Gov Bagudu’s political turning point, by SULEIMAN SALEH

It is apparent that, since the return of civil rule in Nigeria, there have been postulations and diff erent perceptions on the entire system and its key actors. The fact is that, it’s very rare today to get leaders who are committed to achieving developmental feats for the benefits of their communities and the progress of their followers.

It has become a political ritual that, when a mandate is given to nowadays leaders, the unfortunate thing that could first emanate after a short sojourn into their stewardship, is those who supported and voted for them into power to are the first people to start wailing and adjudging them as woeful failures.

In the present democratic system of governance, it is always the masses who constitute the majority of the electorate and who had suffered during electioneering that would be left holding the short end of the stick while the fortunate minority and those close to the corridors of power are smiling home with political bounties and wealth accumulations.

However, the Attahiru Jega’s revolution in 2015 has changed the trend and things are rapidly changing. Few emerging leaders have been giving their electorate a new face of leadership while the electorate equally exercise their power to vote.

The people are also demanding their right to better governance while identifying themselves with good leaders and expressing aversion towards those leaders that venture into politics to acquire and accumulate wealth to the disservice to the gullible majorities.

Today, an enlightened electorate know the power they possess and the opposition know how to utilize aggrieved electorate to unseat an incumbent government. So, every decision of a democratically elected government is made to refl ect the needs of the people as doing otherwise will incur the wrath of the masses. Indeed, policy thrust, policy implementation and project execution are done at the behest of the people with some level of probity and accountability.

This is because what happened during the 2015 general elections had returned some sanity to the process, by relocating the power to decide back to its real location – the people, Nigeria’s democracy was heading straight for the rocks.

Even at that, Nigerian politicians develop willful selective amnesia; they tend to forget the source of their power the moment they are elected into office and the poor electorate are left to rue their chances.

Therefore, unlike in the past when every problem of governance was blamed on the president in Abuja, continuous advocacy by political commentators has successfully returned the lens of scrutiny to the governors and this is making sense. After all, governors are the real custodians of the power that directly affects the electorate in their domiciled states.

This development has exposed the folly of many governors who came into office under the grandiose illusion of business as usual, but not the occupants of the Kebbi state government house. In Kebbi state, the era of selling the political bill of goods has come to an end with the emergence of Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu. Kebbians seem to have found the one who is willing to do the needful in the face of adversity and change the orchestrated trend of deceits enjoyed by the previous administration that has ravaged the state economy and has left behind comatose infrastructure and failed system of governance. The fact is that, before the coming of the Bagudu administration, the state was the perfect example of ‘the land’ in Gbemisola Adeoti’s Ambush.

While the people are hardworking, strong and committed to their age-old means of livelihood, agriculture, successive governors of Kebbi state since the return of democracy appear to be deliberately blocking the industry of the people running a government characterized by massive looting and bob your uncle syndrome.

Thus, anyone who is familiar with the political and social indicators of Kebbi state before the election that brought in the Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu led dispensation knows that the realities are different today, Kebbi has been transformed from the very picture of dereliction that it used to be to a city under construction and the prospects are heart-warming.

It will be interesting to know that, at the wee days of his administration, Governor Bagudu, who understands the value of quality foundational education, an area he has been known to complain bitterly about, took a state-wide tour of the education facilities in the state, specifically secondary schools. As expected, the schools were in a very bad shape.

Students are left with little or no facilities or learning materials. In some schools visited, students sit on bare floors to receive instructions and this broke the governor’s heart. On his return from the field, the governor immediately issued some contracts for the renovation and repositioning of some primary, secondary schools and tertiary institutions in the state.

Clearly, the recent conviction of the former accountant general of Kebbi state by the Court of Appeal over embezzlement of billions of naira meant for the supply of furniture for some schools has delineated how rotten the former administration was.

Thus, anyone who is not a mischief maker in Kebbi state will confirm that after two years of concerted efforts at revamping the schools. They are today wearing a colorful look despite the obvious paucity of funds.

And Bagudu’s urgent and rapid developmental strides have gone beyond education to health care development, youths and women empowerment, among others. On agricultural development, the state has been in the forefront in rice farming, fishing and others.

Indeed, Kebbi state is synonymous to agriculture. Bagudu’s bold and audacious plan hinges on the state’s natural and human resources and one gets a feeling the man knows exactly what he is doing. The 2019 general elections are fast approaching.

With the release of the election guidelines by the electoral umpire, Kebbians will soon be at the poll to further justify their mandate by voting continuity of good governance against those political lie dormant who have been the bane and bête noir of the state development in the past. Saleh writes from Abuja

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