While serving as governor of Jigawa State, i received around 500 text messages daily, the majority of which were abusive and laced with vulgar language. This shocked me as my upbringing emphasised respect for elders and prohibited such speech.
I later discovered that this abusive culture toward governors had begun during the tenure of Governor Saminu Turaki, who responded to threats by paying youths to stop insulting him. This emboldened them further, turning abuse into a form of blackmail.
Unlike Turaki, however, i resolved not to give in to such pressures and instead confronted the issue firmly.
One day, a young man was ushered into my presence. He had sent a text abusing me, and i had asked that the man be traced and brought to me. The following happened:
I asked him, “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” he replied.
“Do you have a father?”.
“Yes, I do.”
“Okay, go and bring your father.”
He went along with Security aides and brought his father.
Addressing his father, I asked, “Is this your son?”
He replied in the affirmative.
“How old are you?” I asked of the father.
“Fifty-five.”
I turned to the son, “You see, I am older than your father. Here he is; ask him. I am older than him, not to mention you the child he gave birth to.”
I now turned to the father: “Is he your son?”
“Yes”, he answered.
I turned to the boy, “Do you love him?”
“Yes, I love him”, he replied.
“Don’t you think I also have children who love me?” I asked him further.
He was silent, so I said to him, “Okay, say to your father what you said to me in the text message you sent. Whether it was praise or whatever you said, repeat it to him now.”
The boy refused to speak, a pointer to the fact that he knew what he did was wrong. He was being brought back to his senses.
“Why will you not tell your father what you said to me?” I asked.
He still remained silent.
“Is it because you love him? Don’t you think my own children love me too?”
I threatened that, since I was older than his father, and, despite being a leader, he could still send me insulting messages, until he repeated those words to his own father; I would order that his father be beaten senseless in his presence.
When I insisted, he finally repeated what he sent me to his father. The father knelt down, crying, pleading for forgiveness.
I told him the issue was not that of seeking my forgiveness, but he needed to know what kind of ‘terror’ he had unleashed on society – a mannerless and untrained child, without any future prospect ahead.
I asked him to take away his son and go and start the process of training him in character and etiquette.
I acted in a similar manner to many of those who sent those abusive messages. Soon, word got out that it did not pay to abuse me. The disrespectful and abusive messages all stopped.
– Sule Lamido (2025: 344-346).
