Obstacles on the path of Doma’s campaign train
As Artistic Director of the FESTAC 77, Doma was like an engine room, bringing Africa’s moment in the sun and Nigeria’s rise to her acclaimed status as Giant of Africa at a time Olusegun Obasanjo was Head of State. Exactly 30 years after; that was 2007, he met Obasanjo, again as Nigeria’s leader. This time, […]
As Artistic Director of the FESTAC 77, Doma was like an engine room, bringing Africa’s moment in the sun and Nigeria’s rise to her acclaimed status as Giant of Africa at a time Olusegun Obasanjo was Head of State. Exactly 30 years after; that was 2007, he met Obasanjo, again as Nigeria’s leader. This time, Doma was coming before the president to seek, and not to perform. He desired the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) flag to actualize his dream to govern the state. Obasanjo was only pleased to meet Doma again Doma, and to him (Doma), he personally handed the flag at a ceremony which was the then party candidate’s moment in the sun. These are past glories.
Doma has been on the political scene since second republic when he was deputy governor to Solomon Lar under the defunct Nigerian People’s Party (NPP). That was the old Plateau State. He knows that the deciding factors for re-elections are far too different from first time elections such as the one which took him to the state Government House in 2007. The factors for first election have changed in Nasarawa State, and what decides re-election has remained unchanged. This is where past glories do not count, nor which zone one hails from, makes a meaning. The people will neither take promises at this time. Re-election in Nasarawa has remained a period when the people make a critical assessment of the first term of the incumbent, and then decide based on how many of their fingers they have folded in counting their gains including executed projects. It is no time for promises.
As a grassroot politician, Doma needs not to be told what they need from his administration while going on the campaigns that gave him the victory at the poll. His campaign promises, therefore, centered on provision of basic infrastructure that will revive the collapsed rural economy. Considering his track record and the promises to lift them from decades of backwardness where they have been abandoned by previous administrations, the people of the rural areas of the state voted him.
The governor marked his one year in office with fanfare, but did not visit the rural areas comprising 13 local government areas and 16 development areas. His second year in office took him round the states to commission some of the projects so far executed. But like the first year, the tour was limited to urban centres including Lafia where he commissioned the first phase of the administration’s first project: Urban Renewal Programme which entails the provision of street lights along Lafia-Jos Road in the metropolis, the construction/rehabilitation of major roads and streets, the provision of a roundabout at the Doma Road Junction as well as a network of drainages to collect storm waters out of the metropolis. The street lights aspect was completed at this time, and the second year anniversary provided the opportunity for the commissioning. Other aspects of the ambitious programmes are yet to be completed, however.
The rural areas where Governor Doma counted for, and got his victory longed for his visit. The administration did not give reasons why he avoided it. But it was a strategy to surprise the people, the Information Commissioner, Barrister Mamman Alakayi said, explaining that his boss was deliberate in avoiding a tour of the grassroots, waiting for such a time when he will have projects scattered around for rural dwellers.
“It is the best time to return to the people at that level. As a grassroots politician, it was insensitive to go to them without anything tangible in return for their votes. Basically that was why my boss avoided the grassroots”, he said. He said during the three years, the rural areas underwent serious provision of pipe born water, school and hospital infrastructure, as well as other areas of development including the Bada Koshi Agricultural Loan Scheme and health care delivery.
Within the three years, a couple of feeder roads to link the rural communities and provide access to the market for farmers were constructed. Respite came particularly with Toto-Umashi and Nassarawa Eggon-Mada Station roads which are already completed while work is still going on Doma-Akwata, Gitata-Panda and Gudi Station-Anwar Zaria roads, raising them to various levels of completion. Assakio-Obi Road, and others in Agwatashi, Agaza, Keana, Giza , Agyaragu and Doma are also in various levels of completion with the administration targeting this year for commissioning.
In health, 111 primary healthcare clinics were constructed across the state. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) focal person in the state, Dr. Maikano Ari had called as “prioritized health agenda to keep the rural people including the farming population healthy”, saying all the clinics are provided with solar system which powers them as well as serve potable water from motorized boreholes.
There is also the provision of potable water through various rural water schemes in Doma, Keana, Nasarawa Eggon and Lafia with the one in Doma project entailing the rehabilitation of the old water scheme and the procurement of an additional 1000KVA generator to keep steady supply, raising it from 1.5 million gallons a day to the designed supply level of 3 million gallons per day. These have been complemented by the sinking of 130 boreholes in communities too far to access water from the water schemes. When he visited recently to appraise the combined efforts in the fight to eliminate Guinea Warm in the state, former Nigerian Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, head of the Cater Foundation and Gowon Centre, named the provision of potable water to rural communities as one of the magic potions that have eliminated the ancient disease in the state. He therefore sought the World Health Organization (WHO) to certify the country’s zero-Guinea Warm status.
The first phase of Doma’s Agricultural Scheme christened Bada-koshi, saw 456 farmers and farmer groups across state grabbing the N530 million loan secured for them by the state government, into various farming projects. The scheme which is planned to run for five years – 2009 – 2014 is aimed at accelerating and coordinated growth in the agricultural sector and to consolidate the state’s position as a leading producer of food in the country. This scheme which Doma declared as a legacy he intends to leave is expected to increase agricultural production by at least 70 per cent by 2014. The scheme further avails farmers the opportunity to access 52 tractors out of the 107 procured under Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement between the federal and state governments and Afcott Nigeria Limited. The agricultural development programme is further complemented by the roadmap to provide an international market for yams produced in the state with the on going efforts to condition yam for export under the programme called “Pepa Yam Export”.
The rural electrification programme is yet to record much as the tour has shown so far in Nasarawa West and part of Nasarawa North so far covered. But a couple of communities have had respite in this area. Ara, one of the communities at the Nasarawa/Abuja borders, has through the programme, been handed electricity through an N81 million project.
Ara, a bustling community at the edge of the famous Ara rocks, was promised electricity since the old Plateau State days – close to 20 years ago, but the project remained only a pipe dream for the people as one administration or the other looked away from the proposal, while the exploding population continued to face untold hardship. The provision of the link with national grid, by the Doma administration, therefore came as relief to the exploding population of Ara.
Doma had been banking on these provisions to return to the people with appreciation. So towards the anniversary of the third year in office, Doma decided on the first tour of the local government areas, in what Alakayi stated as “it is a tour to meet the people, thank them for their votes and support to the administration, commission some of the executed projects which are many around, and inspect some on going ones.”
Tagged “Meet the People Tour”, the tour which commenced in April, is still on, with the first phase of it: Nasarawa West zone, already done with as a larger part of Nasarawa North yet to be completed. The governor himself leads the tour which has members of the State Executive Council (SEC) including the Secretary to the State Government and commissioners as well as the Speaker of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, Barrister Musa Ahmed Mohammed, the hierarchy of the PDP in the state, and his associates.
He has commissioned projects in the areas visited so far, with promises to initiate more, having seen and heard from the people of the many problems still facing them in various ways. One community or the other have risen during the tour to call on Doma to make himself available for 2011 election in what they say was their show of appreciation for his efforts at the grassroots.
Doma will certainly go back to the grassroots during the campaigns for 2011, but the “Meet the People Tour” has remained a period of returning to the grassroots. The implications of not doing so in the life of an administration are far reaching and too dangerous to risk for one who dreams of a second term in office.