When, earlier in the week, it emerged that Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, had become richer than 30 African countries, the first person that came to my mind was Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State.
Engineer Sule was the group managing director of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, a plum appointment he earned four years before he became the governor of the North-Ccentral state of Nasarawa, and from which he voluntarily resigned to seek the governorship of that state.
Many wondered why someone holding such a rich position would risk it all by venturing into the uncertain, murky waters of Nigeria’s partisan politics. But it was too apparent as early as then that Sule was a man with a mission to make all the needed difference. By 2019 when he won the gubernatorial election with a landslide, he had played a key role in making Dangote richer than 30 African countries, in terms of GDP.
At that time, the entire GDP of the African continent was $2.45 trillion, as per data from the IMF. Dangote Sugar Refinery, headed by the versatile Sule, had played its part in ensuring Dangote’s net worth represented 0.61 per cent of that figure. The market value of the group became 2.20 per cent of the GDP of ECOWAS, put at $668.60 billion GDP. That made Dangote richer than the 30 African countries mentioned earlier.
With many successful people preferring to remain holed up in their comfort zones, many in Sule’s position would not risk such a resounding success story for the governorship of a state at the middle rungs of the development ladder in the Nigerian federation. In other words, since, for many people, public office is mainly about self-enrichment, there was no need for the engineer to vie for the governorship of a state whose entire monetary resources did not match the company that he (Engineer Sule) was heading.
But then as Pluto (427-347 BC) surmised, once responsible and capable people continue to shy away from politics, governance would be left in the hands of idiots. And so, in obvious determination to save Nasarawa from ruination, Sule left his plum job at Dangote Group to add to the large number of persons interested in succeeding Governor Tanko Al-Makura as Nasarawa governor in 2019.
Nigerian politics can be treacherous, replete with stories of positive-minded, capable persons leaving their plum jobs in determination to save their people but ending up with the same people voting for the wrong hands that mess them up completely. Would Sule add to the number of these distinguished Nigerians left in the lurch, politically speaking?
Well, obviously, even if that possibility had crossed his mind, Sule, in his raw determination to make himself available for Nasarawa’s rescue mission, did not allow it to dominate his thoughts. He went through the entire political process, getting no favour from rivals who were hellbent in upending his quest. He weathered the storm, and after all the votes were counted, the engineer coasted home to victory, becoming the fourth democratically elected governor of Nasarawa State.
With that victory, the resilient people of the state made clear their determination to have their destinies changed for the better. But for a state with many political IOU’s, including huge contract liabilities and unpaid salaries, the possibility that Sule, the resoundingly-successful boardroom guru, could be demystified was all too apparent. Everyone agreed that Sule was set on a rescue mission. But where would he get the resources to execute his pro-people agenda?
That brings us to another question that becomes pertinent now that the governor has crossed the halfway mark in his first term of office: How far has Nasarawa State fared under Sule’s leadership in the tortuous governance of a state under severe security threats? There is a problem here. I am not from that state and, secondly, Sule is reputed as not too disposed to publicizing his achievements. He is, oddly, the type of leader that prefers his achievements to speak for themselves. And so, getting the information to publish a piece on him could be an arduous task.
At personal level, I did not think much about Sule or his Nasarawa State, until I had the opportunity to visit the state capital about a year ago. Afterwards, I had met very briefly with the governor at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Tukur Buratai Research Centre, a world-class intellectual hub set up by former Army Chief, now ambassador, General T.Y. Buratai, to help fast-track Nigeria’s progress through the instrumentality of research for development, in partnership with Nasarawa State University.
In the present political dispensation, we hear of citizens of many states regretting voting for the persons who are now governing these societies like their personal fiefdoms. But the case of Sule is very clearly different. He has enthroned for the state an era of transparent governance that gives the people, from top to bottom, a sense of belonging in his administration.
He is about the only governor in Nigeria who has expressed a genuine desire to interface with his people, creating social media platforms on real-time basis and also making available to them three phone numbers that they can deploy to reach him directly. In villagers and towns of the state, countless issues have been raised by the people of the state, with the governor as much as possible resolving them.
This year’s budget of Nasarawa State is almost three times less than the N293 billion in dividends that Alhaji Aliko Dangote has earned from his interest in Dangote Cement for the fiscal year ending 2021. Yet, Governor Sule, deploying masterful management of scarce resources, is creating the impression that the state is among the richest in the country. He does this with the unprecedented achievements he has continued to record, giving life to the assertion by renowned political scientists that when corruption is curbed to the barest minimum, the development nexus of any society can be optimized.
It was Leslie Levine, famous writer and speaker in Chicago and president of Leslie Levine Communications, who motivationally urged positive-minded people to go all out to achieve goals they set for themselves, not minding the odds. He said such people should “wish it, dream it,” and then “do it.”
Perhaps, more than anything else, thus summarizes the huge success story that the backwater state of Nasarawa has become as of today, all courtesy of Engineer Sule’s effective and selfless leadership.
(To be concluded)