Adamawa: 100 days, 100 worries

In his selection of commissioners, Governor Bindowo Jibrilla despatched a man to preside over the ministry of women affairs, in Adamawa State. I’ll be watching how Aliyu Tola will embrace the role. His appointment has elicited reactions from women groups and politicians nationwide. Most of them consider the Adamawa governor as insensitive to gender issues. […]

In his selection of commissioners, Governor Bindowo Jibrilla despatched a man to preside over the ministry of women affairs, in Adamawa State. I’ll be watching how Aliyu Tola will embrace the role. His appointment has elicited reactions from women groups and politicians nationwide. Most of them consider the Adamawa governor as insensitive to gender issues. An activist in the state, Rahima Bala, says the decision is unwise. “I see no wisdom in appointing a male commissioner to ministry of women affairs. We will continue to teach himfeminine perspectives,” she concluded. One staunch supporter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Rifkatu Dantsoho, sees the appointment of most of the commissioners as reward for political patronage by a governor who has not come out of the PDP hangover of settling cronies. She calls the governor’s action “payback time”. Another observer of government affairs, Muhammad Damare, blames the state’s lawmakers for showing that merit and professionalism were not virtues of the new Adamawa status quo. Governor Bindowo might be praised for initiating massive infrastructural developments ever undertaken by any chief executive in the state within their first hundred days in office. His award of 23 roads in 53 days covering 300 km in the state is miraculous, by any standards. But it is a  collaboration with multinationals to provide rural feeder roads, to farmers through the phase two of its Rural Access and Mobility Project (RAMP-2)funded by the world Bank and French Development agency. Now it has become another area of concern. The project is to cost $50 million and the governor paid$3.2 million as counterpart funding. However, though Martins Babale, the Deputy Governor, described the project as proceeding at amazing pace he admitted too that there is now a heightened clamour by other communities in the state for consideration as the work has been described as lopsided. The people of Kala’afor example cannot travel home due to a collapsed bridge but the roads genie is saying nothing about them.
But work in the state has always been in the conventional parlance of “on-going”, always. And the state has remained the most backward in the country. But since charity begins at home I would be glad, being a Mubi-born myself, to see Bindowo turn Mubi into a small London as he promised. Adamawa state has been in the spotlight lately over questionable policies. It has been a hundred worries in a hundred days.
One of the governor’s bards has been praising the governor on posters all over the state, in a campaign after election or what many call “medicine after death”. The governor continues to feed this sycophant with funds from public coffers, perhaps, for 2019. Appointees are not any better. Chief of Staff to the governor Abdulrahman Abba Jimeta has become a national figure for his unpardonable gaffes, including demanding a huge sum of money to renovate his personal residence, before Gov. Bindow triggeredanger with his plan of spending N200 million for prayers against insurgency. The report was later denied. In another mediocre effort, where states are running on shoe-string budgets and seeking bailouts, the Adamawa state government
Appointed two dozen commissioners, 35 Special Advisers and 50 Development Area chiefs thereby showing that it is either oblivious of the state of the nation’seconomy, or incapable of appreciating dire straits. Womenaffairs isn’t the only area raising eyebrows. The allocation of N3.5bn to purchase 300 tonnes of fertilizer has caused uproar. Many say it is designed to enrich cronies. The tarring of the Faro-Jambutu road leading to the front door of Faro bottling company has been seen by such people as “booty-licking” in its finest. Policy analysts say all this is happening because Governor Bindowo is torn between two god-fathers; former VP Atiku Abubakar and former Governor Murtala Nyakko. He must choose between serving the devil and working with Judas, a situation that has ran many of the state’s governments aground. One amazing thing about this administration is that thieves have been allowed to walk free by the governor himself. While addressing
Directors of finance of the state Bindowo told them in Hausa, which has now become the language of official communication, that whoever stole government money has been left to Allah. This is out of tandem with the Buhari administration’s efforts at recovering every kobo stolen from the people at the federal level. The message? Adamawa is on auto-pilot. The last time I checked, the meaning of government remains the judicious management of public resources, the adequate and responsible provision of utilities and the fair and equitable administration of human and material capital.
Coupled with these are the provision of employment to the youths and making adequate arrangement for the severance of the elderly from public service. In principle, the governor’s party, the APC could willy-nilly fall within the category of a socialist or left-of-the-centre party which understands the meaning of social safety valves.
But I am worried that the triumph of the will of the people has become, for Adamawa people, a curse. That perhaps is why everything in Adamawa is left to Allah because curses can only be ameliorated by prayer, even if it costs N200m. However, my main worry is the women of Adamawa state who are a very hard working specie. Sure, in everything a woman does, there’s a little eye candy. But females need more than a man to represent their gender. They need someone who will represent their preferences, their sensitivities, their sensibilities and their voice. And I think this column has over a long period proved it has an authentic perspective about how women want to be treated. Women want to be respected and considered on the strength of their character and wisdom not their cosmetics. Women abhor being bossed around and Tola’s appointment has proved the chauvinistic nature of the governor and his complete disdain for the authentic female perspective. Don’t get me wrong. Every man loves everything woman. Tola may be many things to many people and could also be witty and well-dressed. But he is not a woman. Only a woman knows that feeling when you get home after a long day and take off your heels. And then comes menstrual cramps, a lump, and that “Oh no, I am turning into my mother” moment, none of which prayer can cure. But in a hundred days with hundred worries, Adamawa prays!