Politics and Nasarawa federal varsity site
It is arguable perhaps that Nasarawa State was one of the major influences that might have triggered the policy initiative of new universities on the part of the federal government. Although consigned for long periods to the backwaters of the mainstream socio-economic and political life of the country, Nasarawa’s strategic national security significance, underlined by […]
It is arguable perhaps that Nasarawa State was one of the major influences that might have triggered the policy initiative of new universities on the part of the federal government. Although consigned for long periods to the backwaters of the mainstream socio-economic and political life of the country, Nasarawa’s strategic national security significance, underlined by its contiguity to the federal capital territory (FCT) Abuja, is only now being recognized. Nasarawa is not only the state with the longest land border with Abuja, the federal capital territory is increasingly spilling over into the state with the rise of suburban outposts such as Karu, Nyanya, Mararaba and Keffi which currently absorb a significant working population of the federal capital. President Jonathan was quick to draw this vital nexus and ever since he has been in the vanguard of a concerted push to accord the acclaimed “Home of Solid Minerals” a pride of place in the national scheme of affairs.
The hosting of one of the new federal varsities in the state was obviously a step in this direction. Just as former Governor Aliyu Akwe Doma pushed harder to strengthen an emerging strategic partnership between Lafia and Abuja, Jonathan, in an unprecedented display of presidential generosity, responded with a plethora of appointments of qualified indigenes of the state into important national institutions. In reciprocating the President’s gesture vis-à-vis the new varsity, ex-governor Doma did not hesitate in selecting the state’s capital to host the new institution. The choice of Lafia, unlike the familiar instinct to appropriate such institutions to the locality of the incumbent, arose from an uncommon sense of patriotism. Doma was as well motivated by a desire to position Lafia as a centre of culture and learning
Acutely aware of the urgency of the situation, the former governor approved the location of the institution on the current premises of the College of Agriculture, Lafia, while the College would be relocated to Doma Council, an agrarian settlement where the lower Benue River Basin Development Authority already has a huge facility and demonstration farm that could readily assist the training of students in the college.
During a visit to Lafia in November 2010, the Minister of Education, Rukaiyatu Ahmad Rufai expressed satisfaction with the state of the existing infrastructure at the college and sued for the continued co-operation of the state government to ensure the immediate take-off of the university. This arrangement appeared plausible and the goal of an early take-off seemed realizable until the advent of Alhaji Tanko Al-Makura as the new helmsman of the State. The smell of noxious politics is in the air and the new Governor seems incapable of drawing a distinction between the long-term interests of the state and political shenanigans.
Consequently, not a few eyebrows were raised when upon assumption of office; Governor Al-Makuara torpedoed the location of the new varsity, and by implication, the chances of its early take-off, no thanks to his reversal of the relocation of the College of Agriculture from Lafia to Doma. Characteristic of military administrators, he peremptorily designated the site of the disused state Civil Service Secretariat at Akunza, Lafia, as the temporary site of the new university. It is necessary to note that such a drastic action was taken without prior consultation with either the State Executive Council or the National Universities Commission (NUC). Curiously, the Governor justified his action on the need “to pave the way for the immediate take-off of the federal university at the new site”.
Two months after, and with barely a month to the envisaged commencement of academic activities in the new federal universities, uncertainty surrounds the fate of the Lafia federal varsity. The take-off of the school is nowhere in sight, meanwhile, the disused state secretariat has fallen on advanced stages of atrophy and decay. Early this month, a Daily Trust correspondent who visited the state secretariat site at Akunza, Lafia, reported that the site had been “abandoned to roaming livestock”. He further reported: “when Daily Trust visited the proposed site, the facility was empty… The empty facility is now abandoned to herds of roaming cattle, sheep and goats which were sighted within the premises at various locations, grazing”.
The unfolding melodrama is a classical case of cutting one’s nose in order to spite his face. It fits into an emerging pattern of reducing public administration to a science of muddling through. When the chips are down, the proverbial grass that is bound to suffer as a result of a senseless elephantine muscle-flexing is none other than Nasarawa State whose people will sooner be abandoned to their ill-fate by the politicians.
Viewed strictly, Al-Makura’s disposition smacks of blatant hostility to the federal government whose altruistic intentions are being called into question. Good governance has clearly taken flight under a dispensation in which a state government constitutes itself into a wedge between the people and their expectations of democracy dividends. This singular act is a grim pointer to an opaque policy making process that has enthroned weird impulse as a credible substitute for rationality and reason.
Aliyu, a public affairs commentator, wrote from Abuja