Dakingari’s transparency paradigm garb

I am as apolitical as they come and so I personally see Dakingari in a different garb altogether. He may appear taciturn alright and one will be right to see him as meek and unassuming going by the frailness, the carriage of humility, the harmless disposition and the humble debonair which he always exudes. Of […]

I am as apolitical as they come and so I personally see Dakingari in a different garb altogether. He may appear taciturn alright and one will be right to see him as meek and unassuming going by the frailness, the carriage of humility, the harmless disposition and the humble debonair which he always exudes. Of course he became Governor almost by default … that is to say that not even Dakingari himself could have thought of nicking it so effortlessly and so easily. It came just out of the blues, a preposition which suggested that it was purely Allah’s way of answering the persistent prayers and beseeching of the downtrodden people of Kebbi state for freedom and development.

To begin with, his name does not ring that kind of bell and those who planned it that way in order to benefit from it, had zeroed on him to fit into that bill. What they had desired was to be given the leeway to, unabashedly and without any encumbrance pinch the till to their fill. You cannot ascribe this divine intervention to anything other than the God Almighty. Dakingari may not have rushed projects as it was done yesterday; not because he lacked the capacity to do so but because he had no motivation to amass wealth primitively, which as we all have realised later, was always the ultimate reason for the haste. Today Kebbi is the better for Dakingari’s penchant for meticulous planning, due process and a zero tolerance for corruption.

We have seen governors of all hue in Kebbi sate, both military and civilians. Virtually all of them have rushed it on the altar of fast tracking development. And I presumed that the rush must have accounted for the appreciable level of infrastructural development in Kebbi today. But again, no one had sat down to do an analysis of whether what is on ground today is in sync with the totality of cash inflow into the state from all sources. This is crucially important because it is desirable if we are to appreciate the quantum of every governor’s achievements.

This is the point where what I call the ‘’Dakingari transparency paradigm’’ comes into it. I am talking about the importance of planning well ahead of time, institutionalising mechanisms to stop corruption and dealing with it where it occurs and generally enshrining embodying structures to apply resources transparently and in consonance with desirability, resource availability and due process. Unlike in the past when some governors lacked the will and the discipline to sacrifice their inordinate and self serving instincts, Dakingari came on board above board and by the time he settled down to the business of governance, no one was left in any doubt that the government was markedly different and would neither condone, nor tolerate the profligacy and the kleptomania of the past. And in no time the message passed across to the target it was meant for. The civil servants who were initially not the target of the policy but some of whom nonetheless became its victims, disguisedly benefitted most from Dakingari’s milk of human kindness. He introduced a policy of 100% down payment of pension to all deserving civil servants in the state.

Because of that policy, Kebbi, as at today is about the only state in the federation that has paid pension to the last kobo to all those that were criminally owed and completely abandoned to the elements. While everyone has been paid to the last kobo, the policy was concordantly and in the spirit of humanity made to become a source of continued happiness for the ageing population of senior citizens who retire along with their retirement packages in tow.

No government before this has come near doing anything like this. Instead of making the civil service attractive, beneficial and worthy to all through a pro-people policy, very few and privileged class of them who had access to the vaults made a kill of it and usually retired into looted affluence leaving the rest in perpetual despondency and squalor… and they are in their thousands with perhaps millions of dependants. Now, all the loopholes of graft have been blocked. What everyone gets at the end of the day is his or her entitlements and benefits in full. Money is saved as is the case in Kebbi today and well articulated and planned projects are thus undertaken and spread evenly to benefit the entire state.

And because the Dakingari’s government is in no rush to make overnight millionaires out of any spoilt brat, and because its purpose is to serve with the absolute fear of God, it may be seen to be unduly slow or trenchantly due process compliant or even misconstrued as sluggish. But nothing could be farther from the truth. The truth is that the people have been programmed to see things from the prism of the corrupt leaders and now that someone is insistent on shepherding them to the right path once again, eyebrows could be raised. Luckily, the days of doubts as to the direction of the Dakingari government have passed, as Kebbi as a whole has seen the need for it and everyone has become amenable to be reoriented.

Maibindiga wrote from Kofar Kola, Birnin Kebbi and can be reached at [email protected]