One of the most funnily memorable stories I ever heard from a state governor was in 2001, when then Borno State Governor Mala Kachallah paid us a visit at New Nigerian, where I was the editor. He had left his state capital, Maiduguri in some turmoil because the state NLC branch was demanding implementation of the newly approved national minimum wage. The governor said BOSG was handicapped because it had the second largest number of civil servants in Nigeria, 30,000, so he had to retrench some workers before he could implement the new wage. NLC rejected that option. To give us an idea of the problem he faced, Kachallah said, “The Poultry Division of the Borno State Ministry of Agriculture; their last hen died in 1981, but they have 571 staffers, and every year they bring a promotion list.”

Eleven years later, I heard a slightly different complaint from Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima. In response to Boko Haram attacks, he had banned motorcycles from Maiduguri streets and instead bought 5,000 tricycles, all of which were sold to beneficiaries at a discounted price, to be paid for instalmentally. Many beneficiaries turned around, sold them at an even lower price and squandered the money. The governor was unhappy; he wondered if such attitude can happen anywhere else. I said, “Sir, take heart. I don’t know about the South, but in almost every Northern state, the same thing will happen if you sell anything on loan at a discounted price.”

The Kachallah/Shettima worry in Borno reminded me of what then Niger State Governor Musa Inuwa told me in 1993. He had proposed to retrench some skilled civil servants and instead get for them bank loans to set up businesses. They rejected the plan and threatened to go on strike. Inuwa said, “Niger State Scholarships Board has eight typists but only three typewriters. Niger State Ministry of Works has 60 skilled artisans, carpenters, electricians and plumbers who are not doing any work. They are to be found sitting in front of the ministry’s premises, and small thing they will say “Strike! Strike!”

I used to think that governors are well fed, but on two occasions I encountered a hungry governor. In 1993, Governor Musa Inuwa gave me an 8am appointment in Minna but when I arrived at his office, he had a sudden visitor in Abia State Governor Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu. I had to wait for two hours until he escorted Onu out of town. When I was ushered into his office, he apologized for keeping me waiting, said we should proceed with the interview, even though he had not eaten his breakfast. So I said, “Sir, please have your breakfast. I will wait in CPS’s office.” He was very grateful!

In 2002, Jigawa State Governor Ibrahim Saminu Turaki arrived very late for an interview at New Nigerian. An hour into the interview, he suddenly said he was very hungry, and asked if the man who used to sell roasted meat at nearby NEPA roundabout was still there. Staffers rushed out and brought hot roasted meat. The governor retreated into the MD’s office, ate his fill, and returned to continue the interview.

Most memorable was Abacha-era Works Minister Major General Abdulkarim Adisa’s press conference in Abuja. A reporter audaciously asked him why he awarded contracts only to his friends. The rambunctious Adisa said, “Those who say I give contracts only to my friends, I pray to God to make them minister so that they will give contracts to their enemies.”

In 2000AD, as Editor of New Nigerian, I accompanied my managing director Dr. Omar Faruk Ibrahim to Sokoto to pacify Governor Attahiru Bafarawa. He was very angry because, in our inside page, his picture was used to illustrate a story about a Sokoto magistrate court that convicted two homosexuals. Bafarawa was certain that New Nigerian’s Sokoto reporter planted it that way to embarrass him. We struggled to convince him that the reporter was far away from the production center and could not possibly know how a sub editor carelessly designed that page.

In 1991, very fresh into my journalism career as a Citizen magazine reporter, I was in Katsina to interview military governor Colonel John Yahaya Madaki. As we sat in the visitors’ room, Madaki saw us on a CCTV camera. He stormed out, chased away a woman and a male contractor, then came for me and said, “Who are you?” His Chief Press Secretary Abubakar Yar’adua quickly intervened and said he brought me.  I was ushered into the office and sat in the conference area. Madaki left his desk, came near me and sat on the center table, his starched khaki menacingly rubbing my leg. I was young and audacious then, so I said, “Sir, please sit down on the chair.” The Jungle Expert exploded; “This is my office! I will sit down where I want! If you don’t want, pack your things and go!” But we had a rich two-hour interview.

