There is no gainsaying the fact that Governor Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe state is among the best performing governors in Nigeria. Yes, Inuwa Yahaya has done well and has achieved a lot in his first year in office. The only problem the governor had was lack of adequate publicity and underreporting of his activities.
Well, the media will not be blamed for the situation as they only disseminate the information made available to them or at their disposal. It is the duty of government to blow its trumpet by informing the public about its stewardship. Many people only acknowledge what were done in their own domains and do not know much of what were done in other places. Thus, government’s officials, especially information managers or spokespersons of the government, are duty bound to communicate and showcase its activities for the citizens have right to know how their leaders govern them and or spend their funds.
Perhaps having realised that he is underreported, Governor Inuwa Yahaya appointed a special adviser on information management and strategy Ahmed Shuaibu Gara-Gombe some months back to help him in the management of information and public relations in addition to other existing media aides.
Of course, no government or organisation will have a good image in the eyes of the public without having a competent information manager and public relations officer. On the appointment of Gara as special adviser on information management, he swung into action by bringing the numerous achievements of the Inuwa Yahaya administration to limelight.
In the past, many people including myself thought the governor of Borno state Umaru Babagana Zulum is the best performing governor in the North. Yes, Zulum is a serious and passionate leader but I have come to realise that the present governor of Gombe state Inuwa Yahaya is also an outstanding governor. In fact, he can be rated better than Zulum and some of his contemporaries in the North, considering the meagre resources received by his state as federal grants and the mega projects he executed in the last three years plus of his administration. Zulum enjoys positive publicity more than any northern governor, perhaps as a result of his vibrant and formidable media team.
I have copious reasons to backup my argument. Some governors are good at projects execution but poor in terms of salary payments, workers welfare and vice versa. But in Gombe state, salary payment is not an issue. Every worker collects his salary regularly and gets promotion as at when due. For instance, all state civil servants get alerts of their salaries latest on 27th of every month.
In addition, the governor was able to employ 1, 000 new teachers and 400 new health workers at a time some states find it difficult to pay salaries of their existing workers let alone giving new employments.
Some of the social welfare projects of the governor include distribution of 1, 000 tricycles on loan to youth for commercial use and special jobs to 500 youths under the newly established ‘Gombe State Security, Traffic and Environmental Corps (GOSTEC) and engagement of 20, 000 youths to plant four million trees under the erosion control project tagged ‘Gombe Goes Green’.
On infrastructure, Inuwa initiated the construction of 100 kilometers roads in each of the 11 local government areas of the state. He built and upgraded at least one health facility in each of the 114 wards of the state including an ultra modern nursery, primary and secondary school at Kumbiya-Kumbiya community in the state which hitherto had no single public school since the creation of the state.
Of recent too, the governor built another modern Almajiri School in Yelenguruza community of the state as parts of moves to address the problem of Almajiri education in the state. In the integrated Almajiri school, pupils will learn Qur’anic recitation, basics of western education as well as vocational skills. The unprecedented school which is a storey building has hostels for Almajiris, library and skills acquisition rooms where the children will be taught occupations such as tailoring, barbing among others such that they will have a source of livelihood other than the usual begging.
Another project worthy of note by the administration of Governor Inuwa Yahaya were the construction of mega motor park along Federal College of Education where all commercial drivers and public transport workers will relocate. There is adequate space for shops, restaurants and offices provided therein. The idea is to boost business and facilitate availability of vehicles for movements of people, goods and services in and out of the state. This is even as the former Bauchi park will be taken over by the government to build a befitting state secretariat to house all ministries and parastatals.
At the moment, there is no befitting secretariat in the state and most of government ministries, departments and agencies are scattered in different parts of the state unlike what is obtainable elsewhere. That is why Governor Inuwa built a new modern motor park called Gombe Mega Park to pave way for construction of a big state secretariat.
Still on business and investment development, the governor has established an industrial park along Deba road to attract and accommodate investors, small, medium and big industries in the state. Prior to that, an investment summit was convened by the governor where investors and great entrepreneurs from all over the country and beyond converged and briefed on the park to encourage them to site their industries and enterprises at the newly established park named ‘Muhammadu Buhari Industrial Park which was inspected by the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
It is a known fact to anybody who knows Gombe State that many areas in the state face water scarcity due to the sandy nature of the soil in the state. However, Governor Inuwa has provided water in areas like Jeka da fari and awarded contracted for the establishment of water booster stations for areas worst affected by scarcity of water like Tumfure, Investment Quarters, Bauchi road and other parts of Akko local government to improve supply of water in the state.
Most of these gigantic projects by Governor Inuwa are not adequately publicized. And this is the gap Gara Gombe is trying to bridge now as a person saddled with the responsibility of managing government’s information.
He is determined to achieve that by making use of the available airtime or space in Radio, Television and other media houses within and outside the state. He gathered that many of those television and radio stations have airtime for discussion programs including political which are unutilized or underutilized due to lack of vocal government officials to make good use of them or just lack of knowing how important it is for the government to feed the electorates back on its stewardship in a democratic setting.
Within the last four months, the special adviser had visited and granted interviews in 17 radio and television stations locally and nationally including;
NTA Gombe, Progress Radio, Amana Radio, Vision FM, Jewel FM, GMC and GTV.
Others are FRCN Headquarters, Channels TV, AIT, Trust TV, Leadership TV and major newspapers like Daily Trust, Leadership, Premium Times and News Agency of Nigeria. Also, to bridge the gap between the government and the governed, the special adviser established direct lines for the state citizens to interact with the governor and to participate in governance by offering suggestions and complaints.
Furthermore, he initiated the Gombe New Media Internship Programme where the interns will be promoting government programmes on social media.
On the eve of the 2023 electioneering, he created the ‘DANI AKAJE’ programme on radio where a post mortem of every campaign trail of the governor is being reviewed.
With these initiatives, Inuwa’s silent achievements are now topics of discourse courtesy of the special adviser on information and strategy. Media houses are now bringing Governor Inuwa Yahaya’s hitherto obscure projects to limelight beyond the routine news programmes as part of initiatives by Gara.
To augment and complement his efforts of bridging information gap in the state, the special adviser conceived the idea of organising special training to information officers of all government ministries, departments and agencies on the skills of information management and public relations strategies. This is a welcome development indeed and I believe will go along way in projecting the good image of not only Governor Inuwa Yahaya but Gombe State government even after the reign of Inuwa.
I am happy that the public both within and outside Gombe are now hearing the good side of Gombe and the works of this prudent, patriotic and performing governor Inuwa Yahaya. While applauding Gara Gombe for the feats, I encourage him to sustain the tempo.
Adamu, an author and public affairs commentator, writes from Akko local government area, Gombe state.
