Gov..Uba Sani Reposition Kaduna State for optimal growth
By Waziri Garba
Traditionally, elected public office holders across the three tiers of government in Nigeria, especially since the return to democracy in Nigeria in 1979, the Presidency, the Governors and the Local Government Chairmen have marked their 100 days since being sworn into office with quite a number of events. These include prayers in places of worship, commissioning of projects deemed to have either been initiated or completed within the period and press briefings where road maps elaborating on what the new administration had in store for the people, amongst other numerous activities.
The itinerary of the occasion may differ with the personalities of the chief executives, but they generally revolve around activities of the new administration so far, and a peek into the future direction of the leadership as it sets out to deliver service to the people in tandem with the desired leadership and governance in accordance with the ideals of democracy.2. Journalists, Public Commentators, Politicians including those from the other side of the political divide and sundry followers of politics within the particular polity also seize the opportunity of the “milestone” to embark on their own review of the occasion based on their understanding of events that unfolded in 100 days of the administration.
The entire gamut of the Government that Senator Uba Sani was able to deliver to the people of Kaduna State has predictably come under similar scrutiny.3. The assessment of Senator Uba Sani’s administration after 100 days in office naturally centered on what he has made of his campaign promises and pledges to the people and in particular, whether those assurances to the people to deliver bear resemblance with his avowed SUSTAIN Agenda, under which he sought the peoples’ mandate and through which he commits to taking them to the promised land.
SUSTAIN Agenda as a campaign tool was and still is pegged on the altar of uplifting the living standards of the state and repositioning it towards higher posterity. 4. The 7-point SUSTAIN Agenda under which aegis the Senator Uba Sani campaign run include Safety and Security; Upgrade of Infrastructure; Agriculture; Strengthening Institutions; Trade and Investment; Investment in Human Capital and Nurturing Citizens engagement. And as he harped on during the campaigns and on the first few occasions of his outing as Governor, the 7-point Agenda’s central focus and invariably that of his administration is the rapid transformation of the rural areas. It is no wonder therefore that his first major policy act as Governor was to sign the “Executive Order Act 2023” on “Financial Inclusion in Kaduna State”.
The move according to him followed his realization that nearly 2.1 million rural poor, the underserved and vulnerable groups in the rural areas of the State were alienated from accessing social intervention programmes, from the state, federal government as well as from donor agencies, a situation the Executive Order seeks to redress.5.
Senator Uba Sani before then was noted for his reservations about the federal government’s “Cash Transfer Scheme” especially the currency of the Social Register used to dispense the service. With his experience as Chairman of the committee of the 9th Senate’s Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, Senator Uba Sani was treading on safe ground when he asserted that the state will develop a credible State Social Register that would capture people in the rural areas as well as the urban poor.
The intervention programme, he said, will run on a “Trust Fund for the poor and vulnerable in the State” and that a committee will soon be set up to work out a framework for the scheme where one million of the target group, the “unbanked citizens” would be included into the financial services sector in the next one year.
The Governor kick-started the process of the take-off of the Fund with a commitment of 50% of his salary for two years to the scheme.6. “Our goal is to effectively integrate the poor, underserved and vulnerable in Kaduna State into the financial eco-system, so that they can benefit from the State, Federal Government social investment programmes, as well as donor agencies interventions,” Senator Uba Sani retreated to members of the State Cabinet at their inauguration.
