LET’S ASK OUR GOVERNORS QUESTIONS PART 2 –BY MARTINS OLOJA
GuberWatch:
Despite a flurry of unusual activities and groundswell
of opinion on the politics of post-cabinet-portfolio allocations, the rise and
rise of a Chief of Staff to the President and our notorious G-77 reportedly
painting Nigeria black in the United States, I would like us to continue with
our ‘Gubernatorial Watch’ this week.
I mean that there is nothing anyone can do about the
power of a stubborn president who would not like to work with public opinions.
Here again is the thing, let’s leave Buhari alone and concentrate on asking our
local leaders questions from where Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala left. She as finance
minister (2003-2006-2011-1015) began publication of monthly allocations from
Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) to states and local
governments. What have we done with that weapon of accountability?
I would like you to come along with me to understand
this perilous time: that we have said and written so little about our roots,
our states and local governments when it comes to where the rains have been
beating us because there has been too much of Abuja in all of us.
We need to repent and begin to pray about centrifugal
forces – that can propel us away from the centre to the peripheries of the
centre.
Soon and very
soon, so many media houses in Africa’s most populous nation will begin to
compile names of governors to be honoured and given awards to shore up
revenues.
Most Nigeria’s media managers organise these bizarre
events without considering the consequences for the media brands and indeed the
polity. That is an origin of a tragedy.
The primary responsibility of the news media even in
global context is to monitor governance (in politics and business) and to hold
such leaders to account.
As I was saying, development of Nigeria can only be a
result of combined effects of what all the tiers of government can do. The
federal government alone cannot be relied upon to improve our GDPs and develop
critical infrastructure.
Let’s do some explorations in the polity. Apart from
Anambra state in the East, Akwa Ibom state in the South South, Kano and Kaduna
states in the North West, out of the 36 states of the federation, can we see at
a glance where state governance systems and critical infrastructural
development have been remarkable? Let’s do some value judgment and face the
consequences with facts that people can relate with. If we want to talk about
what I have always called state governors as ‘federalism brand ambassadors’, we
can always use the Peter Obi Years in Anambra state, Godswill Akpabio’s tenure
in Akwa Ibom state and Abdullahi Gamduje’s (beginning from Kwakwanso’s) and
Malam Nasir el-Rufai’s Kaduna state as examples.
Let’s freeze politics in this discussion point for a
moment. No matter the way we perceive the politics of Governor Akpabio in Akwa
Ibom state for eight years, if you travel or pass through the state, from the
quality of the moderate airport through the federal roads and inner-city roads
in Uyo, among other communities, you will see the signature of governor Akpabio
as a good example of how a governor should work for his people.
Akpabio and his reputation managers do not need to pay
anyone in the media to claim that. Let people go to Uyo and its environ and see
quality of roads and other projects including state-owned hotels and even
stadium that Akpabio built. This is not an insult to the current governor of
the state who just began a second term.
The story of Akpabio and Akwa Ibom is beyond
sycophancy and public relations gimmicks. Some governors who just began their
tenure should visit just Uyo and see how not to use any-how construction firms
for roads and other constructions including drainages around inner-city roads.
In all sincerity, most of our governors in southwest,
Nigeria including Lagos that is obsessed with repairing inner-city roads every
year should visit Uyo and near-by communities. They need to see Uyo and ask
Akpabio why he did not incorporate his own construction companies to handle
projects in the state. They may need to ask him how he settled local
contractors and all that stuff.
‘KANO & URBAN RENEWAL EXAMPLE’
So it is with
Kano state. We report only partisan politics between ‘Kwakwansiya’ and
‘Gandujiya’ without the riders of what they have done with Kano. It is an
untold story of nexus between continuity and development. I have travelled
widely in and around Kano. Civil Society and development activists and even
state governors need to travel to see Kano Municipality and most of the 44
local government councils. Kano City too is a remarkable story of how to renew
an urban centre. Even the federal roads into the city and state roads are well
constructed. Inner-city roads are good sights to behold. In the night,
streetlights around the city glow.
Roundabouts inside Kano City are of good standard.
