Nupe politics and the deliberate misreading of Senator Sani Musa

Politics in my beloved Niger State has never lacked passion. It has never lacked rumours. It has never lacked the tendency to take a statement, strip it of context, stretch it beyond recognition and then present the distorted version as established truth.

That tendency is once again on display in the conversations surrounding Senator Mohammed Sani Musa, widely known across the state as 313.

In some political circles, particularly among those already looking beyond the horizon to the governorship contest that may emerge after the tenure of Governor Umaru Bago, a narrative has begun to gain currency. It is the claim that Senator 313 is somehow hostile to Nupe interests. It is a narrative built largely around a statement he made during discussions about road infrastructure and development priorities in Niger State, even though it was during Buhari.

Like many political myths, it survives not because of its strength but because of its repetition. The truth is far more nuanced.

At the centre of the controversy was the long-standing expectation that the Agaie–Baro Road would unlock enormous economic opportunities for Nupe communities and for Niger State as a whole. Few people dispute the strategic importance of the road. For decades, it has been regarded as a potential catalyst for commerce, transportation and regional development, largely because it provides access to the Baro Port. Yet the port itself remains a source of uncertainty. To this day, its future is unclear, and there is little indication that it will be fully harnessed and put into operation in the foreseeable future.

What Senator 313 argued was not that the road lacked value. His point, as many who followed the discussion understood, was that infrastructure cannot be viewed in isolation. A major road cannot deliver its full economic promise when the arteries connecting it to other critical destinations are themselves in a state of collapse.

The argument was essentially one of connectivity.

A road that leads nowhere useful is merely asphalt. A road that cannot be efficiently accessed because adjoining routes have deteriorated cannot produce the transformational economic impact that people expect from it.

It was in that context that attention was drawn to roads such as the Lapai-Agaie-Bida corridor and to other strategic routes whose condition had become a serious impediment to movement, trade and development.

One may agree or disagree with that assessment. Reasonable people often disagree on matters of public policy. What is difficult to sustain, however, is the claim that such an argument amounts to hostility toward an entire ethnic group.

That interpretation collapses under the weight of evidence.

If Senator 313 were motivated by ethnic considerations, logic would suggest that his advocacy would be narrowly confined to projects located within his own immediate political environment. Yet that was not the case. Instead, he championed the Mokwa-Birnin Gwari road, which is not in his Senatorial District.

the Mokwa-Birnin Gwari road, is not a minor route. Before its current deterioration, it was one of the most important transportation corridors in the country. It served as a major gateway linking southern commercial activity to northern markets. Countless articulated vehicles depended on it. Its economic significance extended far beyond any single local government area or senatorial district. Therefore, advocating for the rehabilitation of such a road is to think beyond ethnic boundaries and local calculations. It is to think in terms of economic ecosystems.

That distinction matters.

States are not developed through tribal arithmetic. They are developed through interconnected infrastructure, integrated markets and policies that recognise that prosperity in one area ultimately benefits another.

The tragedy of much contemporary political discourse is that development questions are increasingly being filtered through ethnic lenses. A proposal is no longer evaluated on its merit. It is first examined for clues about which group might benefit. This approach impoverishes public debate. It also risks punishing leaders who attempt to think broadly rather than parochially.

Recently, I lunched with some respected Nupe elders, and our conversation drifted toward the future of Niger State politics. Among the concerns some of them expressed was the belief that Senator 313 may eventually seek the governorship and that some Nupe political actors were already mobilising against him on the basis of the old controversy surrounding his remarks on infrastructure priorities.

The concern was genuine.

Yet listening to the discussion, one could not escape the feeling that the debate had become detached from the larger record of the man himself.

Political figures should be judged by patterns rather than isolated fragments.
They should be judged by what they have done, not merely by what opponents say they meant. When viewed through that lens, the image of Senator 313 as an ethnic exclusionist becomes increasingly difficult to defend. Perhaps the most compelling evidence lies in education.

Among the most ambitious interventions associated with him is the scholarship programme that has touched lives across different parts of Niger State. What makes the initiative remarkable is not merely its scale but its reach. The beneficiaries are not restricted to a single ethnic constituency. They are not confined to a single senatorial district. They include young people whose communities fall outside his immediate political jurisdiction. Such a programme is neither cheap nor politically convenient.

Scholarship schemes of such substantial size are usually associated with only state or federal governments because only them have the resources required to sustain them. For an individual political office holder to shoulder such commitments is no small undertaking.

The easier path would have been to focus exclusively on areas that guarantee immediate political returns. The more difficult path is to invest across boundaries. That is the path he has squarely chosen.

The same pattern was visible during the tragic flooding that devastated parts of Mokwa last year. It is axiomatic that in moments of disaster, rhetoric loses its value; what matters is response. Communities remember who arrived, who offered assistance, and who stood with them when grief was fresh and uncertainty was overwhelming. Reports from that period indicate that Senator 313 was among the earliest persons who provided support through financial contributions and relief materials. Again, this was not a matter of political geography. Disaster does not ask for ethnic identity before it strikes, and compassion should not be required to do so before it responds. Those who insist on portraying him as indifferent to Nupe interests must therefore answer a simple question: why would a man allegedly hostile to a people repeatedly invest political capital, financial resources, and personal effort in causes that directly affect those same people? The contradiction is glaring.

