By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Junaid Mohammed was always a straight shooter. You always knew where he stood on any national issue. He was neither one to suffer fools gladly nor pander to popular opinion. In fact, whenever he was on the prowl, he didn’t take prisoners. He went for the kill.
Junaid was a man of strong views, and with him, there was hardly a sacred cow. Anyone could come under his hard knocks. Such a man would not have many friends in the political circle. He was blunt, almost like a bull in a China shop. And he had the wit to make a mess of anyone that fell short of his standards.
As a journalist, I had engaged Junaid on a variety of subjects for at least eight years, and in all the years, the man’s position was constant. Never for once did I find him inconsistent, contradictory or self-serving.
For Junaid, the national question meant survival of the north. And on this, he made no pretence about standing for the region politically.
In 2012, for instance, Junaid gave a controversial interview where he said the North was ready to break up and go its separate way. Of course, he was only expressing his personal view, albeit emotive, over the agitation for a sovereign national conference where the north was presented as a liability that needed to be ditched.
In 2013, he said blood would flow on the streets of Nigeria should President Jonathan insist on running for the Presidency in 2015, a comment that earned him an invitation from the State Security Service (SSS).
After a chat with the operatives of the SSS in Abuja, Junaid said he and the SSS all wanted the same thing – the unity of Nigeria – which, for him at the time, was hinged on the north becoming an equal political player in Nigeria. He felt the South had dominated the polity for too long.
In 2015, a supposed Northern star, Muhammadu Buhari, became Nigeria’s president. But it didn’t take too long for Junaid to realise that Buhari was no star.
His major grouse with Buhari was his penchant for nepotism, which Junaid said compromised his ability to rule the country well, fight corruption, and deal with rogue government appointees.
In June 2016, in an interview I had with him on President Buhari’s capacity to fight corruption, he said: “There are many people who are his own cousins in the Presidency. In my own understanding of history and politics, this is what you call nepotism. And if you are against corruption, you cannot be nepotistic.
In October 2016, I had another interview with Junaid Mohammed about Buhari’s handling of the economy.
This is a summary of what he said: “Buhari has had a reputation around him. One, integrity. Two, his concern for the common man. Now what is obvious today from what he has been able to do or not do from May 29, 2015, up till today that I am talking to you has shown that whatever was said about his integrity has been false. His integrity has vanished. Number two. It is clear to Nigerians that Buhari has no concern for the common man. His concerns are one, his friends in the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank, and his relations and friends who apparently are determined to be wealthy during the period he is in power.”
In January 2018, I asked him if Buhari was likely to win a second term election, he said: “Buhari should be persuaded not only to go for a second term, but to also leave government. He has done what he could do. He is completely without any ideas, even bad ideas. He should pack his relations and his gangster friends who are dominating his thinking and get out and go back to Daura or Kaduna State.”
For Junaid, he has played his part, like Shakespeare said: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more”