What Nasir el-Rufai told me

Kaduna is today comparable to only Yola and Minna in terms of infrastructural decay and ecstatic of a city even given the Nigerian standard. Kaduna city is dirty and dark once it is 7pm unlike what one sees in Gusau, Katsina and other places that were ‘liberated’ into state capital-hood recently.The infrastructural development which began […]

Kaduna is today comparable to only Yola and Minna in terms of infrastructural decay and ecstatic of a city even given the Nigerian standard. Kaduna city is dirty and dark once it is 7pm unlike what one sees in Gusau, Katsina and other places that were ‘liberated’ into state capital-hood recently.
The infrastructural development which began in 1999 was soon to be abandoned by the government of Namadi Sambo in 2007. Since then, what you see all over the state is an array of dilapidated infrastructure to the extent that one gets worried and possibly jealous when visiting other cities in the neighborhood and across the country.
Not even worried about infrastructure, the most disturbing epidemic is the failure of the public educational system across the state. Kaduna is touted as the centre of learning but education is certainly comatose and in bad state. What we enjoyed a few years ago is virtually absent. Our children are undergoing an educational routine whose guarantee is in serious doubt and yet most parents live for school fees without necessarily the realisation of the much-desired education for their children.
As a product of the public school system, I am worried at the degree of dilapidation that we face in our state and the nation as a whole. Public schools have collapsed and the majority of our young people are subjected to poor education. Can anybody therefore pretend as not to know why the degree of social unrest in our communities has taken the lead rather than exception?
Nasir el-Rufai told us that he would send his children to public schools. Yes, he too went through the same system and came out of the university with a first class degree. It is not possible for the young ones of today to achieve that. I am investing the future of my children and the young ones on this man who is pledgingto change the decaying system into yet a productive social outlet that would guarantee the future of the society.
If we can get the educational system back on track, we would have succeeded in addressing half the obvious calamities that we face in the state and the country as a whole. Recent statistics suggest that about 75 percent of the nation’s population isbelow the age of 35 years. Kaduna is the third most populous state after Kano and Lagos.
A more disturbing statistic by UNICEF shows that about six million children are given birth to every year in Nigeria and fourmillion are in the 19 northern states and the FCT. What this means is that the most important area that governments need to pay attention to is education in order to guarantee the future and stabilise the present.
I am excited and convinced that el-Rufai would have his words burnt and I am prepared to encourage and ensure that such a feat is achieved ones again in my life time so I can die happier than I am at the moment.
Another thing Nasiru told us is that he is going to revitalise the public health system in the state. In Nigeria today, our hospitals are not even the consultancy clinics that General Abachareferred to in his December 31, 1983, coup speech.
The hospitals are now bungalows infested by reptiles. Poor quality medical staff because the university and other tertiary support institutions have collapsed and as the saying goes, it is garbage in, garbage out. My friend told me that a doctor once asked him in a Cairo hospital whether there is no hospital in Nigeria. The Egyptian was responding to the influx of Nigerians into Egyptian hospitals with veryminor ailments that were once treated in dispensaries across our rural areas. Now that there are general hospitals and comprehensive health centres all over the place, they are merely shadows that do not serve any good to anybody.
Yes, we want change in that area and I think we should go for it without any hesitation.I belong to the category of those people of Kaduna State who believe that the right path to take is that of change. We have tried these people, and their party for a long time and we have seen the best they can offer. I recommend change for myself, my family, my community and the people as a whole.
Above all, what is in gross deficiency is law and order in the state and the society. We are very arbitrary. A people cannot make any meaningful progressunder an atmosphere of lawlessness. el-Rufai told us he would ensure that law and order are restored in the state; the doctrine of rule of law, which has as cardinal tenet equality before the law. Supremacy of the law would guide the conduct of leaders and the led. I think this more than any other thing speaks volumes about the gargantuan impunity that we see in Nigeria in the days of the PDP and its rulers.
We have no choice than to redeem our national image by complementing the centre with effective units. Under this, Nigerians can lay effective claim to dividends of democracy. The era of looting would have been over and we would see what collectivism means and more so now that people have forcefully regained the power of their votes. We have cried at the top of our voices for a very long time and through the well-meaning steps of INEC and its leadership, Nigerians now have votes and would hardly ever be taken for a ride by those at the helm of affairs of government at every level.
In Kaduna, I have listened to the el-Rufai sermon and I am convinced it is the way out for me and millions of those who live in our state. I therefore will do the needful and I encourage all and sundry to do the same. God bless Kaduna State and Nigeria. May all the difficulties of the past constitute the negative histories that those young and yet unborn would be thought as a lesson of aversion.