Last week, the Kano State governor-elect, Mr. Abba Yusuf, declared that he would prevent his wives and children from interfering with the governance of the state when inaugurated as governor. Yusuf, the candidate of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) during the March 18 governorship election in the state, made the promise after receiving his Certificate of Return at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Kano, the state capital, following his successful outing at the election where he defeated his closest challenger and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nasiru Gawuna. His words: “My wives will not be part of the governance. My children will not be part of the governance. And I can tell you for sure that this is the same for my deputy governor.”

Ordinarily, it ought to be routinely recognised that governance is not a family affair. However, the practice in the country, particularly since the return to civil rule in 1999, has been quite the opposite. Although there is no provision in the 1999 Constitution for the office of First Lady, the political class has adopted the practice from the United States and made an utter mess of it. While we recognise that not every aspect of political practice is expressly covered by the constitution, the office has tended to wield undue influence and power in the scheme of things. On many occasions, state governors have jointly run their states with their wives and even children, subjecting the people to harrowing experiences. It is in this context that the statement by the Kano governor-elect cannot be seen as pedestrian.

To be sure, governance should not be about patrimony. Rather, it is, and should be, a call to service; a call to provide the basic things of life for the citizenry and make them happy contributors to societal development. In this regard, the point has to be made that the whole arrangement about the office of the First Lady at the federal and state government levels is a misnomer that ought to have been discarded for its wrongful and expensive application that has constituted acute waste of resources. Spouses and family members of elected government officials could not have been elected along with them. The framers of the country’s constitution apparently believed, and rightly too, that there ought to be clear separation of family from governance. Unfortunately, the country, perhaps as a holdout from the inanities under military rule, has been besieged with wives and children of government officials who strut about as if they are the elected officials, dishing out orders and sometimes countermanding legitimate instructions of government officials with impunity.

We think it would be in order for the Kano State governor-elect not to join this despicable train and it would redound positively to him if he could go beyond rhetoric to live by the pledge. The country needs leaders who are truly leaders. It needs leaders who are uncompromising in sticking to what is proper and contributive to good governance, and one of the ways to demonstrate this is to show fidelity to a higher sense of behaviour that provides no room for the irresponsibility of unleashing spouses and children of government officials on governance.

The pledge by the Kano State governor-elect should ordinarily be a welcome development if not for the sense of deja vu that we have about such pledges in the past that ended up being observed in the breach. We wait to see if he will walk the talk as the words of our politicians before getting into public office are hardly ever their bond after assuming power. While we laud the pledge and hope that Nigerians would be on the lookout to hold him to the pledge, we hasten to add that he must also bear in mind the need to constitute a solid team that could tackle the challenges facing the state head on and make a real difference in the lives of the populace.

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