My first wrangle with the Secretary to Katsina State Government (SSG), as the General Manager (GM), Katsina State Television (KTTV), happened during a public political function in Katsina.
Politicians, academics and the general public were invited from all over the Northwest Zone of Nigeria, which Katsina State hosted. Papers were presented by resource persons who delivered lectures. And the state governor personally attended together with his commissioners and the SSG.
The SSG had earlier directed us (The GM, KTTV and GM, State Radio) to ensure that the event was covered live. We made all the necessary arrangements for the success of the live coverage.
One of the resource persons that delivered a lecture was a Ph.D (now a Professor) from Bayero University, Kano (BUK). He is a "radical", in every sense of the word, and a very strong critic of the Obasanjo administration. He was half way into the lecture and was criticising both the State and Federal Governments, in the presence of the state governor. I stole a glance at the governor and saw that his whole countenance had changed. Although he tried to keep his face expressionless, it was easy to see that he was angry.
He suddenly got up and walked out of the venue and back to his office, followed by his entourage. I instinctively knew that we were in trouble. A few minutes later, we (GM, Radio and myself) were summoned to the government house and told to immediately suspend the live coverage of the event. We were ushered straight into the governor's personal office. There we found seated in a half circle, some members of the Executive Council, and the SSG, who flanked the governor and a few Special Advisers (SAs). To us, it was like facing the firing squad. We stopped dead in our tracks and faced them. It was like goats facing a pride of hungry lions. For a full minute, no one said anything. Then the soft spoken governor looked at me (probably because he knows me personally) and said softly, "Ahmad, who told you to cover that event live?". Without hesitation, I said it was the SSG who directed us.
The SSG immediately jumped out of his seat and said, "Me? When did I give you that instruction?". I calmly stared at him in the face, eyeball to eyeball, and said, "You called me on phone, yesterday and gave me that instruction". I brought out my phone and tried to show the record of the call when the GM, Radio, also brought out his phone and said, "And you directed me by text message, and here is the message". Wow!
The governor just got up and addressed the SA and told him to settle the matter. He walked out of the office and left us arguing with the SSG. And that was the end of it.