My daughter is already eyeing my Senate seat – Sen. Marafa

Via - DailyTrust

Senator Marafa and Senator Binta

Because he was called a woman, Senator Kabiru Garba Marafa (APC Zamfara Central) resigned from the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the very day he was promoted. Marafa, who now chairs the Senate committee on Petroleum (Downstream), speaks on his life experiences, his daughter’s moves to unseat him, his inability to acquire a house in Abuja six years after serving at the Upper chamber and many more. 

Excerpts:

Ismail Mudassir

Daily Trust: What was growing up like for you?

Senator Kabiru Marafa: I had a very humble background. I was born into a royal family that struggled very hard to make a living. My father was a very brave man and a prince. It was the tradition of the royal family to send their children to smaller territories, like districts, to govern or as village heads as the case may be. My great grandfather was the founder of Gusau; his name was Sambo Dan Ashafa. During his struggle, he had reasons to live in some villages. He left his children in some of the villages to look after. It was in one of the villages that I was born because my grandfather was made the village head. The village is called Yandoton Daji in present day Tsafe local government area of Zamfara State.

My grandfather was dethroned as the district head of Yandoton Daji in 1959 for political reasons. After my grandfather was dethroned, my father remained in the village even after his father left the village for Gusau. He remained in the village to regain his father’s stool and that was why I told you that the beginning was a little rough. My grandfather was dethroned a year before I was born. We struggled through the 60s and 70s; my father didn’t actualize his dream until 1980 when the person that succeeded his father was dethroned. My father occupied the stool until 2003 when he died.

DT: Why didn’t you go for the stool after your father’s death?

Marafa: Well, I think for two reasons. One, I was the first in the family to acquire western education. My father had 17 children and I was the 10th. I have four elder brothers but they were not opportune to acquire western education because the primary school in my village was completed in 1960 but it was not commissioned until 1970.

When my father died in 2003, I was into business. I had already resigned from the NNPC and was doing very well. I had no reason to go for village headship or whatever. The most important thing for me was for the stool to remain within my family. I know its worth because of the struggle we did with my late father. If you say you want to take the stool out of my family; then I will fight you legally. 

Secondly, I’m not interested in occupying the stool; I only hold the traditional title which has no territory - the Marafan Gusau. My father’s title ‘Marafa’ has a territory attached to it. Mine is just a title given in recognition of one’s contribution to the society. Our eldest brother succeeded our father after his death.

DT: How was it, being the first in a family of 17 to acquire Western education?

Marafa: I was the first, but after me all the other children in the family acquired Western education. Honestly, it was not easy because my father always told me that ‘you’re the flag bearer, if you do well, the others will also’. He told me that he stayed back in the village to regain the stool because he wanted to give us our own identity that we will be proud of. He told me that the modern day kind of war is going to be fought with good Western education. In whatever I do today, I always take cognizance of his struggle, his humility, his bravery and his sense of pride. Despite his financial status, he never begged. They persecuted him, and his farms were confiscated. It was his in-laws that gave him other farms. But he refused to leave the village; he fought them until when he succeeded in regaining his father’s stool.

DT: What key things did you learn from him?

Marafa: Humility, perseverance, bravery and pride. My father was a symbol of pride because he was not rich in material things but he was extremely rich in the heart. The little he had was enough for him. He never begged and there was never a time in our family that they didn’t put pot on fire to cook for us. My father was strict but I was very close to him. The attributes you see in me today were inherited from him. My father was dreaded and feared by many but I moved to him and asked questions. I like to stand up in the face of persecution; you cannot suppress me by persecuting me. The more you press me down, the more my tendency to rebel.

DT: Why does it seem like everyone in Zamfara has a title?

Marafa: It is not everybody per se, but maybe you can say many people. And it is not only in Zamfara State, it’s the in-thing everywhere. Politicians like taking traditional titles. Aside the titles that are hereditary, people are given titles in recognition of their contributions to the society. But now, people take traditional titles without commensurate service to the community. If they want to join politics; they rush to one village or district or emirate to get a title. If we want to sanitize our society, we need to go back to the era when you need to do something meaningful for the society before you are turbaned. In those days, power resided within the traditional institutions.

DT: How did you find yourself in politics?

Marafa: Like I said earlier, I was born into politics. My father was a politician and as a result, his father was dethroned but he continued with politics until he regained the stool through politics. My father contested the first local government election in 1975. I participated actively; I campaigned and supported him throughout the election. In the 1979 elections, I was about finishing my secondary school then, I participated. In those days, there were no posters as we have now. In fact, I was the returning agent of the presidential election of Alhaji Shehu Shagari in our area. Till today, I have the paper that the then presidential candidate signed for all his agents.
So, I was born a politician and politics is in my blood. My late father bequeathed politics to me.

DT: Have any of your children indicated interest in politics?