My next explosive gubernatorial interview came 18 years later, with Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako in Abuja. Two of us were ushered to the dining table where the governor sat. Looking at the other man, he said, “Girigiri [Second Republic Senator Girigiri Lawan of Yobe], I asked you to come because I am going to talk to this journalist, and I do not trust him.” Turning to me, he said, “You, you hate the people of Adamawa State!” I quickly replied, “Sir, I was born in Adamawa State.” “It’s a lie!” “It is true!” “When?” “In Northern Nigeria. My father was the D.O in Mubi.” Nyako then changed tack and said, “I know why you are mischievous. It is because your family’s cattle have finished. There is no person more evil than a Fulani man whose cattle has finished.” I said, “Sir, my grandfather left behind many cows.” “How many?” I said, “Up to 30.”  He said, “My father left behind 15,000 cows!”

Katsina State Governor Umaru Musa Yar’adua was one of the gentlest governors I interviewed, in 2001. I [audaciously] asked him why he drove a car with three commissioners to go on a condolence visit, why he stopped at a roadside kiosk to buy cigarettes, and why, as governor, he prayed under a Tsamiya tree instead of entering the Friday mosque to pray beside the Emir. Malam Umaru looked at me quietly and said, “I have been praying under that tree for 18 years. Why should I enter the mosque and pray beside the Emir, only to come out again one day when I am no longer the governor and resume praying under that tree? You see, all these things, my fear is for women and children. Me, any day I lose privileges, I can adjust, but when women and children are used to something, they find it difficult to adjust. It is the cause of the corruption all around.”

In 1992, I interviewed Sokoto State Governor Malam Yahaya Abdulkarim and asked him about a protracted quarrel between himself and Senator Garba Ila Gada. The governor looked at me and said, “Turn off your tape recorder.” He then said, “You know the real reason for this quarrel between me and him? It is because he wants this chair.”

I once asked former Abia State governor and then ANPP national chairman Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu about the fiasco at ANPP’s 1999 Kaduna convention, when he was nominated as presidential candidate and then substituted with AD candidate Olu Falae. Onu laughed heartily and said, “My brother, it is something you do not wish to happen even to your worst enemy.”

In 2001, Kogi State Governor Abubakar Audu invited me to Lokoja to mark two years of his administration. When I was ushered in, he said no interview until I first toured his projects. His Chief Press Secretary then grabbed a car and we charged through the state until well after dusk, inspecting roads, housing projects, the Audu Oyigi eye hospital and the then new Abubakar Audu University at Ayingba. On our way back I told the CPS that I was really impressed with what I saw. So he said, “When we go to see Oga, please praise him! My Oga likes praise. Please praise him very well, and agbada will flow!”

Small fry like me, I once found myself settling a quarrel between two governors. Former Zamfara State governor Senator Ahmed Sani came to my Abuja office in 2009 and said, “I come to report your friend [his successor, Governor Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi].” He told me that he went to Government House to see the governor, was told that he was praying in the mosque, so he waited for him in his office. After a very long wait, he asked what was delaying the governor’s return, and the office messenger told him that when the governor heard that Yarima was waiting for him in the office, he summoned his car to the mosque and sneaked away.

I then sent a message to Governor Shinkafi and said “Sir, Yarima has reported you to me.”  The very gentle Shinkafi replied that he will be in Abuja in two days and will send for me, which he did. I told him what Yarima said, and he said, “Yarima was wrong!” That there was going to be an ANPP primaries contest in Bakura LGA, and he asked Yarima who was his preferred candidate, but he said both men were the same to him. The two men went for the primaries and after one of them won, Yarima said he preferred the other one. “That was why I went away.”

For the first [and possibly the last] time in my life, I found myself scolding a sitting governor. I said, “Sir, you made a mistake by going away. As the Governor, you should have stayed and told him firmly that he was wrong. But by sneaking away, you spoilt the case.”