The Nation Newspaper

Tag: scorecard

  • A union’s scorecard

    A union’s scorecard

    In a few weeks, students  of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria, Kaduna State, will go to the poll to elect those that will take over from the Abubakar Aliyu Rafindadi-led Students’ Union Government (SUG). What is the legacy of the outgoing executive? ABDULRAHAMAN ZAKARIYAU (300-Level Mass Communication) writes.

    HIS election as president of Students’ Union Government (SUG) of the Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Kaduna State, was momentous. Abubakar Aliyu Rafindadi, 22, was seen as the golden jubilee leader because he emerged when the institution was preparing to mark its 50th anniversary.

    Abubakar, who had no intention to contest for the SUG leadership, was gunning for the leadership of the National Association of Social Sciences Students (NASSS). However, because of crisis in the NASSS, which led to its ban 2012, Abubakar stepped up his political game; he declared for SUG presidency. He was sworn in by the Vice Chancellor, Prof Abdullahi Mustapha on November 5, 2012.

    On its advent, Abubakar administration’s first task was to improve students’ welfare. He liaised with vendors and business operators on campus to regulate prices of commodities and services to what students could afford. He also drew attention to the poor service in the sick bay, threatening to shut it down sickbay if the service was not improved. The intervention led to the employment of more doctors and nurses in the sickbay.

    The Abubakar-led SUG organised public lectures where eminent people such as Prof Aminu Dorayi, first SUG president in ABU, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, former Vice Chancellor of the institution, Dr Maitama Sule, Senator Geoge Akume and Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) boss, among others, discussed topical issues with students. Papers presented at these symposia were compiled and distributed to students free.

    The administration renovated and equipped the union’s secretariat on Zaria and Kongo campuses with modern facilities. An official car was purchased for the union while two buses were also procured to help the movement of students at subsidised rate. The union revived its Keke NAPEP’s business to reduce students’ stress in moving from one faculty to another.

    Among the students, Abubakar is fondly called “subsidy president”, because of his administration’s control of price of goods and services through Consumer Regulatory Task Force Committee, which union constituted immediately after it was inaugurated. Abubakar administration’s biggest social event, Etisalat Campus Promo, will linger in the minds of students, who won a car, laptops, Ipads, mobile phones and t-shirts.

    The expiring Abubakar’s administration is leaving a good legacy, Farouk Bello, a 400-Level Mass Communication student said.

    Abdullahi Sani Shauibu, president of Faculty of Environmental Design, believes Abubakar, propelled collective interest of students, describing the union leader as a visionary leader. “He has been involved in many struggle, but Abubakar-led administration has written its name in gold given its achievement in academics, sport and students’ welfare,” Abdullahi said.

    Abubakar has done a lot to promote students’ welfare, Macpherson Eze Brown, president of National Association of Geography Students in ABU, said, saying the students’ leader stunned his opponent with his achievement.

    Abdullahi Abdulrahaman, a 300-Level Electrical Engineering student, described Abubakar-led union as “one-sided organisation”, saying the union did not intervene in the leadership tussle that rocked his department.

    The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC), Prof Ibrahim Na’Iya Sada, said the Abubakar-led students’ union was obedient and listened to students’ views. The DVC said since inception of the union, it has maintained a cordial relationship with the management, noting that the institution did not witness students’ unrest because Abubakar was diplomatic in its approach to leadership.

    The Dean Students’ Affair (DSA), Prof Mohammed Sani Shehu, said he was surprised to be learn that the union has a task force going round to ensure that prices of services were controlled. The DSA said the Abubakar-led SUG would be remembered for publishing a book on students’ unionism in the university since 1962.

    According to the university Chief Security Officer, Col. Abubakar Sadiq Oguche (rtd), there has not been any students’ union regime that actively collaborated with the school security outfit to engender peace on the campus more than outgoing administration led by Abubakar. He described union as focused.

    Despite challenges faced by his executive, Abubakar said he achieved his promises to students because of his passion for selfless service. Would the incoming students’ union leadership maintain the tempo of achievements by the Abubakar-led administration?

     

     

     

     

  • Ex-unionist’s scorecard

    The outgone Chairman, Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union COEASU), ACE chapter, Mr Smart Olugbeko, has presented 53 achievements of his four-year tenure.

    Olugbeko, who is now the national-vice chairman of COEASU, presented the scorecard during the inauguration of the newly-elected executives of the union.

    In a compendium titled: ‘Landmarks,’ Olugbeko noted that the union during his tenure became virile and viable, renewing members’ confidence.

    He added that this confidence led to an array of achievements which includes building of COEASU secretariat, payment of productivity allowance, promotion of members, and scholarship scheme for students, among others.

    He expressed appreciation to the management under the leadership of Prof Adeyemi Idowu, which donated N2.3 million to the union to carry out some of its activities.

