Groping in the dark in Nasarawa
Some of his mouth-watering promises included: stimulating the economy for long-term growth, imparting skills into young men and women that would create opportunities for self-employment, rehabilitation of roads, improve energy capabilities; restoration of education and transformation of institutions, continued respect and support for traditional rulers, providing clean water for the people, ensuring the protection of […]
Some of his mouth-watering promises included: stimulating the economy for long-term growth, imparting skills into young men and women that would create opportunities for self-employment, rehabilitation of roads, improve energy capabilities; restoration of education and transformation of institutions, continued respect and support for traditional rulers, providing clean water for the people, ensuring the protection of civil service, review of its conditions of service and to put in place systems and equipment that will enable it perform its functions creditably.
Three months after, the question on the lips of the indigenes of the state is: Where is Al-Makura’s promised wind of change? There is a popular adage that says you will know a good dancer from his dancing steps. Juxtaposing that adage with what is happening in Nasarawa State under Al-Makura’s superintendence, it is safe to conclude that probably overwhelmed by the enormity of issues involved in governance, he has lost his bearing, a situation that is responsible for his groping in the dark. When he made those elaborate promises during his campaigns as a gubernatorial candidate of CPC, nobody bothered to ask him how he intended to achieve his utopian dream of turning Nasarawa State into an Eldorado. Al-Makura also assured the people that he will ‘re-build’ the state as if his predecessor(s) did nothing other than to destroy it.
Surrounded largely by a motley crowd of political nonentities, the incumbent administration in Nasarawa State has been bogged down by indecision and incompetence; and instead of owing up to its inability to take-off the ground almost three months after assuming the reins of power or worse still, woeful failure of working towards fulfilling its campaign promises to the people, it has been manufacturing tones of excuses and trying to find a scapegoat in the former governor, Aliyu Akwe Doma.
When Al-Makura talked about re-building Narasawa State, I begin to ask myself, which Nasarawa state? Is the same state that Akwe Doma had worked so hard to put on the path to economic viability? Is the same state with a politically-enlightened citizenry capable of deciphering between truth, as epitomized by the Doma administration and illusion that currently struts the state’s landscape like a weather-beaten peacock.
The situation in Nasarawa State today has reached the lowly depth where loyalty or subscription or otherwise to the democratic project in the state is measured by how well one panders to the fancies and desires of ‘His Imperial Majesty,’ Al-Makura. Leadership, according to Bernard Montgomery, is the capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence. A leader is one who is caring and sensitive to the yearnings of the down-trodden; a man who is dedicated to reviving a comatose economy, who respects and fulfils promises. A leader is a true democrat, amenable to advice and capable of accommodating all dissenting voices.
Unfortunately, all these characteristics are lacking in the present leadership in the state, where traditional rulers, whom Al-Makura promised to respect, have become objects of ridicule by some miscreants, ostensibly with the support of the powers-that-be. While other governors are making headway in tackling the problems confronting their states like creating job opportunities for their unemployed youths and providing other forms of democracy dividends, the Nasarawa State helmsman, Tanko Al-Makura has been rather busy chasing shadows, ostracising those that matter in the state from the scheme of things. Today, apart from some few loafers hanging around him, it is difficult to point at any prominent citizen of the state that will be glad to openly identify with his wobbling government.
Equally amusing is the governor’s description by some humorists as the new face of Nasarawa. If indeed he is the new face of the state, how come he is alienating relevant stakeholders who could have assisted him in charting a positive roadmap for the state? If truly Al-Makura is the new face of the state, then too bad, for that face is not really appealing to behold. Methinks, it is a dreadful face of unspeakable violence, of disrespect for traditional rulers, custodians of the peoples’ culture, and a face of indecision and confusion. That cannot be the new face of a state that was gradually making its mark in the comity of states before the ascension of Al-Makura to the cockpit of power under controversial circumstances.
The point must be made and orchestrated that the fate of Nasarawa is too precious to be toyed with. My candid advice to Governor Tanko Al-Makura and his acolytes in Nasarawa State is that instead of constantly dissipating time and energy pursuing Doma vendetta, they should focus their attention on resolving several knotty problems stultifying the even development of the state. A word, it is often said, is enough for the wise.
Isiaka Mohammed, a Political Science undergraduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria sent in this piece from Zaria.