Lagos always boasting as economic capital of West Africa, has a lot to learn
from Kano. Let no one tell me that Kano city is not as congested as Lagos. That
has nothing to do with construction of good roads by good civil engineering
firms. There are too many mega potholes in Lagos, for instance that a recent
executive order cannot fill yet.
In the main, I believe Lagos works and urban
development technocrats should consider a dispassionate peer review risk and
visit Kano too- to learn. They will see that most times we are wrong when we
sit down in Lagos, talk and write magisterially that nothing is happening in
northern Nigeria. The current governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje and his
predecessor, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso have been together since
1999-2003/2011-2015… Visit Kano today and take a ride around the city and you
will see unique multi-layer roundabouts and other city wonders that we cannot
see anywhere in the southern states. It is a gauntlet I throw to all of us.
Visit Kano.
What about
Kaduna state? Apart from the urban renewal in Kaduna that is common in this
article, have you seen that in the last WAEC result, Kaduna state has joined
the league of states that are doing well and prepared for the future? The
radical reform that Governor Nasir el-Rufai did in the state civil service
including the teaching service’s that was noisy the other time has begun to
bear fruits. The governor who many perveive needs some re-orientation in
political communication did not wait for the federal authorities to declare an
emergency in education the other time when he sacked more than 22, 000
unqualified teachers he pledged to replace. Before him, the governors of Edo
and Ekiti states (Adams Oshiomhole and Kayode Fayemi) had chickened out of
planned painful reform of the teaching service.
The story of Malam el-Rufai that is in the media is that of a religious
bigot and an ambitious politician. We are not aware of the other under-reported
side of the coin: that Kaduna state is one of the best run states in the
country in terms of those intangible things that matter in statecraft. Kaduna
state actually began the actualisation of Treasury Single Account (TSA) before
the federal government borrowed it in 2015. The state governor did not wait for
the federal government in 2015 too before it disbanded the State-House-Clinic
structure and posted all the medical and support staff to the general health
management board, saying the governor, all public servants and indeed the
people should patronise the same general hospitals.
All told, Kaduna state’s reformed bureaucracy I know,
is a very strong one that is worth-studying. Let some governors too visit
Kaduna state and see the city of Kaduna and indeed Zaria, where a just
completed world-class water project was commissioned the other day.
I had last week noted the exemplary reform agenda of
Peter Obi as governor of Anambra state. He reformed education, critical
infrastructure, protocol service and even lifestyle of the governor of the
state – for service delivery and reduction of cost of governance. This is quite
instructive for the South East where I kept a reporter’s notebook recently. I
travelled to Abia state last month through Imo state to attend wedding of my
friend’s daughter. What I saw inside Owerri was insufferable. The Rocha
Okorocha’s expansion-of-roads project inside the capital, Owerri is horrendous.
The former governor and now a senator has been blaming the failed roads’ mega
potholes on the nocturnal works of the enemies in the opposition party. But I
also saw the well-constructed mega estates that citizens know belong to the
wife the immediate past governor of Imo state. I saw the roads of shame to the
Federal Polytechnic and Federal University of Technology, Owerri. On the way to
Umuahia through Emekuku, Owerri and Obowo, I saw bad roads that should not be
blamed on the federal authorities. Inside Abia state, I travelled to Ngwa
Mainland, where my friend, Cyprian Ogwumike, a journalist and lawyer told me
the history of one tolerable road from Umuahia to Ikputu-Usulu, Ama-Ano
heartland. The governor of Abia state, Okezie Ikpeazu, hails from Ngwa area but
the four years of the governor who just got a second term has not shown any
progress in the area. Even Umuahia is not as good as some capitals of some
northern states I visited recently. On my return to Owerri Airport, I saw part
of Aba- Port Harcourt Road. It is still slow work in progress. As I was saying,
should we blame Buhari for the terrible inner-city roads in Imo and Abia states
too? Should we blame the Buhari government for why there is no smooth ride
between Imo and Abia states? Should we blame Abuja for the bad roads between
Enugu and Anambra states?
**Let’s continue this conversation next week as you
reflect on questions for your own governor.
Note: This article was first published in The Guardian
of Sunday August 18, 2019, on “Insde Stuff with MARTINS OLOJA”. Used by
permission.
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