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As Obasanjo visits Yobe
As
President Olusegun Obasanjo visits Yobe State between tomorrow and Friday, when
the state will mark its 13th year of existence, Political Editor, SIMON
IBE writes, with additional reports from Correspondent, HASSAN JIRGI,
that he would meet pleasant surprises and be confronted with the state’s
daunting problems.
WHEN
President Olusegun Obasanjo arrives Yobe State tomorrow for a two-day state
visit, he will be confronted by several realities, one of which is the
grassroots following that Governor Bukar Abba Ibrahim enjoys.
The President will also come face
to face with the numerous projects that the state’s government has been able
to put on ground since 1999 when Alhaji Ibrahim came to power for the second
time, in the state that was created thirteen years ago.
Besides the popular support of
the people for their governor and the harvest of projects, however, President
Obasanjo will also fully appreciate the rich cultural heritage of the state as
well as some of their daunting problems and the great potentials waiting to be
developed.
The spontaneous outpouring of
support for Alhaji Bukar Ibrahim, who is serving his third term as governor,
according to close monitors of the politics of the state, is based on the people’s
perception of the level of his commitment to serving their interest.
This accounts for the fact that
after his first tenure (1991-93), on the platform of the defunct Social
Democratic Party (SDP), was cut short by military intervention in politics, the
people did not think twice before voting him back to power in 1999 on the ticket
of the All Peoples Party (APP), now ANPP. In the 2003 polls, despite the
controversy that attended the bid by four of the then incumbent governors to run
for a third term, Alhaji Ibrahim was still re-elected, alongside his Taraba
State counterpart, Gov. Jolly Nyame.
Speaking with Daily Champion
recently, the Deputy Governor of the state, Alhaji Aliyu Saleh Bagare said that
part of the appeal of Governor Bukar Ibrahim is in the fact that he has
single-mindedly served his people and brought about rapid transformation of the
state.
According to Bagare, the governor
has performed superlatively well, given what he met on ground when he took
office in 1999. The deputy governor singled out the physical development of the
state, especially in the area of provision of social amenities such as potable
water, healthcare delivery facilities, electricity and education as some of the
areas where the administration has excelled. Bagare said, for instance that
"if you ask the man on the street, he will tell you that Gov. Bukar Abba
Ibrahim has revitalised the education sector in Yobe State. Before his
assumption of office in May 1999, the education sector in Yobe State was in
shambles. Students were taking lectures under trees and many had abandoned their
education completely."
He stressed that the sad trend
has been arrested and reversed by the governor with school enrolment jumping
dramatically, as proof of his far-reaching efforts to address the problems of
the sector, including declaration of a free and compulsory education scheme for
the first nine years of schooling. Even the Minister of Education, Prof. Fabian
Osuji commended the state recently, for earmarking 50 per cent of its 2004
budget for education.
Special Assistant (Media and
Public Affairs) to Gov. Bukar Ibrahim, Alhaji Ibrahim Jirgi, also in an
interview, said that the governor’s profile, based on his performance,
accessibility and acceptability to the people, has risen to such an extent that
he is now not only known as the Gwamnan Talakawa (people’s governor)
but the godfather of Yobe politics.
He has become such a political
force that even such veteran politicians as Mallam Adamu Ciroma, one-time
Minister of Finance and National Co-ordinator of President Obasanjo’s
re-election campaign who is from the state, can no longer be considered serious
threats to his political ascendancy. Indeed, Alhaji Jirgi insisted that "if
elections are conducted 100 times in Yobe State, Bukar Abba Ibrahim would win
100 times."
The tentacles of the governor are
spread far into every sphere of life of the state.
He has been involved in
aggressive urban and rural roads construction and reconstruction, including
rehabilitation of some federal roads in the state and his efforts have also
earned him, not only the support of the people of the state, but another
commendation from a federal operative, the Minister of Works, Senator Adeseye
Ogunlewe.
