Recently, there have been calls from both members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and those of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Bauchi state for the immediate past Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall S. B. Abubakar (rtd), to join the 2023 race for the Bauchi state government house. I have been following the arguments being put forward by the callers and the calls are really germane, as many dwell on the matter based on the need for the well-meaning people of the state to come together and pursue a rescue mission to save the state from the precipice.
Most of the campaigners are really worried that the events of the past two years in Bauchi state require setting aside their party differences to put forward someone that has demonstrated track record of achievements, thus, the name of Marshall Abubakar came up, which at the moment appears to have been widely adopted as the needed messiah best suited for the terrible situation at hand.
Therefore, as a true son of Bauchi state, I feel obliged to add my voice to this clarion call, especially with the information I have on the leadership qualities of Air Marshall Abubakar, whose outstanding years in service I have a first-hand information on, especially in the last three decades, until his recent retirement as chief of air staff. The successes recorded by Air Marshall Abubakar are attributable to his possession of certain leadership qualities, which qualify him to even lead the country, thus, his choice for this timely rescue mission being canvassed in Bauchi state is nothing but a call to serve his state.
I believe if eventually we are able to succeed in drafting Marshal Abubakar into the Bauchi Government House, his acceptance means nothing to him other than answering the calls of the voiceless people of Bauchi state. Nobody is in doubt that the Nigerian state is under one of its major trying moments since its return to democratic rule in 1999, with every part of the country facing one form of insecurity or the other, in addition to economic meltdown that the nation has had to grapple with for over a decade. Even with a casual look at the situation of the Nigerian state in the recent past, it becomes easily discernible even to an averagely educated person that surely the Nigerian state is in urgent need of a thorough surgical review, especially of its economy in order to save enough resources to address all the security, political and social challenges.
These are the major problems that are threatening the nation’s very existence, mainly occasioned by debilitating corruption among public officers. The frightening state of the nation is more seen at the lower federating units of the federation, the states and local government council levels where payment of workers’ salaries is becoming an “achievement” being celebrated in the media. It is however, more worrisome that most of the states and local governments councils in the country which almost entirely rely on the monies collected monthly from the federation accounts to even pay workers’ salaries, are not spared in the corrupt practices to the extent that they have virtually become bankrupt.
All these are happening at a time when some parts of the country are calling for the review of some laws that will obviously short change other parts of the country in revenue allocation, like in the case of the tax laws, which, if allowed to be reviewed will also make most of the states including Bauchi poorer than we are currently witnessing, and the multiplier consequences or repercussions of such a review of the nation’s revenue allocation formula is unimaginable. This is aside the emerging agitation for the balkanisation of the country coming from some quarters, mostly in southern Nigeria.
The non-oil producing states, such as Bauchi State, feel the pain most because any drop in global oil price naturally affects the inflow of resources for the month into the state coffers. Thus, in sane societies, the situation of the Bauchi State is akin to a war a situation that requires patriotic zeal, strategic planning, prudence of limited resources, prioritisation of policies and above all, determination to get the people out of the woods.
In Bauchi State, there are no industries or other businesses that engage youths or other serious commercial activities to oil the state’s economy, and because of lack of prioritisation of government policies, even the “achievement” of payment of workers’ salaries is no longer being celebrated in the media. Today, only the lucky receive their salaries at the end of every month, a story state similarly shared with pensioners who after putting in the best part of their lives in the service of the state are left to languish in penury.
While some more economically viable states are struggling to get more money into their accounts to serve their people and execute projects that have more meaningful bearing on the common man, governments in states like Bauchi with most of its people not being able to attain food security and battling with heavy debt profiles are busy prioritising the execution of glamourous projects which only benefit only the governors that award the contracts.
The outgoing administration of Governor M. A. Abubakar left behind nearly 40 billion naira in the state’s coffers, part of which was used to award a contract for the purchase of official cars for public officers and the construction of the new Government House, at a heavily inflated cost of nearly 4 billion and over 6 billion naira, respectively.
