In a rare moment of reflection, Katsina State Governor Bello Masari shares his vision for the state’s growth, ruing opportunities the state once lost, writes OUR REPORTER
There were moments when Kastina State governor, Rt. Hon Bello Masari spoke like a father to the members of his cabinet. In such moments, he spoke softly, pausing with a sigh, the airs of office stripped off. Masari merely spoke, shared his vision and poured his heart out.
Such a moment came when he shared his administration’s vision with the people of the state and members of the press at the Kastina State Media Summit. It was meant to be an occasion to showcase the achievements of the state government, but governor Masari turned it into an avenue for sober reflection and a door to glimpse into the future.
“There was an opportunity, it was never used,” he began. A pin-drop silence enveloped the room, one could see the pain written on the edges of the governor’s face as he tried to master his emotion. “There was an opportunity to restore education; it was never used, it all amounted to leadership and how you are able to use it,” he said.
Governor Masari is not a stranger to politics in the state. He had been a civil servant and politician rising to become the Speaker of the state House of Assembly. But in 2015, he was elected governor on the platform of the All Progressive Congress, (APC). That was when the burden of the state’s underdevelopment confronted him. It was a burden he said he had tried to unravel in the last two years of his administration.
The statistics of the educationally developed states in Nigeria does not favour Kastina State; in recent times, the state has constantly hovered close to the bottom three positions. This was a great source of sadness to the governor and his cabinet, but it was also an opportunity for change.
Kastina has not always been in this sorry pass; its history was tied to education and the people pride themselves on their Islamic education system. Also, three generations of Nigerian leaders of northern extraction schooled in such high profile school like Kastina College and Government College.
But Masari is not dwelling on current failures, for him turning the education fortunes of the state around would require a continuous massive investment that may not yield fruit in 20 years. In this manner, 20 percent of the state’s budget has been going to education in the last two years, but the governor said the ability of Kastina students to compete with other states is priority.
“Please understand with us when our intervention in education involves 20 percent of our budget,” Masari said in a tone which conveyed so much emotion. But Masari was not done; his vision is that students from Kastina will be able to compete with other states in the next five years.
Masari: “Unfortunately now, Kastina was among the bottom three most backward state in education in this country, this is how far we have descended, to us it is a challenge, it is a failure of leadership, over a long period, we were speaking and nobody was taking notice, maybe in our lifetime or those behind us they will see the gap, definitely there will be a gap.
“That is why we have chosen education; we agreed that we will devote 20 per cent of our budget to education that is why education has been taking the lion share since we came in 2015. We know investment in education is what you see the result in 20-30 years by that time, most of us here would be gone, but at least we will prepare the next generation for the competitive world of tomorrow.”
The Commissioner for Education, Professor Halimatu Sa’adiya Idris reeled out the investment in education in the state. Two new secondary schools have been built while 27 secondary schools were being reconstructed and upgraded. These investments did not come cheap; they amounted to N2, 801,712,313.68
Boarding schools are also close to Governor Masari’s vision of establishing additional five boarding schools including Government Girls Junior Secondary Schools in Shema, Rimaye, Barkiya and increasing the feeding per student from N80 to N100 per meal. The government also paid the examination fees of students in 2015 amounting to N998, 857,000 and in 2016 N607, 558,600.
There is also the issue of girl-child education which the state government has pursued aggressively with the disbursement of girls scholarship to 7981 Primary one girls at N20, 000 per girl-child and the School Improvement Grand (SIG) to 510 primary schools at N250, 000 for Primary school and N150, 000 for Pre-primary schools.
A classic example of this was seen at the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Ajiwa which currently has 1,800 students. The Principal Hajia Jajara Abdulkadir was ecstatic as she showed stakeholders around the changes that has taken place.
“There used to be about 120 students in each class before the intervention, but now there are only 45 students, in the dormitory, we used to have 200 girls but now only 70 students. The state has renovated many of the buildings and new ones are being constructed. We have a new dormitory, new classrooms, new kitchen and if you go into the classes, you will see the girls are very happy in their clean and spacious environment,” she said.
Not a few people in Kastina are aware that Governor Masari spent his younger years in the Kastina State Water Board rising to the position of Assistant General Manager when he retired in 1992. He was there during the productive and formative years of the water works and retired when it was at its peak.
When he returned as governor in 2015, the water situation was at the worst state ever with all the water treatment plants operating below 50 percent capacity and water supply in the urban towns less than 10 percent of the required average of 120 litres per capita per day. Most of the water supply schemes were unserviceable and less than 20 percent of the 41 semi-urban waster schemes in the state operational.
“Masari would have none of it,” says commissioner for Water resources, Hon. Salisu Dandume, being the governor’s area of core competence, he immediately declared a “Marshal Plan,” in the water sector. The plan involves projects under the Urban Water Supply; Semi Urban Water supply; Hydrological services department, Rural Water Supply and collaborations with international organisations.
The governor rehabilitated the Daura Water Scheme with the sum of N34million which was completed in November 2015 and has since supplied the town with at least 2,500,000 million litres daily. Malumfashi which has been in comatose for seven years is revived at the cost of N141million and is now operational, a contract for the total rehabilitation of Ajiwa Treatment Plant and Dam was awarded at the cost of N1.9billion to increase the production capacity to 50,000m3 per day.
In the Rural Water Scheme, about 64 solar borehole water supply schemes were rehabilitated and over 102 hand-pumps repaired and new ones constructed. The revolution in the water sector is a great source of reflection for Masari.
Masari said he has spent over N5billion on the water works since 2015 and in the 2017 budget, N14 billion has been allocated making it the second largest allocation in the budget.
Dr Kabir Mustapha, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health stood at the entrance of the General Hospital Kastina and smiled. In the last few months, what used to be a sore has taken on new infrastructures and equipment.
“ The work in this hospital is in three phases, we are converting all the theatres into twin theaters, machines lime the MRI, CT scan are being provided and 620 medical personnel have been employed in the state,” he said.
The Commissioner for Health, Mariatu Bala Usman expatiated further that four General Hospitals in Kastina, Daura, Funtua and Kankia are undergoing refurbishment while about N900 million was expended in 2016.
“Generally, the motive for the renovation is address the wear and tear of the facilities while the upgrading is mainly to enable the deployment of modern equipment for treatment and diagnosis and also provide adequate security,” Usman said.
Usman said about N700million has been released for the purchase of modern equipment for the hospitals, already Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computer Tomographic Scanning Machine (CT-SCAN) have been installed at the General Amadi Rimi specialist hospital.
