Nasarawa State: A legacy betrayed?
IT is not surprising that all the news from Nasarawa State these days, center around the series of security challenges and political crises that have dominated the state since the controversial 2011 elections. If at all any significant development has taken place since Governor Umaru Tanko Al- Makura came on board, it has been totally nullified by the sheer onslaught of challenges to the peace and security of the people and the state. The emergence of Al- Makura as governor has exposed the result of having as state governor a person who lacked both knowledge and experience of what public governance entails and how the operations of government machinery are conducted to achieve the fundamental objectives of the institution of government. As just a hustling businessman, Al- Makura never had the opportunity to work closely within the government circles to appreciate these imperatives, beyond contracts and payments.
His personal political limitations within the Nasarawa State environment led him into blind quest for power for settling scores, promoting his ego and generally imposing his whims and caprices on the people and the governance of the state. It is no wonder, therefore, that all his major campaign promises have been falsified by his actions and utterances as governor. For example, he boasted that as a businessman who had “made it”, he would make a personal contribution of ten billion naira towards the development of the state. Flying around the small land mass of the state in chartered aircraft for his campaigns, Al- Makura repeatedly said that he would transform the state to be comparable to Akwa Ibom, Lagos and Kano States’ standards of developed infrastructure within two years. He swore not to secure any loans and criticized previous administrations in the state for taking loans. In all these anticipatory pontifications, Al- Makura simply blew hot air which has now evaporated into emptiness.
The most bogus of his campaign period pledges, however, was that which he made to the Eggon people under Ewuga that he would serve only one term in office. He made the pledge in the heat of grabbing power and the Eggons took him for his words in the frenzy of succession politics, believing that their “time had come”. They even launched the now notorious Ombatse movement as a proactive platform for actualizing their aspirations, but all Governor Al- Makura’s perceptions and postulations were reduced to mere “campaign talks” subject to the newly empowered incumbency instincts of His Excellency.
To frustrate and humiliate the Eggons who insisted on the validity of his promise to them, Al- Makura presided over the meeting that unleashed the ill- fated contingent of security forces on a mission to apprehend their ancestral leader Baba Alakyo “dead or alive”. Al- Makura thereby murdered the spirit of peaceful co- existence, common destiny and united commitment that had admirably characterized the contemporary history of the people of the state. It has not been the same for Nassarawa State in a very tragic and treacherous turn of events.
Al- Makura not only waved off his past promises, he proceeded to condemn everything and everyone that preceded him in office, thereby conferring on himself the alpha and omega of Nasarawa State who alone has all the wisdom and capacity to lead and develop the state. So, he adamantly refused to acknowledge and build on the indelible and widely acclaimed achievements of his predecessor, Akwe Doma. This deplorable departure from good governance best practices has dealt a devastating blow on the remarkable tempo of infrastructural development and other people- oriented projects and policies attained by the Akwe Doma Administration ( 2007- 2011) and established equitably across the state. In particular, the negative impact of the rookie government of Al- Makura has been observed in the health, education, roads, rural development, youth empowerment, agriculture and poverty alleviation sectors, among all other areas of development need and human endeavour covered under the Doma administration.
It is a matter of deep regret that Governor Al- Makura’s administration has favoured the clique of reactionary politicians outside Nasarawa State to destabilize the development strides initiated by Akwe Doma for his refusal to sell off the collective sovereignty of the people of the state to the influence and interests of the regional majority intent on suppressing the liberation ideology for self- identity and determination of the founding fathers which he vigorously pursued.
But things cannot be allowed to continue on this disastrous path to the total eclipsing of the promise of Nasarawa State as envisioned by those who fought for its creation and toiled to lay an enduring foundation for its development. If those in power today have lost touch with the noble legacies of the true fathers of all the diverse peoples of Nasarawa State, the mainstream of the state’s political class and elders who have been sitting and looking must now rise and speak up against the destruction of our heritage. The political movement that is all inclusive of the people and constantly pre- occupied with the pursuit of progress and development which took root in the formative stage of the state must be courageous enough to salvage the situation on behalf of the endangered people and state.
Akwati wrote in from Akwanga.