Evolving a functional development strategy for Gombe

In Gombe State, the prevailing theme is the cooperative variant.  This is an area that the Governor Ibra-him Dankwambo adminis-tration has laid emphasis on since its inception.  What people think about the government is the outcome always of the experience of past administrations in which they are immersed.  This is also true of Gombe. Therefore […]

In Gombe State, the prevailing theme is the cooperative variant.  
This is an area that the Governor Ibra-him Dankwambo adminis-tration has laid emphasis on since its inception.  What people think about the government is the outcome always of the experience of past administrations in which they are immersed.  This is also true of Gombe. Therefore the Dankwambo-led administration should not be seen as different from its predecessors.  
Open-minded observers of Nigeria’s poli-tical scene with focus on Gombe State governors would have realized, in the last two years, that the boundaries between politics, business and social issues have been drawn too tightly for society’s good.
There is no question that in the past few years, there have been tremendous changes throughout the country, echoing a new political philosophy that government by tradition must be replaced by government by new thinking and new approach to matters of governance. There is nowhere else that this is particularly true as in the case of Gombe state in the past couple of years.
This is being ancho-red under the cardinal prog-rammes of qualitative education: rural econo-mic and regional plan-ning development; infra-structure and housing development; youth deve-lopment programme; road construction; water and power generation; poverty alleviation; health programme among other critical areas of the economy.
A Financial Services Agreement, FSA, was signed with the NEXIM Bank to mobilize investment to Gombe state including project mobilization. As an accountant by training, Dankwambo has brought into practice as the technicality of the financial scheme is floated to bridge the gap between traditional academic approaches to the study of government and thereby relate those approaches to the outputs of government; this approach deals exhaustively with the substantive examination of policy issues including implementation and evaluation.
With Alhaji Dankwambo’s underlying philosophy of good governance as the greatest good for the greater number of the state’s populace, he has severally emphasized that “the pride of all modern nation-states is symbolically tied up with the appearance, economic and social buoyancy of their states”. An illustrative analogy of his transformation agenda in the area of trade and industry is evident in the administration’s Empowerment and Wealth Creation programme; Establishment of Indus-trial Cluster/Enter-prise Zones/Estates in the state capital; Trade Intervention Fund Scheme floated to strengthen the financial position of traders as participants in the development of market; Women and Youth Empowerment; Estab-lishment of a Modern Commodity Depot; Mega Motor Park are all geared towards the promotion of the state as the commercial hub of the north-east geo-political zone of the country.
The administration’s integrated Infrastructure Master Plan partially effected and ongoing include the distribution of vehicles, tri-cycles and tri-cycle trucks on hire purchase basis to workers in the transport
Sector, including the ongoing construction of a Mega Motor Park, combined with the administration’s novel Open Apprenticeship Skills Acquisition Programme, providing an in-road to an interest-free loan of N200, 000.00 as business start-up.
The Establishment of a Modern Commodity Depot and Exchange Centre in Gombe for the promotion of modern commodity trading, estimated to cost N4 Billion is in progress, and on completion would go down as the first ever in Nigeria’s industrial evolution, equipped with Remote Access facilities for online commodity trading globally, representing a huge revenue and foreign exchange earner to the state, added to it, immense employment benefit to its citizens.
Other areas of the administration’s Industrialization programme under the Industrial Cluster/Enterprise Zone are Furniture making/Timber Cluster; Metal works/Makera; Modern Shopping Malls Cluster; Market and Groundnut Oil/Rice matters. In Dankwambo’s Gombe state within the past two years, all arms of government are directly involved in daily lives; the story of localities over the past two years has been one of transformation; they have shed their backward ways; reformed their institutions and emerged as capable and proactive. State resurgence is exemplified in improved revenue systems; expanded scope of state operations; faster diffusion of innovations. With increased capacity to govern effectively, the Dankwambo-led administration in Gombe state are producing results.
The functional and emotional effect of Dankwambo’s welfares scheme including his pro-poor initiatives on the people of Gombe state is generally seen as conclusive of the pact between Governor Dankwambo and the people of the state, with its enduring reputation long after the administration would have exhausted its tenure: its application of the fundamentals of good governances in all the strata of the state’s economy, which provides the basis for understanding the context and the relevance of the comparison with which we have in other states of the federation. The textual application and treatment of his budget is lucid and logical, enriching in knowledge and sound.
His activities in Gombe state mark the beginning of infrastructural intervention in the state’s political history on a bigger scale than previously, noting that the growth and prosperity of any nation-state is critically dependent on the adequacy and efficiency of its infrastructure.

Abubakar wrote from Abuja.