Still on Niger State: Waiting for a leader

The duo of Muhammad Al-Ghazali and Jibrin Baba Ndace, who are the authors of this discourse, need not to worry about the continuation of this tête-à-tête. My piece did not target either of them or Governor Abubakar Sani Bello’s administration, rather the burden of our shared indigeneship has made me a stakeholder in the discourse, […]

The duo of Muhammad Al-Ghazali and Jibrin Baba Ndace, who are the authors of this discourse, need not to worry about the continuation of this tête-à-tête. My piece did not target either of them or Governor Abubakar Sani Bello’s administration, rather the burden of our shared indigeneship has made me a stakeholder in the discourse, governance and politics of our state. While Ghazali’s piece featured on the Daily Trust of February 16, 2016, that of the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Ndace, featured on the Febraury 23, 2016 in the same newspaper.
A nation is governed best when its leader governs free men. I do not pretend that in joining this discourse, I have neither sympathies towards my restless fellow Nigerlite’s nor vexations against the shortcomings of the past, and expectations from the present administration. But, I try my best to write candidly, leaving at the doorstep, my partisanship. It is an undeniable fact that our state has waited too long for leaders who know that quid pro quo should not be the status quo.
Mr. Jibrin’s assertion that Governor Bello won election based on the power of his original and authentic idea has got me baffled and kept me thinking if it was the same Jibrin that I have watched several times on Live TV programs as a blunt political commentator some few months back. I cannot agree and I believe many other Nigerlites will also agree with me that Governor Bello’s emergence was just a general phenomenon of change mantra that terminated the 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rule by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015 general elections across the country. The developmental holocaust witness by the state under the PDP administration left the masses without any alternative other than voting for the APC – and coupled with the ‘Buhari’s Factor’. These factors paved the way for many aspirants to win elections on a platter of gold in the APC across Nigeria, not on account of their credibility, competence, manifestos, know-how and authentic ideas.
Leadership styles vary so much that it is either one is a ‘doer not a talker’ or a ‘ talker not a doer’. But what happen if a leader is not a doer and not a talker? A leader can be a doer and at the same time a talker. Governor Nasiru El-Rufai, who Mr. Ghazali made reference to, is a combination of both – ‘a doer and a talker’.
Mr. Jibrin shouldn’t have wasted so much energy to buff his up principal by educating us on his success story in the private and public sectors. Mr. Ndace’s claim on the socio-economic havoc wreaked on our dear state by the immediate past administration of the PDP is laughable. That assertion has made him ignorant for not realizing that his principal, some of his cabinet members, appointees and the APC leaders in the state were all progeny of the PDP and part of the administration that occasioned the havoc on our state from 1999 to 2015.
Mr. Ghazali’s piece did not paint a picture of a stagnated state as misconstrued by Mr. Ndace in his rejoinder. Few weeks ago, Niger State celebrated 40 years and not a single project was commissioned to commemorate the historic event, whereas in faraway Ogun State, 40 laudable projects were commissioned. Is Mr. Ndace telling us that Ogun State is immune to the same lean purse which he said Niger State was suffering from?  I quite agree with Mr. Jibrin that it will take miracle for the damages done by successive administrations to be remedied, but many states in Nigeria had suffered similar fate and managed to come out of it: Kaduna, Kebbi, Jigawa, Katsina, Plateau and Benue state are good examples here.
In Jibrin’s attempt to educate us that Governor Bello’s achievement also included inviting investors to the state, Mr. Ndace should understand that while there presence is a plus to the administration, the state’s poor infrastructural facilities should be the topmost concern of the governor. How can investors operate freely in a state with poor road networks, absence of power supply and basic infrastructures? One wonders how many foreign investors have arrived Kaduna State in the last nine months and yet the governor is already making a giant stride in terms of employment generation, reforms in education and health sectors, electrification, urbanization, transportation and infrastructural development.
The poor condition of structures and learning facilities in our schools and hospitals which are more of farm houses should be a major concern to Governor Bello’s administration. The rehabilitation of the abattoir which the Chief Press Secretary mentioned as part of the administration’s achievement will not counted by many Nigerlities and readers as a huge achievement. The people of the state and those that are quite familiar with it will quite agree with me that the rehabilitation of abattoir was not our priority. Had opinions been sampled, hardly would one person out of 10 have mentioned abattoir as part of their major expectations from the government, let alone its rehabilitation.
Of recent, the Zamfara State government was quoted in the media as saying that that it had connected 86 communities to the national grid, but our state which proudly hosts two dams (Shiroro & Kainji) with another 700 Megawatts dam project going on in Zungeru cannot tell how many communities it has connected to national grid in last nine months. This is one of the areas the government should focus on, as it has a direct impact on the masses, especially the rural populace. Al-Ghazali’s message, which Mr. Ndace misconstrued, was nothing but a mere wakeup call to the administration of Governor Bello. On the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), it’s left to the Government to develop a strategy for increasing its revenue base. With the current financial crisis, many states in Nigeria have set up proper mechanism to not only boost their IGR, but also to penalize the defaulters.
Least I forget, I begged to differ with Mr. Ndace in strong terms in his rejoinder to Mr. Ghazali that Lapai-Gulu-Muye Road which was abandoned by the Chief Servant’s administration has reached 98% completion with the coming of Governor Bello’s administration. For his information and that of the readers, the said road has remained at the stage it was left by the PDP government and there is no construction work going on presently as he claimed.
Mr. Yahaya wrote in this piece from Jagbele Quarters of Muye, Niger State. +2348036616767