7. Government decision that has drawn by far the loudest applause from the public, aside from their knowledge that a committee on palliatives comprising all stake-holders in the state was assiduously working out formular on how to provide succor to the teeming population, in the wake of the sudden withdrawal of subsidy on petroleum products with the attendant spiral of prices of essential commodities out of control, must be the Governor’s reduction on fees payable by students of higher educational Institutions in the State. Addressing a jam-packed press conference, Senator Uba Sani said that government had slashed fees paid in Institutions of higher learning in the state “in response to public outcry over the current fees being charged by tertiary institutions in Kaduna State and its effects on school enrolment and retention”.8. He said that the extant school fees had led to a noticeable decline in enrolments, forcing many students to either abandon tertiary education or moved to other institutions which necessitated the introduction of competitive school fees in tune with current realities. The Governor added that the decision was also in tune with the commitment of the administration to promote access to quality education hence government’s readiness to accept the recommendation of a team of educationists in the state to reduce the fees by between 30 to 50 percent.9 Under the new dispensation, Kaduna State University (KASU) which formally charged N150, 000 will now charge N105,000 per student a session, a reduction of 30% while students at Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic and the College of Education, Gidan Waya are now to pay N50,000 and N37,500 respectively showing a slash of 50% each from the N100,000 and N75,000 they were paying. Similarly, Shehu Idris College of Health Sciences and Technology and the State College of Nursing had 30% slashed from their fees and therefore students are now to pay N70,000 and N52,000 for HND and ND Course; and N70,000 for the nursing courses respectively.10. The Governor reiterated that the reduction on the student’s fees was in line with government’s commitment to offer palliatives to help cushion the effect of the upward cost of living especially in the wake of the recent removal by government of subsidy on petroleum products. The chorus of commendations for the government’s action that followed the decision on the reduction of school fees was unanimous.
Academic Staff and students’ union leaders were at the forefront of the hail of praises to the government and especially to Senator Uba Sani who they said was fulfilling his pledge on education. Taken along with the government’s decision to set up campuses of some of the higher institutions in other parts of the state, especially that of a campus of the College of Education Gidan Waya at Hunkuyi in Kudan Local Government Area of the State, as well as the provision of N250,000,000 to the state Scholarship Board to enable it boost its activities, the governor’s assertion that “our administration shall continue to take measures necessary to ensure access to free and qualitative education” assumes a strong significance.11. The launching of the 21.7 kilometer road linking Anchau-Gadas-Palla road in Kubau and Ikara Local Government Areas of the state on Saturday, September 3rd, 2023 marked another milestone in his avowed determination to transfer the rural areas.
The road will link 32 villages in the two councils which government believes would address the challenges faced by the two communities along the 21.7 kilometer road. The road will not only facilitate transportation of Agricultural produce to urban markets with the attendant boost to the rural economy, but it is likely, in the long run to check the rural-urban drift portending less stress on urban facilities and social amenities which often contribute to government failure.12. The road, he told a jubilant crowd, was part of fulfillment of a promise made when he was on the political stump in the area. “The people of kubau and Ikara Local Government Councils had approached us about the importance of the road,” he declared.
Indeed the fact that bandits had laid siege to the people of saya-saya in the area the previous night killing and wounding many in their usual madness did not detract him from fulfilling a promise made to the people. If anything, Senator Uba Sani seized the opportunity of the occasion to warn those he debesibed as “conflict entrepreneurs” that government will go after them in full force. He also said on a radio phone-in programme that government did not have to disclose measures it was taking to apprehend criminal-minded persons but assured that the security of lives and property was a top priority of the administration.13. Meanwhile the Governor has been quick to caution public office holders in the state against ostentatious living. The economic situation he said after swearing in his commissioners called for “belt-tightening” and drastic cut on government spending. “We must not be telling our people to make sacrifices while we are busy living in opulence”, he warned.14. On investment drive in the state, Senator Uba Sani said at ground-breaking ceremony of a mass housing project for the less-privileged and Mega Economic City at the Millennium City, Kaduna on 15th August, 2023 donated by Qatar Charity, that the ceremony was a clear indication that the administration had started reaping the benefits of its persistence in persuading investors to participate in the drive to revitalize the state’s economy. While acknowledging the hard work of the immediate past administration to upgrade infrastructure in the state Senator Uba Sani assured that the present administration was determined to build on that legacy to fast-tract the economic development of the state.15. The project, a brain-child of the State Government and Qatar Charity organization aims to provide mass housing for the less privileged as well as encourage the springing up of more economic activities in Kaduna thereby serving a dual purpose of providing houses for the poor and other less privileged as well as giving a boost to economic activities that would ultimately benefit over 500,000 families in the target group.
