The first question someone may ask is whether there is anything in common with these three northern governors. On the surface, they are strange bedfellows. But the three are united in one important virtue, making morality the cornerstone of governance.
Two of them, Rt. Hon. Aminu Masari and Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, are former one-term Speakers of the Federal House of Representatives, where they acquitted themselves excellently well. Both of them, like Nasir El-Rufa’i, are now serving as governors of some of Nigeria’s frontline states
Masari mounted the saddle rather seamlessly. But Tambuwal had to rock the boat, or, to put it mildly, swim against the tide, to become Nigeria’s Number Four Citizen. And that’s one virtue he has in common with El-Rufa’i, the Governor of Kaduna State. Whereas the Katsina Governor, Masari, acts more like a diplomat, Tambuwal (Sokoto) and El-Rufa’i (Kaduna) do not fear being misperceived as rabble-rousers, provided the issue has to do with what they firmly believe in. In other words, the trio are men of deep conviction, but they differ in their approach to achieving their goals.
Perhaps the most controversial of them is Malam El-Rufa’i. For him, being politically-correct is something of a misnomer. Wherever he governs, he leaves controversy in his wake. But posterity has always judged him correctly. When he served as minister in charge of Abuja years ago, he ruled with what was deemed an iron fist. He was hounded and castigated for his actions, one of which was banning commercial motorcyclists from operating in metropolitan Abuja.
Today, El-Rufa’i is being hailed as the best minister Abuja has ever had. With that singular action, he ended up saving thousands of lives. He was the man who saw tomorrow and used that foresight to establish a standard that ended up being copied by tens of governors, who agreed rightfully that the okada menace would sooner than later threaten our well-being and security.
Before then Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso stopped commercial motorcycling in Kano, there was a section in the main hospital of the state government, where tens of okada riders were taken dead on arrival or heavily injured owing to reckless riding. That was happening daily.
El-Rufa’i, like the other two governors, is also very passionate about education. Like Tambuwal and Masari, he believes education is the right of all citizens of his state, not just those of born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
A few months to election, he did the unthinkable: sacked tens of thousands of teachers who woefully failed a qualifying test. It did not matter that those affected would automatically turn to enemies who would massively reject him at the polls.
But he got it right, such that, like in Sokoto and Katsina, the standard of education is so high that he could afford to take his own child to a public school, last week. That bottomless pit is now getting all the attention it deserves, and in these three states the children of the poor are enjoying the proceeds of credible governance.
In Katsina and Sokoto, the people are blessed to have governors whose defining hallmarks include converting to an art the act of putting a smile on the faces of especially the indigent.
On their assumption of office, these two former Speakers made it yet another opportunity to give hope to the hopeless and take life a notch higher for millions of their people.
That must have informed why, as soon as they assumed office as governor, Masari and Tambuwal decided that one of their cardinal objectives in government was moving as many Katsinawas and Sakkwatawas as possible from the bondage of poverty and disease.
For Masari, his predecessor had made a show of bequeathing billions of naira in the state treasury. And life for Masari as governor was all set to be rosy, or so it appeared.
No sooner had the new governor assumed office, however, than he realised that the claim about billions in the kitty was an expensive joke clearly aimed at setting him against the people. Promissory notes, shares in some shaky companies and perhaps the new worth of the claimant all added up to the outrageous figure mentioned.
One of the major things that would have made Masari’s objective of enriching his people and moving them out of poverty easier was the seeming availability of especially road infrastructure that he met in place. But the main story about this can only be told some other day, as the matter is in court and, therefore, subjudice. Suffice it to say that what appeared as assets were soon turning to liabilities, as those infrastructures were mostly built on a foundation of sand; the maintenance of which is even more expensive than starting new projects altogether.
And since there are no better witnesses to these acts of misdemeanour than the people of Katsina themselves, Masari could simply have chosen to fold his arms, overwhelmed by the deep mess he inherited. And the people would hardly have blamed him for so doing.
But we are talking about someone who, through diligence, had risen to as far as Nigeria’s Number Four Citizen. He was in government to help make the needed difference, and knew that it was not going to be easy at all. But then, he was not known to be a quitter. And even as private citizen, he was well known for helping his people within the limits of his ability. The governor, therefore, wasted no time in embarking on the journey that will in eight years time culminate in Katsina resuming its pride of place among Nigeria’s frontline states.
