As PMB visits Borno: Lessons for northern governors

As President Muhammadu Buhari visits Maiduguri, the Borno state capital on a two-day state visit starting from today, Thursday 25th April, 2019, Nigerians would surely be transfixed, awed and flabbergasted as to how a state stewed in a decade old mindless intractable bloodshed could achieve such an uncommon and unprecedented record of achievements. There is […]

As President Muhammadu Buhari visits Maiduguri, the Borno state capital on a two-day state visit starting from today, Thursday 25th April, 2019, Nigerians would surely be transfixed, awed and flabbergasted as to how a state stewed in a decade old mindless intractable bloodshed could achieve such an uncommon and unprecedented record of achievements. There is no doubt that Governor Kashim Shettima will, at the end of the visit, be crowned as Nigeria’s most active, development-driven, courageous and eagle-eyed Governor of his time. This will be on account of his unparalleled achievements in the development of infrastructure in the critical areas that have stymied development in the north and stopped it from achieving its full potentials.

It will be proven, to the chagrin of Northern Nigeria’s wasteful and directionless governors that the absence of peace can never be an excuse for inability to channel scarce resources to put their states on the path of rectitude.

The presidential visit will, no doubt open the eyes of Nigerians to see and appreciate one Governor’s selfless comportment and an unmatched commitment to pursue policies that have, forever changed the narratives of governance at the state level in this country. The refrain is that if Borno, despite the security breaches and challenges could achieve the feat it did, Governors who have practically failed their states in an atmosphere of lesser challenges would now know that it is all in the heart. The visit is therefore a long sought avenue for the people of Borno to celebrate their Governor’s uncommon courage, eagle-eyed vision and transparency in the way he handled the state. Bornolites would bring out the drums to commemorate a singular and exceptional feat.

In the education sector alone, the following are glimpses of what visitors would see: 1711 classrooms across 256 primary schools; 44 new ultra-modern mega boarding primary schools, each with a capacity for 900 to 1600 pupils purposely for 52,000 orphans of Boko Haram attacks; 100 American 90-seater yellow school buses for free transport of primary and junior secondary school pupils; 27 senior secondary schools overhauled, expanded and equipped; 16 new senior secondary schools established and one state owned Ramat Polytechnic and 5 colleges remodeled with lecture halls and the establishment of the Borno’s first state University since creation in 1976.  Since the news broke out about Kashim Shettima’s ambitious industrial revolution, Nigerians were literally spell-bounded  that such a number of plants and factories at such a scale unheard of, had been launched in Borno state. A total of 15 factories are either fully completed and have been test ran or are nearing completion. On the list are Africa’s biggest Solar Panel Factory, Waste Cycling Plant, Tomatoes Processing Plant, Onions and ginger Processing Plant, Cassava Processing Plant, PVC pipes production Factory and the Borno Plastic Factory but to mention just some of them. Many township roads across the state, agricultural transformation implements and equipment and high tech and lifesaving medical and laboratory equipment would also be commissioned.

The intent of this write up however is to address the lamentable and condemnable attitude of Governors of the Northern states who are grossly and unpardonably wanting in addressing the fundamentals of why the North is perpetually backward and portentous. Why is the North the most violent and destructive and why is its future, sadly ominous, scary and from all intent and purposes… a ticking time bomb? It is important to see the priority Governor Kashim Shettima had given to education for what it is. In doing so, we must not lose sight of the head-start which states in the South have had over the North in pursuit of western education and tell ourselves the painful truth on why the north is irredeemably headed for the rocks on account of its unproductive and dangerously illiterate population which is ballooning almost astronomically. It is believed that there are about eleven million children out of schools in the North. While Kano would have the highest of between two and three million, Borno, Kaduna and Sokoto could account for about four or five million in-between them. By 2030, Nigeria’s population is expected to hit 440 Million and by 2050, the north will account for 70 percent of this.

The fortune Governor Shettima expended to address the malaise is, going by the scale of destruction in a decade old terror campaign, a natural response to address it. But since no state in the north can be said to be reasonably on any scale near a single state in the southwest, we can safely conclude that Borno state has become a model for every state in the North to copy, if our desire to secure the future and arrest the dangerous and inescapable slide into the abyss, is actually to make any meaning.

The Boko Haram insurgency, the banditry and the general restiveness of the youths in the North are direct consequences of the criminal neglect of the education sector by our past and present leaders. The large population of out-of-school children as is evident in the Almajiri syndrome and other drug-induced jobless thugs populating our political space has shown a capacity to cause mayhem and make our part of the country unruly and a hell on earth. Can anybody hazard a guess as to how hot the North will become in a few years to come if a deliberate effort is not made to change our priorities and address the core issues? There is the temptation for some leaders in the North, for reasons of pomposity, to see Kashim’s achievements in the education sector as an ego-messaging trip. My hope however is that, it will rather have a domino effect and change the way resources are frittered away vaingloriously. Education is the only key to unlock the North’s potentials and turn our demographic liability to demographic dividend.

Ahmed-BK wrote this piece from Maiduguri, Borno State.