Marafa: Yes, some of them have done so. I have nine of them, and at the end of the last Ramadan fast, one of my daughters told me that she doesn’t want to study pharmacy anymore, that she rather wants to study law. Meanwhile all this while, we’ve been discussing about her studying pharmacy. I reminded her that her elder brother is already studying Law and she said it doesn’t matter. She said she wants to study Law and become a senator because she has plans for my village. She said she was impressed with how far I have taken the village, but that she wants to take it to a higher level. So I told her ‘that is very good. More grease to your elbow’.

DT: Are you going to support her?

Marafa: Why not? Anything my children want to do, so long as it is not haram (prohibited), I will support them. What I don’t want is for them to say they want to work in NDIC, NNPC, CBN or so on.

DT: If you were not into politics, what would you be doing?

Marafa: Well, I’m an engineer and I love the profession. I was born with some skills. After about eight years in paid employment, I found out that employment was not for me. I felt that what I was earning was small; I felt I could earn more if I venture into private business so I put in my resignation at the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC).

I remember that the day I put in my resignation was the day I was promoted. My supervisor called me to give me my promotion letter; he stood up and handed the promotion letter to him. Immediately he sat back, I stood up and handed my resignation letter to him. When I gave it to him, he asked me ‘are you crazy’? He told me a lot of people were looking for work in NNPC, so ‘why are you resigning’? I told him that even if I was going to be promoted every three years, I will put in another 20 years before I could become an executive director. I also told him that the responsibility on me as the first child to acquire western education in the family was enormous.

DT: How much were you earning then?

Marafa: I joined the company in 1985 and left in 1993. As at the time I left, I think my salary was about N2,100 or so. It was a lot of money at that time. When I started, my salary was N700. But the problem was that the salary could not solve my problems.

DT: When you resigned from KRPC/NNPC, what did you go into?

Marafa: I went into furniture business. When I resigned, I had only N10,000 - my furniture allowance. However, my friend Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, who was a local government chairman then, had attended a conference in the South and on his way back slept in Enugu. At the hotel, he met a guy who studied in the US and on his return to the country established a furniture company called Royal Decor. He took Sule to his showroom and my friend was impressed. He asked the guy whether he would like to have a partner in the North and he said yes. On his return, Sule sold the idea to me and we went to Enugu together. We met and agreed on the modalities of the business. We rented our showroom at Gombe Road in Kaduna and that was how we started. Till today, I’m still making money from furniture business.

DT: How much were you making at the furniture company?

Marafa: Much higher than what I earned at the refinery but I can’t say it because in business, you don’t disclose your earnings but my monthly salary as the manager of the business was N5,000 higher than the N2,000 I was earning at the KRPC.

DT: How much did you invest in the business?

Marafa: Not much. We just rented a showroom and provided the necessary facilities. The man supplied us and we made some money. It was from there that I went into building construction and later started importing computer accessories from Dubai.

DT: You didn’t talk about your restaurant. How did you find yourself in it?

Marafa: Yes, that is another one. When Zamfara State was created in 1996, I was doing well in business and there was no decent restaurant in Gusau, the state capital. Whenever I travelled with my friend to Gusau, I found it very difficult to get them decent places to eat. So, I and some friends felt we should do something. We rented an apartment and renovated it to a decent level and I put my brother there to manage it. That was how we established Food Palace Gusau, and Kaduna. And the business is doing well.

DT: How are you managing the restaurant now that you are a senator?

Marafa: I don’t know much about the business now because I have not been in it for a very long time. The restaurants are being managed by my brothers. They are doing very well. I encouraged my brothers to be self-reliant. Even my children, I’m not training them to wait for paid employment. I always tell my children to delve into areas where they will employ people, and not to be employed. My first daughter just graduated not too long ago as an architect, and I’m encouraging her to start the business of architecture. I have given her an office in Kaduna and she is trying her hands in architecture. Her younger brother is studying Law and I want him to go into private practice not to be employed by government.

DT: Sir, how rich are you?

Marafa: I’m extremely rich because to me richness is in the mind. It is not how much money you have. As far as I’m concerned, I’m richer than Aliko Dangote because the little I have is enough for me. I have never put myself in a very tight situation. This is my sixth year as a senator and I’m still living in a rented house. I don’t have a house in Abuja but I believe when the time comes I’ll have it.

DT: Do you mean you don’t have enough money, as a senator, to buy a house in Abuja?

Marafa: Honestly, I do not. I’m always conscious of my responsibilities. People voted me into this office. So, I should not just come here to serve myself and my children. What I promised people was that I’m not going to be perfect but on every naira I get, I’m going to spend 60 kobo on them and the remaining 40 kobo on myself. This is the principle that I operate. So, anything that I get, I try to rationalize between me and them. There is no fasting or Sallah period that I don’t spend enormously on my constituents.

DT: What does you daily schedule look like?

Marafa: It’s very hectic and energy consuming. Most importantly, a lot of people don’t appreciate what we do because they are not educated enough to know what we are doing as senators. From morning till night, we are always busy. Unfortunately, you journalists don’t educate Nigerians on the activities of the lawmakers. People think everything about us is limited to the plenary. No, it’s far beyond that.

DT: How do you unwind?

Marafa: I unwind by forgiving people and I relax with my family, friends and constituents, listening to genuine complaints.