Re: Gombe: Between autocracy and democracy
For anybody in Gombe state or close to the state governor, the article ‘Gombe: Between Autocracy And Democracy’ on page 42 of Daily Trust of Friday, July 7, 2017, is as far from the truth as it can be. The writer’s struggle to create animosity between the governor and the people of the state is apparent in all of his paragraphs.
It is rather unfair on Governor Dankwambo for anybody to think that his call for order on politicians pasting sallah posters on government building was to as a slap to democratic setting of the state. This is so untrue and it goes to show that the writer is not conversant with the true political situation in Gombe state.
It’s shocking that someone who claim to be from Gombe state and wants good governance is seeing nothing wrong with pasting of political posters on public buildings and structures. Its really shocking.
Since inception, Talban Gombe has made it clear that he is only interested in building an economic empire in the state and not a political empire. Making Gombe a better place for the good people of the state has always been his number one priority.
The writer of that article, Mohammed Sale Gombe’s main reason for writing the piece was to campaign for guber aspirant, Alhaji Umaru Kwairanga (Sarkin Fulanin Gombe) and he could have done so without writing falsehood against the incumbent.
It baffles me that most newspaper propagandist actually believe the best way to campaign for an aspirant is campaign of calumny on the incumbent. I had expected the writer to channel his energy in telling the good people of Gombe state why Kwairanga is an obvious choice for governor instead of this show of partisan falsehood.
The writer criticised Governor Dankwambo’s good efforts of closing Ramadan Tafsirs in the state this year, claiming that the governor use to travel for Umrah (Lesser Hajj) during such festive periods, which is not true. Governor Dankwambo has made it a habit to stay with his people during such festivities unlike some governors in the past who used to travel with an entourage of hundreds of people for Lesser Hajj.
It may interest the writer to know that, for the past 20 years, long before he became a governor, Dankwambo habitually sponsors Ramadan tafsirs across the state and goes to all of them for closing ceremony and donates cash to the mosques.
The writer also condemned Dankwambo’s multibillion naira Conference Centre which clearly shows his ignorance of the need to create jobs for Gombe people as well as make structures that will serve as a source of income to the government of the state.
It was in Dankwambo’s vision of creating jobs for his people and many sources of income for the people that he decided to complete and make a five-star from a hotel structure that was abandoned by Goje’s administration which sat on the money provided by former governor, Hashidu.
The writer talked about improving education, is there a better dividends of democracy for education than what Talban Gombe did. He decongested all the primary and secondary schools in the state by building almost five hundreds blocks of classrooms to cut the number of a 100 or more pupils in a single classroom by his predecessors and further employed over 7000 graduates as teachers.
He is still the only governor in Nigeria to have built five standard tertiary institutions in a state; College of Education, Billiri; Gombe State Polytechnic, Bajoga; School of Nursing, Dukku; College for Islamic and Legal Studies, Nafada and Institute of Journalism in the state capital.
On the issue of water supply, it is on record that this administration signed the Gombe state water reticulation and extension projects that cover 22 villages in all the local government areas in Gombe state which replaces hundreds of thousands of ground pipes that have been there for decades and were rusted.
Junaidu Usman Abubakar is Special Assistant Press to Governor Dankwambo.