Because the state is a mostly
agrarian state, the governor, who trained as a Quantity Surveyor at the Ahmadu
Bello University (ABU) Zaria, has also done considerable work in the area of
empowering farmers to produce more under a better operating environment. He put
in place the Back-to-Farm programme and has done a lot towards provision of
inputs and facilities that would enhance the job of the farmers of the state.
Alhaji Jirgi said that "the governor has invested huge resources in
agriculture which is the mainstay of the state’s economy, providing bulk
employment for the people and generating revenues for their well being."
Besides the purchase and
rehabilitation of over 130 tractors and distribution of over 4000 sets of
machine tools, the government’s efforts at revolutionizing agriculture has
included the development and planting of about 17 million gum arabic seedlings,
injection of funds into livestock farming and fisheries and procurement of
fertilisers.
As the agricultural sector is
being boosted to create employment and ensure self-sufficiency in food
production, Gov. Ibrahim’s government is also consciously working towards
alleviating poverty, which is one of the problems of the state and the country
in general.
Part of the initiatives aimed at
creating jobs, according to Alhaji Jirigi, has been the revitalisation or
establishment of some industries in the state, including the Fertiliser Blending
Plant (FBP) which would enhance food production for local consumption as well as
for export to as far as neighbouring Niger and Chad Republics.
Other such industries are the
Yobe Flour and Feed Mills, the Polythene and Woven Sacks Company, the Soda Ash
Plant, the Dafarga Spring Water Bottling Company, the Cement Factory and the
Nguru Oil Mill,. The state government ultimately intends to privatise the
companies to make them more efficiently run and more profitable.
Part of the problem of the young
state is the fact that though the government has established industrial estate
complete with the necessary amenities like roads, electricity and water,
investors have not been coming in as expected, to take advantage of the
opportunities available in the state which has such mineral resources as gypsum,
kaolin, limestone, trona, diatomite, granite, silica and sand as well as
agro-allied products like rice, wheat, maize, corn, beans, cotton, groundnuts,
millet and gum arabic.
However, the state government is
going into partnership with the Chinese in the area of cement production and
with the Hungarian government in the agro-allied industries sector as well as
towards the establishment of a second flour mill.
The fact that the private sector
has not made its impact well felt in the state, has resulted in the state
government being made, literally, the main employer of labour in the state,
which has led to a situation where nearly half of the resources of the state go
towards settlement of salaries, allowances and other welfare packages of public
officers. This, understandably, has not been in the interest of the state,
which, to redress the situation, has embarked on an aggressive drive for
attraction of both local and foreign investors.
Apart from the task of inducing
more private-sector participation in the economy of the state, Gov. Bukar
Ibrahim is also faced with the challenge of combatting desert encroachment and
cross-border banditry, both of which are great threats to the people of the
state and by extension, the country as a whole. The problem of desert
encroachment affects more states on the northern fringes of the country than
Yobe and apart from the activities of cross border bandits in the region, the
frightening dimension of the recent fundamentalist outburst in the state, are
clearly issues that call for joint state and federal response.
As President Obasanjo would be
visiting projects and enjoying the rich durbars and the other enchanting
cultural displays of Yobe State, it is expected that the state government would
present these challenges before him, so that together, strategies would be
worked out towards strengthening any efforts that are already being made to stop
the encroachment of the ravenous desert and stop the rampage of the cross-border
bandits. The state’s august visitor could also be challenged to ensure more
federal government presence in the state which would help to provide more
employment for the unemployed youths.
Yobeans insist that President Obasanjo would see
much more than he saw in Jigawa State during his recent visit to the ANPP state
that made him to commend the governor of the state. When this happens, he would
have no alternative than to again, publicly, acknowledge that governors of ANPP
states are, indeed, delivering democracy dividends to their people. Such
commendations, commentators also say, should send signals to Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) chieftains in those states, who see nothing good in the efforts of
the governors, that they should sheathe their swords and work harmoniously with
the governors towards delivering more democracy dividends to the people of those
states.
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