For instance, the construction of new a 6-billion-naira Government House in Bauchi at a time when government could not pay eleven thousand naira for the WEAC registration for indigent children of the voters that brought the administration into office. It baffles one that while the poor parents weeping over their inability to pay the registration fees for their wards to write secondary school certificate examination, they watch the governor they elected using billions of naira from public coffers to erect giant projects that have no direct bearings on the lives of the poor families.
It is disappointing that the multi-billion naira contracts that have been awarded in Bauchi State are being executed by contractors not known to anyone in Bauchi State, denying our people even some of the petty businesses that thrive in Bauchi State that come from the execution of contracts.
Those contractors engaged in the construction of the new Government House, the most prioritised legacy project of the present administration brought all those working for the company from outside the state, and therefore take over jobs that would have gone to the voting people of Bauchi state like carpenters, masons, bricklayers, painters and welders. This means whatever profits or proceeds the contractors the get from the execution of these multi-billion naira projects are taken out the state, leaving the people whose money is being misplaced in the execution of the projects in abject poverty. Thus, the saying that “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop” readily comes to mind because without making a strategic plan for the army of youths being churned out of secondary schools without obtaining the WAEC or NECO certificates, it is uncertain that even the current tenants in the new Government House will sleep can sleep their eyes closed.
The current problems of this poor state, Bauchi are enormous, with no sign of any effort at redeeming them in sight. From the lowest rung of the ladder, local government councils that are supposed to be the closest to the common mon have been effectively strangulated and are just mere shadows as they cannot award contracts even for the supply of stationeries. Most local council chairmen receive as low as three hundred thousand naira monthly to run their local councils after every monthly allocation from the federation accounts, with the bulk of the allocations carted away by the state government through the ministry for Local Government Affairs. This forces all the council chairmen to relocate to the state capital and reduces the existence of the third tier of government only on paper.
For the first time, government business is run like a family estate. It takes only for the endorsement of an elderly member of the governor’s family to get appointed into any public office. While commercial motor cycle business is banned, tricycles that were purchased were only allocated to friends and family members instead of the commercial motor cyclists whose jobs were taken away by the government, same as the buses said to have been allocated to commercial divers through their unions in the state. Our revered traditional leaders are not treated with the respect they deserve, and the running costs of the respective emirates have been slashed by about eighty percent and, like workers’ salaries, they are paid only when they are lucky; public schools are fast getting out of the reach of the children of the common man because teachers several were transferred to other locations without their salaries and disturbance allowances paid. Yet, they are still expected to settle down and teach in areas they are not yet familiar with. The situation is, to say the least, pathetic.
It is in the quest to guarantee the security, safety and future of the present and future generations in Bauchi state that we ask the immediate past Chief of Air Force and Nigeria’s current Ambassador to the Republic of Chad, Air Marshal Sadiq Baba Abubakar (Rtd) to run for the 2023 Bauchi gubernatorial election on the platform of All Progressives Congress, APC. Within the span of just six years as the Chief of the Nigerian Air Force, Marshal Abubakar literarily transformed the Nigerian Air Force to a model. He increased the number of officers and men of the Nigerian Air Force by nearly 12, 000, and despite that massive recruitment, he increased housing accommodation for them from 35% to over 70%. In caring for the families of deceased officers and men, Marshal Abubakar trained and empowered over 3, 000 youth and women and provided them with starter packs in their chosen trades. In fact, construction of the accommodation carried out in the Air Force barracks under Marshal Sadique across the country were mostly done by those trainees. It is gestures like these that partly inform the resolve of the people of Bauchi State to draft him into the race for the Bauchi 2023 gubernatorial race. For that, I urge everyone to join this rescue mission and say loudly, “Run, Air Marshal Sadiq Baba Abubakar, Please Run” to salvage our state from misrule and we are ready to support you with all that we have to the very end.
Bala Yusuf,Gwallaga, Bauchi state
