Governor Zulum: Enigma among strange people
In a country where some ideologically-bereft ruling elites exercise power in several instances without responsibilities; in a country where the sanctity of human lives pales into insignificance; and in a clime where the altars of corruption attract more worshippers than the celestial candour of integrity, to find a man who imbibes the philosophy of the English social reformer, Jeremy Bentham is likely to be seen as an enigma in the midst of strange people.
Bentham’s theory was hinged on a system that places high premium on “greatest happiness for greatest number of people”. The governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum shares in the social reform proclivity of Bentham. Indeed, his action and predilections in the war-torn villages of Borno State, are aimed at achieving greatest happiness for the greatest number of law-abiding citizens.
Let me state from onset that I have never met Governor Zulum in person.
I’m not his publicist either. But I am a lover of good governance which has unfortunately eluded this country since her political independence on the platter of gold. As a journalist and a Nigerian looking for light in the abyss of our dark and unpleasant trajectory, Zulum has the character of a dependable torchbearer as he separated himself from our decadence and lives his life for the well-being of his hitherto decimated people.
Indeed, the unusualness of Governor Zulum separated him from his peers as he brushes protocol and bureaucratic bottlenecks aside to achieve tangible of results. He is not an armchair chief executive who would wait for doctored and pedestrian reports from aides. Without prior notices, from time to time, he inspects projects and pays unscheduled visits to government establishments whose services are critical to well-being of the citizenry who had been traumatised by the Boko Haram insurgency.
He inspects hospitals at dawn when most of his colleagues are in slumber after a stressful day. At a time, he had to suspend some doctors who were on call duty and yet absent in the face of emergency cases. Since then, he has put medical personnel on their toes to ensure appreciable service delivery for the decimated people of the state. Faced with emergency cases of wounded victims of the insurgency, he personally supervises the procurement of medical equipment and drugs to ensure sufficiency and comprehensive treatment of patients at little or no cost of their own.
As part of the effort to achieve a reliable and efficient health care delivery system, he established Borno State Contributory Health Care Management Agency. This was borne out of his painstaking effort in assessing the financial constraints of the citizenry. While the state government bears the greater and proportionate brunt of medical treatment, contributors pay paltry sums to access health facilities.
As an educationist, he probably read the works of Williams Arthur Ward who appraised the roles of teachers in educational development and submitted that “a teacher is like a candle. It consumed itself to light the way for others.” He is determined to change the un-envious narrative of teachers in a state where dysfunctional education system and corrosive ignorance has created monumental army of out- of-school children.
He woke up one early morning to assess how teachers were promptly responding to the new social reform narrative. He found only one teacher of Igbo extraction who reported very early to work. He found his kind of commitment to work in the teacher and poured encomiums on her.
Zulum’s search to change the ugly narrative that was hinged on educational backwardness is not a respecter of ethno-religious affiliations. He promoted the teacher of Igbo extraction he found coming to work early and put a smiles on her face with a mouth -watering financial reward.
Coupled with his social reform programme, he sees education as a veritable weapon against mass poverty and ignorance that breed the Frankenstein Monsters called Boko Haram. He invested heavily in education. Some governors would have found excuse in Boko Haram insurgency and become Alfred Tennyson’s “Lotus Eaters”, a condition of doing nothing and clapping hands for other archivers. But not the enigmatic Zulum. The cardinal principle of the misguided insurgents- which is hatred for western education- did not distract him from providing qualitative education.
It is only the positivity of unusualness in Governor Zulum’s character that could stir him up to build primary or secondary schools that keep people wondering whether they are university buildings. He built mega schools that could enhance mass education for over 3000 pupils in rural areas. In most instances, the mega schools house 60 blocks of classrooms, Information and Communication Technology Centre (ICT).
When I had the mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in 1988, I spent most of my time in Gwange, a large settlement in Maiduguri metropolis. I met thousands of Almajirai kids who never set their minds on acquiring western education, a key to technological breakthrough and personal liberty. I remembered mourning the death of one of these kids they called “lawyer” due to his
unrivalled intelligence.
The kid died as a result of skin infection arising from unhygienic places, they took shelter. The governor, on assuming the leadership of the state, had a strategic and proactive intervention in this area. He built N400million worth of Mega Schools in Gwange as part of the effort to persuade these kids to see the essence of combining Almajiri schools with western education. The governor has procured 100 buses (40 seaters in each) to ease the transportation of students and pupils to and from schools.
Going by the unfortunate peculiarities of war-ravaged villages in Borno state, the Governor who, in his unusualness, visibly sweats it out with internally displaced persons has brought over 50,000 orphans from villages and enrolled them in mega schools in the state capital which are equipped with boarding and modern teaching facilities. Indeed, the hitherto decimated orphans are now being given teaching aids, free feeding, books and school uniforms. He has, in his quest for result-oriented educational system, hired 776 teachers for the hitherto ill-equipped secondary schools. He had visited Egypt with the hope of hiring Egyptian lecturers that could enhance the frontiers of science and technology in tertiary institutions in Borno State.
He intends to build Borno State University Teaching Hospital which would draw its capacity and medical expertise from Ain Shams University, Cairo,Egypt.
One of the amazing questions that seek answers among admirers of Governor Zulum is his ability to outperform his peers even when the state is battling with insurgency. The answers are not in monologue encounter with the marines. Wherever there is leadership will and determination, there is a way laid out with gold and silver. The relentless Governor, who has the propensity to constantly oversee projects, had survived two horrendous attacks from the dare-devil insurgents. Indeed, he is undeterred as he shares the pains of his war-weary citizens.
Okpe is a Public Affairs Analyst and former Managing Director of Kogi State Newspaper Corporation (Publisher of The Graphic), writes from Lokoja