In saner climes, when you breach your covenant with your people as the former administration did, the decent thing to do is to keep quite, if you are not going to apologise and seek forgiveness. But these people are brazen. For eight years, they took and treated the Katsina people as fools, riding roughshod over them, and embarking on relentless propaganda to make a show of delivering the goods.
Being an experienced and committed administrator, Masari decided not to allow himself to be distracted by these individuals. In their dictionary, the word ‘shame’ is alien, and their antics are clearly aimed at making him fail, as they did. So, in partnership with the Amalgamated Traders Association, the governor trained, in the first instance, 5,000 youths in entrepreneurship, a training that was literally about squeezing water out of stone. In concert with the Central Bank of Nigeria, those youths are being empowered to impact on the economy of the state in particular and contribute to the GDP of Nigeria by recording big success in their respective businesses and becoming employers of labour.
But then, as mentioned earlier, Governor Masari realised that the best legacy he could bequeath to his people was education. Sadly, that is like a bottomless pit that could corner all the resources of the state and still ask for more. Instead of painting schools to a particular colour to make a show of performing, Masari decided to turn these schools around by subjecting them to holistic rehabilitation. Thus far, over 200 of such schools have been rehabilitated and furnished, and the nagging issue of unqualified teachers is being addressed frontally. A leader that wants to deceive his people will not place education on the front burner, as it is the easiest thing to manipulate the illiterate.
Only visionary governors know that the future globally lies in IT. Already, Governor Masari has gone far in seeking partnership with CompTIA, the umbrella body of over 200 of the biggest IT companies in the world, based in the United States, and sooner than later Katsina State is going to be one of the biggest IT hubs in this part of the world, and the thousands of youths that will benefit could well be the solution to Nigeria’s economic malaise.
A Nigerian named Chinedu Echeruo, who benefitted from the CompTIA kind of training planned by Masari, developed a software that he sold to Apple Incorporation at one billion American dollars.
One of the most credible non-governmental institutions in Nigeria, the Nigerian Medical Association, bestowed on Governor Masari its biggest award for his unprecedented efforts in transforming the health sector in Katsina, inspite of all odds. Apart from prompt payment of salaries and pensions, the governor’s astute management of human and material resources has seen him embarking on an ambitious exercise that will place Katsina among the very best societies in healthcare by 2021.
Doctors who a few years ago were left with no option than to run away from Katsina for greener pastures, after being deceived by the previous system, are now returning in droves, courtesy of this major drive by Masari. Predictably, however, resources are about getting stretched, as people from neighbouring states now go to Katsina to benefit from its fast-developing healthcare delivery. The Ajiya water project has also seen to a drastic reduction of water-borne diseases by more than a half. And other important projects in that direction will only get better.
Katsina farmers are already smiling, as the governor is launching a commodity exchange in another ambitious project to be called e-Agric.
Given the long time it took Masari to cleanse the Augean stable and restore sanity to the system, there is no way he could achieve all he sets out to do in just four years as governor. Never again shall Katsina allow itself to be ruled by adventurers who had the audacity to appropriate only to themselves our collective patrimony and illegitimately amass property worth N86 billion, leaving the people wallowing in abject poverty and disease. These are people who have taken Katsina many years back. The people of the state have, therefore, done rightfully well to encourage him to vie for another term of office and turn around the whole society, to the collective benefit of all Nigerians. This is all the more so as Nigeria ponders a future beyond oil, which requires astute managers of human and arterial resources and nothing less.
The story is the same in Sokoto, where Tambuwal makes no pretense about his resolve to lift the state to higher realms. He deployed the first four years as governor to lay a solid foundation for the overall development of Sokoto State, in line with the great vision of its founding fathers. He achieved that even with the distraction of having a godfather who sought to guide him astray.
Now that he is fully a man of his own, there is no limit to what Rt. Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal could achieve in the next four years.
Here is a man who leads by example. Even when he was younger as Speaker of the House of Reps, Tambuwal shunned corruption in all its ramifications. There was no record that the administration of former President Jonathan did not scrutinise in desperate bid to find him guilty. But it all ended in vain as he had led creditably and diligently.
From time to time, this column is going to explore other states and hail governors doing well and of course, report to the people – and posterity – those breaching their covenant with the people. We will do the same with ministers and other leaders, including the Number One Citizen.
It will be well with Nigeria. At least, these three governors have proven that democracy is the best form of governance, and that Nigeria will sooner than later reach its manifest destiny.