Perhaps the strongest symbolic rebuttal to the allegation came only days ago with the conferment of the title Madakin Rayyan Kasar Nupe.

Traditional institutions do not operate in a vacuum. Traditional titles of significance are not ordinarily distributed without reflection. They are often reserved for individuals whose contributions have earned recognition from the custodians of community heritage. Although no institution is infallible. and no traditional ruler is beyond criticism, yet it is difficult to imagine that a revered monarch would honour a man perceived as fundamentally opposed to the interests of his people. The Etsu Nupe has long enjoyed a reputation for wisdom, caution and discernment. The conferment of such a title inevitably sends a message. Whether one agrees with every decision of Senator 313 or not, the honour suggests that influential voices within Nupe society see in him something different from the caricature being circulated by critics. It suggests recognition rather than rejection. It suggest respect rather than suspicion and partnership rather than hostility.

There is also a broader lesson here. The politics of 2031 remains largely speculative. Nigeria has not yet completed the electoral cycles that lie between now and then. Political alignments will change. Alliances will emerge and disappear. Circumstances will evolve in ways nobody can fully predict. To begin prosecuting future governorship contests today through ethnic mobilisation is premature at best and reckless at worst. Democracy functions best when voters evaluate candidates on competence, vision, character and performance. It functions malignantly when electoral choices are reduced to ancestry. Niger State deserves better.

The state is too rich in human talent and too blessed with strategic potential to be trapped in perpetual arguments about origin and identity. Its future will depend on leaders capable of seeing the whole map. Leaders who understand that roads do not carry only one ethnicity. Schools do not educate only one ethnicity. Hospitals do not treat only one ethnicity. Development itself is blind to tribe. That is why the most consequential question is not whether a politician belongs to one group or another. The question is whether he possesses the capacity to advance the collective interest.

As a journalist, I have had the privilege of speaking with numerous analysts, public affairs commentators and policy observers over the years. Their views naturally differ on many issues. Yet one recurring observation is that Senator Mohammed Sani Musa has established himself as one of the more active and nationally visible legislators of his generation.

Reasonable people may debate rankings. They may disagree on specific policies. They may even oppose his political ambitions. Such disagreements are healthy in a democracy. What is less healthy is the deliberate construction of narratives that ignore evidence and substitute suspicion for facts.

Thank God, however, that beyond the noise of political whispering and the calculations of vested interests, there is another constituency whose voice deserves attention. It is the constituency of informed young people. A quick glance at Facebook and X reveals a recurring pattern. Many well-educated and articulate young Nigerlites regularly speak of Senator 313 in terms that go beyond partisan loyalty. They see in him a politician who has managed to combine visibility, accessibility and tangible interventions in a way that is increasingly rare in contemporary politics.

Their sentiments became particularly evident during the recent “Osa La Si” turbulence that threatened his chances of securing the APC ticket. “Osa La Si”, the popular Gbagyi expression meaning “it is time”, generated considerable political excitement and uncertainty. Yet among many young people, the dominant reaction was not celebration at the prospect of his political setback. It was anxiety. They worried openly about what Niger State and indeed the country might lose if Senator 313 were absent from the Senate after 2027.

Of course, no individual is indispensable. No public office should revolve around one person. Nations and institutions are larger than any single politician. Yet it would be dishonest to ignore the reality of the Nigerian condition. In a country where genuine commitment to public service is often scarce, where many public officials struggle to translate promises into measurable impact, abruptly sidelining a figure with an active record of intervention could place a needless obstacle before initiatives that are already yielding results. One may disagree with him politically, but it is difficult to deny that he has built momentum around projects and programmes that many citizens have come to value.

Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that no politician from Niger State currently enjoys the level of name recognition and public visibility that Senator 313 commands. His reputation has travelled beyond the elite circles of Abuja and Minna into the villages, markets and ordinary homes where political conversations often take their most authentic form. I was reminded of this during trip to my village recently. In the course of a casual conversation, my elderly aunt, a woman with no education and no active engagement with political debates on television or social media, suddenly mentioned Senator 313 as the type of senator ‘her zone’ deserves. I was genuinely surprised. How, I wondered, had she come to know so much about him? The answer was simple. When a politician’s activities consistently touch communities and become subjects of everyday discussion, his name acquires a life of its own. It travels from city to village, from newspaper columns to market stalls, from policy circles to family compounds.

Ultimately, that is why attempts to reduce Senator Mohammed Sani Musa to a narrow ethnic caricature are unlikely to endure. Public perception is shaped not only by political propaganda but also by lived experience. And for a growing number of Nigerlites, especially the younger generation, the story of 313 is not the story of division. It is the story of a politician whose reach, influence and aspirations have long outgrown the boundaries that some critics seek to impose upon him.

Senator 313 may or may not seek higher office in the future. That decision belongs to him and ultimately to the electorate.

But if the day comes when Niger State must evaluate his suitability for greater responsibility, the assessment should be based on the totality of his record.

Not on a misreading.

Not on a distortion.

And certainly not on a myth.

Awaal Gata is an Abuja-based journalist and public commentator