevail.
(Published by the Sunday Tribune, March 8, 2026)