     

  • My Jonathan scorecard

    My Jonathan scorecard

    If anyone needed evidence of the administration’s determined flight to fantasy-land, last week’s exaggerated self-score by President Goodluck Jonathan of his administration’s mid-term performance should be it. Nearly a week after, the hordes of Nigerians that have volunteered opinions on the self-score are still struggling to make up their minds as to what galls them the more: between the heaps of sterile statistics thrown at the faces of the bewildered populace, and the reality etched on the furrows of the ordinary man on the street that the administration emphatically deny.

    Never has an assessment been so blatantly deficit in credibility as the exercise staged in Abuja Wednesday last week. Speaker after speaker spoke glowingly of the administration’s record achievement in two years just as statements were rendered et cathedra. Watching the whole charade on television, I struggled in vain to find the redeeming grave, at least a basic acknowledgment of the painful sacrifices made by Nigerians in the mission that has delivered more pains than gains. For the self-scorers, the Eldorado is here already!

    Some samples of their Eldorado: an economy roaring at an annual 6.7 percent growth; the foreign reserves at a soar-away $50 billion; the Sovereign Wealth Fund with $1 billion seed money despite initial objections by some governors. Inflation (which the spendthrift administration is culpable in fuelling at every turn) is touted as being progressively won with inflation now down to 9.1 percent from 12.4 percent in May 2011. How about the claim of record foreign direct investment inflow at a time local businesses remain in coma? Add to these; the administration’s programme on power is on course; ditto its programme to rehabilitate the railways and the transportation infrastructure.

    The administration is, without question, entitled to its claims of achievement – including those bordering on delusions. Nigerians of course have the duty to point at the hard facts either deliberately suppressed or glossed over in the larger conversation on the economy and by extension, the nation’s future. The issue certainly runs deeper than the administration’s book balances can ever reveal; which explains why the unceasing but cheap seduction by the Jonathan’s book-keepers to their narrow treatise with its distorted reality even when there are other authorities to turn for a more balanced picture has been particularly irksome.

    Let’s consider the report of the anguished operators on the Main Street; the whining manufacturers whose operations are constantly threatened or are in the throes of shutdown for the same old reasons of inclement environment. Do they agree that the Eldorado is here?

    Put in another way: Is the environment under the Jonathan administration, more clement than it was five, eight or even 10 years ago? Not even the Jonathan administration – in its widest delusions – would dare to suggest that the problems have disappeared. Just as the same old problems have endured, some have in fact metastasized; the only difference is the signature on the promissory notes.

    Two weeks ago, I stumbled on an observation by the Senior Representatives of the IMF in Nigeria, W. Scott Rogers which I consider particularly relevant in framing the current debate on the economy. Here is how the IMF chieftain captured what he called the Nigerian “conundrum”: “Income per capita has gone up, yet poverty isn’t improving and we are having a difficult time understanding why that is, or how that could be”.

    Now, the IMF couldn’t understand why poverty is on the rise at a time the nation’s per capita income is rising. Do our officials know? I bet – they don’t.

    Well, I have some ideas to explain the so-called mystery.

    The first is the bazaar of contractocracy at all levels of government. Today, the shortest route to unearned wealth is government business. Our government –at the federal level in particular – has become a huge procurement machine spinning contracts without delivering value. It can afford to spruce up far –flung airports even when there are no aircraft to fly; the same way it retains enough funds to erect monuments in service of the egos of those in power but never enough to fix the craters on the highways. Whoever thought that a government in this day and age could create a department to service the needs of certified deviants and their co-travellers in criminal delinquency? Of course, it can only happen in Nigeria. Under Jonathan presidency, the portfolio has not only enlarged, it has since assumed the status of an industry.

    The obverse side of the government profligacy is the continuing asphyxiation of the real sector through the prohibitive cost of lending. Let me offer a simple explanation on why the government is the sole culprit in this. Today, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) rate which sets the benchmark lending rate has been kept at 12% for the MPC’s 10 meeting running. This is of course justified by the need to curb government’s unbridled spending – the expansionary fiscal activities of government at all levels. That, in turn, hikes the cost of borrowing to everyone – including the small and medium scale business. In other words, it is a case of getting them to pay for the sins of the irresponsible government! It is a vicious cycle.

    Now, you know who to hold responsible whenever the real sector complains of prohibitive costs of funds. Does anyone yet see how costly the delinquency of the public sector can be? Is the Jonathan administration less culpable than those before it in this regard? As for those complaining about the current MPC rate, I say: wait till the third quarter of next year to see the rate head further north as politicians roll out their war chest as the race to 2015 hits the home stretch!

    Related to the above is the unemployment situation. The statistics is simply frightening. As for youth unemployment, don’t even dare to go there – It has reached the tipping point. We herd our children to school hoping that opportunities will somehow open up after graduation. Our government talks about the need to expand the opportunities for youths but does nothing to create them. As it is in the labour market, so it is in the educational system. With only 520,000 spaces available for the 1.7 million candidates who sat for this year’s Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME), are we not preparing the nursery ground for tomorrow militants and Boko Haram recruits? Does that feature on the Jonathan scorecard?