Some of the facilities available in the project include clinics, shops, poultry farms and farmlands for both rainy and dry season farming. Other benefits derivable from the project include scholarships for orphans and children of the poor, sewing machines, welding machines, irrigation pumping machines among others that would be distributed free by the Qatari group in addition to the drilling of hundreds of boreholes across the 23 Local Government Areas of the State. 16. “The Economic City will provide world class infrastructure and make Kaduna a reference point in modern and affordable accommodation with adequate security and a conducive atmosphere for business activities”, Governor Uba Sani enthused.17. The Kaduna State Transition Committee, set up earlier to ensure a seamless handover process between the outgoing and incoming administrations, as well as make recommendations for the future development and progress of Kaduna State, had made far-reaching recommendations, to be addressed in the short and long run, geared toward fast-tracking development of the state.18. The group of “resourceful individuals with varied experiences from various fields of endeavors” was reported to have worked on the principles of transparency, inclusivity and accountability throughout the period of its assignment. In the process it assessed various aspects of Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources, Institutional Development and Strengthening, Human Capital Development, Security, Law and Justice, Finance, Trade and Investment, and Citizens Engagements, amongst others, which it placed on the table for the government to consider.19. The committee’s recommendations some of which rhyme naturally with the 7-point SUSTAIN Agenda of Senator Uba Sani are what one can term a blueprint for a sustainable development.
Some of the key recommendations are: That government should prioritize agricultural development which should be pegged on the establishment of virile think-thank made up of experts who would work out a blueprint that will chart a way to attaining sustainable development in agriculture; government should also open up the economic space through periodically organizing economic and business summits to provide platform for government to fine-tune her economic and agricultural policies; government should reorganize some of its revenue generating agencies for optimum results; government should encourage the Kaduna Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mining and Agriculture (KADCCIMA) to proffer suggestion for the establishment of the cotton-textile-garment value chain in the state which used to be vibrant in days gone-by, and that government should set up a special Education Trust Fund in conjunction with the private sector to guarantee steady funding for education in the state.20. Other recommendations of the committee include the recruitment of requisite number of teachers and medical doctors to meet the requirement of teacher-student and doctor – patient ratio in the state; make special provision for procurement and maintenance of regular stock of drugs and equipment; engage in regular town hall meetings and stake-holders engagements at all levels of government to allow people participate in decision making as well put in place feedback mechanism to enable government to periodically assess its performance; government it said should also put in place mechanism to create about 20,000 jobs where youth are seen to benefit directly or indirectly, among other numerous well thought-out suggestions of the committee for the state Government to pick from.21. The administration has indeed addressed some of the issues within the assessment period. Government for instance had distributed hospital equipment to 290 Primary Health Centres across the state, and provided ambulances for major health institutions in the state.
This is in addition to the plan to recruit 89 medical doctors to beef up that cadre of medical personnel in the service of the State.22. The administration has also commenced the process of introducing metro rail services, on which it had approached the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) already, to ease the transportation problems in the state capital in particular.
Other issue of notable significance and indeed one of the main high points of the 100-day events is the announcement of the recruitment already of 7,000 youths into the Vigilance Service of the state which is not only a clear signal that the state government was committed to tackling the menace of insecurity head-on, but also the scourge of unemployment which sources has become a veritable breeding ground for the undesirables that have now constituted a thorn in the flesh of society.23.
For the Senator Uba Sani administration, the steps taken so far might not be as far-reaching as it would have wanted, no thanks to the encumbrances placed on it by the dire economic straights that has caged the national economy.
However, the steps taken so far give hope that things would get better. As if anticipating some doubts over his ability to overcome the bumpy road to prosperity in the state despite his current efforts, Senator Uba Sani has this to say: “I come prepared, very determined and imbued with a clear vision for the continued progress of Kaduna State”.
The journey to plough block the poor, vulnerable and rural dwellers in Kaduna State to prosperity is still far ahead for the Senator Uba Sani administration which marked 100 days on September 6th, 2023, however, the first steps taken towards “walking the talk” has shown that the assertion of the helmsman above lends credence to the strong belief in the administration that the SUSTAIN Agenda is an achievable goal.Waziri Garba is a Senior Special Assistant (Administration) to the Governor of Kaduna State.
