Why Yahaya Bello deserves a chance

When on January 27, 2016, Yahaya Bello, an accomplished business mogul was sworn in as the fourth executive governor of Kogi State, many people were excited that it was the beginning of a new dawn for the people.  And since he came into office, he has worked hard to ensure that he meets the expectations. […]

When on January 27, 2016, Yahaya Bello, an accomplished business mogul was sworn in as the fourth executive governor of Kogi State, many people were excited that it was the beginning of a new dawn for the people. 

And since he came into office, he has worked hard to ensure that he meets the expectations.

No one expected the job to be easy, but so far, we can say that he is on the right track to salvage the state.  The government of Alhaji Yahaya Bello is running on the plate of the New Direction Agenda, which was an aggregate of the people’s voices. For the first time in the history of our dear state, government went round to find out the needs of the people from the people. All of those needs were then packed into the New Direction Blueprint which has become a pact with the people of the state. The agenda hopes to improve education, re-engineer health care, uplift our infrastructure, promote empowerment through agriculture, SMEs, tourism as well as reform the civil service and pension administration. 

The government has embarked on construction of model schools across the state and provision of infrastructure in tertiary institutions. The government has also reinstated bursary awards and set up governing councils for our tertiary institutions. Having significantly met the conditions set by our striking tertiary institutions staff, we know that they are prepared to prove to the world that they are partners in our drive for improved education. The administration has floated a number of programmes to make qualitative health care affordable. Today, our hospitals are witnessing a great turn-around. 

The GYB administration has also trained thousands of Kogi youths and women to enable them to be self-reliant.  

The civil service and pension reform is one of our tempo marks as an administration. We have been able to carry out a hugely successful staff verification exercise that has saved the state billions of naira. We are moving to the next stage of digitalising our register and payroll to make truancy, inefficiency and fraud a thing of the past.

We know that we are not there yet, but with the steps taken, we are optimistic that Kogi will witness tremendous change.  

Fanwo Kingsley is the Director General on Media and Publicity to the governor of Kogi State