Apparently dissatisfied with the eight-year misrule of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Sokoto state, the electorate would on March 11 show the Tambuwal administration the way out by using their voting rights against non performance.
Democracy is about dividend which is lacking in Sokoto state and despite the huge resources at his disposal Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal allowed personal interest to overshadow his political and administrative judgements and the only way the people have to pay him back is to reject him and his party in the forthcoming governorship election.
In 2015 when he came on board, there were a lot of expectations on him from the electorate but what is visibly seen in Sokoto state is poverty and infrastructure decay. The civil service which is the engine room of every administration has been badly politicised and competence has given way to mediocrity.
There are currently more unqualified permanent secretaries and other administrative personnel than can be imagined and that trend has reduced service delivery to its lowest ebb. Unqualified personnel are posted to lucrative positions based on loyalty and this has caused disquiet in the service thereby breeding underwhelming performance. The Sokoto civil service is now a shadow of itself.
Before 2015, even non indigenes were not paying school fees or any other fee but today it is on record that Sokoto is the only state that failed to register its final year students for the 2022 WAEC examinations and even the NECO examinations the students sat for is the worst results ever. Again, the NABTEB results are being rejected by universities on lack of recognition. The 2022 final year students are now neither here nor there simply because of wrong judgement as a result of maladministration.
Although, Sokoto has not been a commercially busy environment, yet the few businesses that kept part of the population alive have been axed by this unfit PDP government and the state is now the capital of “national poverty” because the few businesses have collapsed. One cannot count the number of international trips the governor has embarked on in the last eight years all in the name of searching for “foreign Investment”. But all one sees in the state are collapsed indigenous once upon a time bubbling companies. There is no single foreign investment that this administration can boast of partnering with in the state despite the colossal amount wasted on “fairy-tale trips.
In the area of basic social amenities, this PDP administration will always take the bottom position for years to come and history would document it as an administration with a shouting leader whose words speak louder than actions. For eight years, the people keep listening to mere rhetorics “we are collaborating, we are partnering” and for eight years it has been “business as usual”. Water supply has become like electricity supply, very unpredictable. Every day is a new day of suffering and smiling in search of water and the administration has been claiming of spending close to N100 million monthly on water supply, yet it is easier to search for gold in Sokoto state than water.
Apart from epileptic supply of water, drugs in hospitals are also not available and patients always rely on private clinics than government hospitals. Like late head of state Sani Abacha said in 1984 after the December 31, 1983 military coup, our hospitals have become mere consulting clinics. However, to be fair to this administration, it has budgeted so much on health but failed to supervise and checkmate those entrusted with implementation.
Having sensed the anger and frustrations of the electorate, the PDP administration decided to embark on some white elephant projects that have no immediate impact on both the economy and the people. The two overhead bridges in the state capital are misplaced priorities while the teaching hospital under construction is another project that could have been put off because with an already teaching hospital built by the federal government over 20 years ago, it is still not fully utilised and how do you build a teaching hospital for a university that is yet to introduce medicine faculty? Truth is, it is too early to have such a project for a university that is yet to stand on its feet.
Most importantly, the biggest blunder by this administration is ignoring social welfare which should have been its major priority. Any government that fails to uplift the living standard of its people has woefully failed. This is the biggest mistake Tambuwal has committed by abandoning human capital development. The people are impoverished just because the government failed to come up with social welfare programmes that would have uplifted their lifestyles.
It has been a government of family and friends, as many call it. And so on election day the power of the majority would outnumber that of family and friends and that is when the power of the people would triumph over selfishness and greed.
Beware of the ides of March Gov Tambuwal for even the powerful and courageous Julius Caesar couldn’t escape that prophecy. When Caesar boasted the ides of March has come, the sorcerer replied by saying, but not gone and the pompous Roman leader was crushed by his own trusted allies.
In Sokoto state, the daggers would not speak hands but PVC and the power of the people, the majority that you ignored for eight years.
Goodbye Amigo, you came, you saw and failed to conquer. The battle line between you and Sakkwato is drawn. In 2019, you used inconclusive to emasculate the will of the people. It is now a different ball game. The people are waiting for payback time and it has come.
They will adopt the Buhari slogan, “a zaba, a kasa, a tsare kuma a raka”.
Mohammed writes from Sokoto
