13-5-2025.

Dogarai and the Presidential guards are always at war with one another on trying to ‘protect’ their respective principals from the ‘harm’ of the crowd that they found themselves surrounded by and in. It has always been a battle between the two sides over the ages.

And it was no different when President Bola Ahmed Tinubu paid his arranged ‘high profile’ official/working (elevated the term to a new hight) visit to Katsina State, the ‘Home of Heritage and Hospitality’. It was a visit that would be remembered for the wrong reasons for a long time to come by the citizens of the state.

 

Of course, it is a breach of protocol for anyone to arrive at an event after the president. But you do not tell that to emir’s traditional guards, known locally as ‘DOGARAI’. The people only take their instructions from the emir, and even him cannot instruct them to do what in their thinking, would result into harm to him.

The Katsina encounter reminds me of the visit of a former number one citizen in the country to a traditional ruler in the Southern part of the country. Most people in that part of the country are  said not to tolerate insults of any kind, and what presidential guards do to everyone (including their locally based colleagues, and even their seniors) wherever the president goes is viewed as a very high form of insult.

When the former head of the Federal Government visited a traditional ruler in the state, the presidential guards tried to outdo themselves in their usual insult to the local people they met at the palace. Not amused by how the presidential bodyguards were treating the people, the traditional ruler was alleged to have looked at his SARKIN DOGARAI (head of his local security guards) MEANINGFULLY.

Getting the unspoken message, the SARKIN DOGARAI was said to STARE briefly at the presidential guards, after which ALL of them in the palace found themselves LEVITATING (suspended) between the floor and the sky. They were said not even be able to reach for their weapons on their persons.

Upon observing the scenario, the former number one citizen allegedly became enchanted and interested with the development, leading him to form a long lasting BOND with the traditional ruler, a relationship that survived as long as the two men remained alive.

In any case, if most people have some money in their pockets and enough food to eat everyday, they would not care about the number of emirates in their states. As it is, conditions in the country are very far from normal, as majority of the citizens are buffeted by extreme poverty and pervasive hunger under the Tinubu regime. And it appears that there is no end in sight for the hardship.

A couple of days ago, the Minister of DARKNESS, Mr. A  stated that the federal government would not “continue to subsidise (AGAIN) electricity in the country”. The question begging for asking is, ‘how many times is the present regime of Tinubu going to remove subsidy on electricity?’ Forever, it would appear. 

Since Tinubu and his Minister of DARKNESS came to office on May 29th, 2013, my electricity bill has BALLOONED to N47,000 from N10,000 during the immediate past administration. And my meter was STOLEN in the daylight by the staff of the electricity supplier under the pretext that it was going to be repaired, even though I did not invite them.

And trending video clips show an angry crowd of youths TEARING and bringing down a billboard of Governor Dikko Umaru Radda, while the crowd was shouting ‘BAMA YIN KA, SAI SARKI KAWAI (we are not with you, only the Emir). This shows that the youths believed that the addition emirates were proposed by the Governor, who was in turn ‘forced’ into it by the Presidency to settle scores with the with the emir of Katsina, for his temerity to arrive at the venue of the Governor daughter’s wedding after the president. 

The video clips show a gentleman trying to make the angry crowd see reason, and abandon the protest. He told the protesters to be calm as he claimed to be “from Katsina where I discussed the issue with the relevant authorities”. Even Police officers who arrived to pacify the crowd could not do much to calm the frayed nerves of the rowdy crowd. All the same, the Police were shown to go about the job very professionally, without ‘adding insult to injury’.

It is to be noted that the Katsina State Governor, Dr. Dikko Umar Radda, PhD., and the Emir of Katsina, Alhaji (Dr.) AbdulMumini Kabir Usman, are related by blood, so the two cannot be at loggerheads (if there were any) without a ‘forced’ reason.

The Governor, whose mother was said to be from the Katsina ruling house, was so named after his great grandfather, the late Emir of Katsina, Dikko, of very revered memory.

Meanwhile, other opposing video clips are currently trending disseminating two opposing information regarding Nigeria’s debt position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While some of the video clips are lauding the economic policies of the present regime for exiting the country from the debt of the ‘Shylock’ IMF, other clips, allegedly from the bank itself, claim that Nigeria is “still indebted to the IMF to the tune of $16 billion”. That is equivalent of hundreds of TRILLIONS of the Tinubu Naira.

Meanwhile, let it be understood AGAIN that I do not get any pleasure in constantly condemning the regime of President Tinubu for the sake of doing so, as some people appear to erroneously believe. I can not afford to praise the administration where millions of its citizens are living in abject misery, simply because I live in splendour and COMFORT in the same society, paid by the taxpayers.

I will therefore not apologise to humans, who I have in no way offended simply by telling nothing but the truth, as God directs us to say it all the time, regardless of who is offended.

May God ease the situation Nigerians have found themselves in. The extreme poverty and perversive hunger in the country has made some citizens to make the ultimate sacrifice, by taking their own lives because they had nothing, including the hope, with which to provide food for their families.

Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.