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The chest beating and
the unbridled jingoism
in a self centered adulation of our political leaders as well as the marked foot today a sine-non-quo in the political atmosphere of the country. The Colony of public relations handlers and their unabashed antics apart, our political leaders, especially the public office holders appear to be in a competition of some sort to outdo one another in a kind of a rat race to breast the tape of God knows what. Incredibly, such leaders particularly the Governors have literally kick started a laughable cat walking game of blowing trumpet in self appraisals and acknowl-edgment that ordinarily should have been exclu-sively reserved for unbiased arbiters such as the direct beneficences of their shen-inagan.
The manner in which our governors go about out-lining their achievements and the attendant congratulatory messages that usually follow, attest to the fact that our society is gradually prom-oting mediocrity and turning it into a norm.
Characteristically, every governor including the bench warmers and back benchers amongst them have taken delight in assaulting our sensibilities with a catalogue of “their achievements” even when, in the real sense of the word, they should be gnashing their teeth for the misad-ventures to which they have subjected the people.
It was while I was agonizing over this problem, that I visited Bauchi in the cause of an assignment, and what I saw both in the city of Bauchi and the local comm-unities that I passed through, ignited a penal quest in me to do a re-think of my earlier generalization that our governors are a bunch of crass opportunists who elevated graft and greed into a virtue. What I saw in Bauchi is to say the least, unprecedented in the history of delivery of service to the people. Although I have been reminded by a few friends of mine that Bauchi has had a history of “action governors”, I, all the same scored Governor Adamu Muazu so highly due mainly to the caricature of service that is apparently on show in virtually all the states that I have visited.
What actually caught my fancy are the well laid and clean network of roads that snaked through all the neighborhoods of the state capital, an action that has without doubt opened up the state to an industrial and economic revivalism that will, naturally empower the people of the state. On inquiry I got to know that the Bauchi governor has, in five years beginning from 1999, constructed over two hun-dred kilometers of roads worth a staggering but justifiable amount of N14 billion across the state. A friend in the neighbouring Yobe state jokingly told me that the people of a remote Yobe state village who benefited from a road project executed by Governor Muazu have coined a saying that “Muazu gwarzon zoki, kayi noka kayi na rago which translates into: Muazu the lion, who has accomp-lished his task and that of the lazy.
The kind of road network that has criss-crossed Bauchi city and the drainage network that was expertly and neatly laid is truly a surprise to me, and I will like to say without mincing words that if our Governors and the other political office holders are as serious and committed, the much talked about dividends of democracy would have spoken volumes for the total and permanent entrenc-hment of democracy in our country as the best form of governance. The other area which drew my attention, while my week-long visit to Bauchi lasted, was electricity. I had asked a friend what he could make out of the fact that a good number of villages, very remote ones at that, have been connected to the national grid, I was told that electrification of remote villages by the present administration is a deliberate and careful1y thought out programme of the Muazu administration, intended to energise able bodied local people to exploit the inherent economic opportunities in the areas. At the last count, another apolitical Bauchi man told me that more than 300 towns and villages have been given the luxury of electricity.
This write up is intended to serve two purposes. Purpose number one is that Nigerians who have lost hope in the capacity of our leaders to kick poverty out of the country should look at a classically different case of quality service to the people in Bauchi, so as to continue to invest their hopes for a better tomorrow.
Secondly, the people on whose mandate the current set of leaders are governing, should begin to hold such leaders accountable for their inactions and foot dragging in the face of overwhelming evidence to the effect that democracy is indeed, a route to progress and that anything to the contrary is unacceptable. I will like to see for example, the people of Adamawa, who have produ-ced the Vice President in this dispensation to question the rationale behind the retrogr-ession and backwardness of their state. In order words, Adamawa people will be justified to corner their gove-rnor and the Vice President to demand explan-ation on why their state had lagged too far behind Bauchi in the provision of road network and electricity, the two most important amenities in the fight against the concomitant effect of misery and squalor.
Adamawa as it is today, is like an old lorry, which has failed to reach its destination five good years after the journey had begun. The lorry has still not hit home even when the faulty engine has supposedly been knocked into shape. The road network in the capital city of Adamawa is about the worst in the North East geo-political zone while virtually all the roads linking the state to its neighbouring states are in their pre 1999 shapes, which has inadvertently, marooned Adamawa and cocooned it into an abyss of shame. Adamawa is a classical case of democracy gone awry.
This sad situation of things that you find in Adamawa is regrettably what you see in places like Borno, Yobe and Taraba where the political leadership in those states have abdicated their responsibilities by way of bastardizing the concept of governance to such an extent that a respected columnist in a respected national daily accused state governors in the zone of losing their “sense of direction and for turning the resources of their states into their personal properties”.
I doff my hat for Governor Adamu Muazu for rekindling our hopes and keeping them alive with a world-class performance. I had wond-ered, while leaving Bauchi, that if with their lack luster performance, the so called political godfathers of the zone could be emboldened to vie for the presidency of this country, why on earth should performers such as Adamu Muazu stand akimbo, giving jesters and the pretenders an undeserved leeway.
Saleh Maina is an Abuja based journalist.
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