By Zailani Bappa.
April 6th, was the day His Excellency, Dr Bello Mohammed (Matawallen Maradun, Barden Hausa, Shattiman Sakkwato) received His Eminence, Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar 111 in Gusau to perform two important functions at the Government House which, invariably, underscore one of the cardinal responsibility of a responsible administration anywhere in a society such as ours.
No doubt, traditional rulers and the Clergy are the Bedrock of cohesion in our society. Their welfare and wellbeing largely determines the action and direction of followership. There is hardly any Muslim Notherner that does not either look upon one clergy or a traditional ruler to determine his action or inaction in the society. Hence, they form the compass for the direction to which we all follow.
In realisation of this important trend, His Excellency fulfilled the yearnings of these two important bodies by providing the traditional rulers with befitting transportation system and the Clergy with a befitting Secretariat which they sought for easy regular convergence to find direction and cohesion for their followership.
These however, did mot go down well with many individuals most of who perpetually find fault in every action or inaction of the government. They brand this gesture as a waste, a misplacement of priority and hence, unnecessary. They suggest the funds spent on these should have been channelled to Security, the IDPs, the Health Sector or the education sector.
Good observations indeed. However, the Hausa man has a saying that “bikin Magaji ba ya hana na Magajiya”, which in effect means the Government cannot neglect one aspect of its responsibility for another. That is why before His Excellency bought these vehicles for the traditional rulers, he first supplied 200 hundred brand new Hilux Vans, well equipped with communication gadgets to all the Security operatives in the state. This came along with monthly inprest to cater for their maintenance and of course, allowances for officers on duty.
For those who felt the funds should go for the Health sector, there’s need to know that what His excellency has done for the Health sector supercedes all efforts made in the past. His unique effort is the revolutionary construction of Primary Health Care facilities in the state. He has so far, built 147 50-bed Primary Health Care facilities in all the 147 Wards in the state, equipped with a tricycle ambulance each for easy conveyance of more serious cases to bigger health facilities.
Those who routed for education sector must know that in the basic educatiin sector alone, His Excellecy has addresed most of the dilapidated facilities in the state as well as built new ones. His administration has so far, provided no fewer than 3,000 blocks of classrooms and also new ones. All these are equipped with conducive learning materials. He has also employed over 600 teachers to beef up the teacher-student ration in our basic education schools
The issue of IDPs is a thorny one indeed. In more than a decade of insurgency, his administration takes responsibility of less than three years. When he took over the mantle of leadrrship, the Forme IG Abubakar Committee report indicated that there were over 25,000 children that were ophaned and an equal number of women that were widowed. The previous administration responsible for the emergence and dragonising the menace of banditry did not do anything about it. That is not, however, to say we cannot do our best to solve it.
I have always maintained, however, that the issue of IDPs is not the responsibility of the state Government alone. It is that of the Donor Agencies, those vocal NGOs who raked in fortune in the name civil activities , profit making organisations and indeed, wealthy individuals. This is because we are in a state of war….a humanitarian crisis is in our hands which calls for all hands to be on deck. Accusing the state Government in this case is far away from addressing the subject matter.
In any case, the responsibility of any administration is to make sure that it touches the lives of every citizen as much as it can. That of Dr Bello Mohammed is not going to rest on its oars until every citizen of Zamfara State will say, “na shaida”, by Allah’s grace.
Zailani is the Special Adviser to the Governor, Zamfara on Public Enlightenment and Media.
