Dankwambo: A worthy brand for Nigeria, by UMAR YUSUF

In all sense of human idiosyncrasies, there’s a banded and collective conception that, leadership traits that are ensconced in a chivalrous, liberal, courageous, competent and dedicated leaders and eminent statesmen are not acquired by chance but out of a conscious and sustained ability to consolidate and advance those cherished virtues that make a difference between authentic leaders and liedormant to the throne with a sole purpose of envisaging a better and developed society. Whenever push comes to tshove, the qualities that project sound leadership are clearly visible while the negative antecedents that trail political jobbers tend to be indistinct and mediocre.
The enviable leadership qualities of the Gombe State Governor, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo (Talban Gombe) has exemplified the traits that better define what the leadership is all about while essentially and for all intents and purposes making history in the act of human and capital development.
Dankwambo, a distinguished chartered accountant, consummate technocrat and admirable public servant par excellence, has in all his dealings distinguished himself by his ennobling academic, professional, public service and political career that has exceeded all expectations while shattering all know precedents and records set by his predecessors or peers be it at the state, federal, regional or international levels. Dankwambo’s career began from Coopers & Lybrand and hightails to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Gombe State Accountant General, and he was later as a result of his unrelenting hard-work, perseverance, dedication, and commitment to duty as well as displaying the highest level of professional and technocratic achievements where he has received numerous awards, laurels and commendations as a consequence, appointed the Accountant General of the Federation before he answered the call of his people and contested the gubernatorial seat and won in 2011 general elections.
In fact, Dankwambo’s commitment to excellence and exemplary performance is only matched by his honesty and sense of integrity which meant that while other public officers delight in looting the public, Talban Gombe is not in that category, a trait which endeared him to his peers, colleagues, underlings and political superiors alike and his watchword was strict neutrality and a rigid apolitical stance that did not favour any partisan interest, an adroit posture that earned him tremendous admiration and even grudging respect from all factions of the political class in Gombe state and beyond.
Having cut his teeth in turning around the Gombe State Accounting System for the better, Dankwambo wasted precious little time in applying the same principles at the office of the Accountant General of the Federation as he had successfully formulated viable policies and financial strategies that the financial system of the country is today relying on. While, his next point of call to humanity services was the sight nearer home, Gombe State, where after he had succumbed to people’s pressure and agreed that it was time to change the prevailing status quo for the better as the Jewel of the savannah was then in the grip of political godfathers, potentates and crown princes who regarded the state as their personal fiefdom and its resources to be squandered and apportioned as they and their acolytes and cronies thought fit.
Therefore, armed with his awesome credentials as a highly reputed and tremendously regarded public servant, Talba had within days of being sworn in as the Executive Governor, kick-started a series of working visits across the state to see for himself the hitherto shambled and dilapidated government structures and abused public service system encapsulated by shady dealings, financial mismanagement and marginalization of the majority by those felt they owned the government and considered same as their personal estate by doing and undoing thing to favored them to the detriment of the masses. After properly diagnosing the state, Dankwambo had later come up with an 11-sector base committee of relevant professionals with a term of references centered on formulating a working template and blueprint for the development of the state and rescuing the formerly abused public service. Consequently, the submission of the various committee’s reports, Dankwambo swore into action by executing all the viable recommendations with preferential considerations to the; education, health, agriculture, and infrastructural sectors of the state economy.
Today, under the stewardship of the Talban Gombe, the state has turned out to be the most glaringly developed and transformed in the whole of the northeastern region buff eted with state of the art infrastructure and a workable administrative policies and strategies as thousands of kilometers of roads have constructed all over the nooks and crannies of the state, model primary and secondary schools were constructed in all the 11 local government arrears of the state while old ones are fully renovated and equipped with state of the art facilities, hospitals and other health related interventions have been put in place, and farmers have also been yearly benefited from the government interventions by providing subsidized fertilizer, tractors, and other farm implements, tens of thousands of women and youths have been trained in numerous skills acquisition programs and start-up capital being provide.
Indeed, the giant International Conference Centre, Petroleum Tankers Parking Bay, Gombe Mega Motor pack are projects that can only be found in Gombe State despite the lean resources at the disposal of the prudent and transparent Dankwambo’s administration. In fact, Dankwambo has transformed Gombe state into the industrial and agrarian hub of the north-east region, a position that it enviably occupied in the past. Having changed the infrastructural, developmental, industrial and manufacturing landscape of the state for the better while drastically reducing its poverty, maternal and child mortality rates it is no surprise that many political activists, leaders of the thought and influential pundits have called on the man of the hour, Dankwambo to throw his hat in the ring and as does during the 2011 election and declare his interest in the presidential contest so that Nigerians will stand a chance to reap the countless democratic dividends that he has been rendering to the Gombe State people, because savvy Nigerians are beginning to echo the aphorism: ‘What is good for Gombites is also sauce and worthy for Nigerians! Yusuf writes from Gombe

 

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