    I should not fail to mention another conundrum – our mounting debts at a time of unprecedented incomes. The Jonathan administration insists that the nation is presently under-borrowed. And what is their case for borrowing? That we should, just because we can? And at a time we are supposed to be growing the piggy bank called the Excess Crude Account?

    They say the funds are cheap – unlike the Paris and London club of debts? So what? Should anyone be pressing to borrow at 15 percent while stashing away our reserves at JP Morgan at nominal interest of barely 2%?

    So, where is the basis for the claim that the Jonathan administration is any different from those that have landed us in the present hell-hole? Only because more money is flowing in and hence it could afford to throw it around?

    Still want my score? It would be a D.

  • Changing face of Gombe under Dankwambo

    Changing face of Gombe under Dankwambo

    On May 29, 2011, the call on Alhaji Ibrahim Hasssan Dankwambo to lay aside his Accountant General of the Federation for a direct service to the people of Gombe state was eventually consummated with his inauguration as the Governor of Gombe state.

    Since then, the Governor has taken pragmatic steps to demonstrate focused and determined leadership that Gombe state needed to attain the next level of development. Accordingly, virtually every sector has received good attention as the ultimate intention of enhancing the socioeconomic wellbeing of the citizenry.

    He begun by constituting twelve committees to through all sectors look into the problems hampering from achieving its full potentials and to also proffer solutions to them. As indicated during his inaugural speech, youth rehabilitation, reorientation, and empowerment was the first to come under the spotlight with the graduation of 320 youths trained on seven different skills from four skills acquisition centres across the state.

    They were resettled with tools of their trades and N200,000:00 cash to enable them start-off while the programme itself was thereafter scaled up to 520 youths and thirteen trades.

    In addition to that, 1,200 youths, most of whom used to be recalcitrant were camped for a three-week rehabilitation reorientation exercise. They graduated into Environmental, Traffic and Ward Marshals and were put on monthly emolument. They have since been of great help under the relevant agencies with 300 of them that have distinguished themselves sponsored for leadership training in plateau state.. Their presence has also culminated in the demise of the disturbances the state was once notorious for.

    On the formal front, Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo has holistically tackled the decay in the state’s educational system with enviable results to show for his efforts. First he embarked on the reconstruction of ten schools (five primary and five post-primary) and transforming them into model schools.

    Going on together with this is the construction of new classroom blocks or rehabilitation of dilapidated ones in some other schools with the intention achieving a ratio of one class teacher to fifty pupils/students in the long-run. 1,000 qualified teachers have been engaged out of the earmarked over 3,000 needed for impactful teaching and instructional materials like books worth over N 500 million, classroom furniture and others are being promptly provided and distributed free of charge to pupils and students.

    The ultimate aim is to train 30,000 youths, place them on N6,000 : 00 while being trained and resettle them with kits of the trades that have learnt as well as an interest-free loan of N200,000 : 00 to enable them take-off .

    To mop up the teeming secondary school graduates with defects in the results, the present administration in Gombe state entered into an agreement with the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) to remediate the youths in batches of 1,000 until pressure from that category f population reduced to the lowest ebb. The arrangement is such that candidates will be remediated in Gombe by UNIMAID staff. They will also write the same examination as their campus colleagues but on-line.

    Those that pass the remedial (entrance) examination as well as score the Joint  Matriculation Examination (JME) cut-off point of 180 and above would be admitted into any course of their choice in UNIMAID. The ones that made the entrance exams but failed JME would retain their result for the next session and retake JAMB. Candidates who fail both examinations on the other hand would enjoy the privilege of being admitted into Certificate Courses specially introduced by UNIMAID.

    Still determined to make tertiary education more accessible, Gombe State University’s School of Remedial Studies was expanded into a full blown campus with a capacity to admit at least 1,500 per-session. The school is designed to remediate candidates for both Junior and Senior Secondary Schools.

    Candidates that gradate from the remedial and are not keen in furthering their education could be trained on their choice trade out of the thirteen skills available in the school. Similarly, a robust sports facility is provided, not for leisure, but for the sports inclined ones to develop their talents for future challenges while being remediated.

    As we speak, the foundation stone for the State College of Education has been laid in Billiri while State Polytechnic and School of Islamic and Legal Studies have been earmarked for establishment at Nafada and Bajoga respectively, just as the State School of Health Technology and the State School of Nursing and Midwifery have been lined up for complete overhaul

    So far, Governor Dankwambo’s administration has equally shown great commitment towards lighting up the rural communities. Justifying this is its ordering for machineries and earthmoving equipments to fast track rural development. Same is the procurement and distribution of 50 unit of transformers to rural communities while still waiting to take delivery of 55 more. A good number of communities have benefitted from rural electrification projects and so many others have been earmarked for similar intervention.

    But the block-buster electrification effort is the Balanga Dam Electrification Project which is capable of powering the entire Gombe South Regional Water Supply Scheme and all the unlit rural communities within Balanga local government and beyond. This milestone three-in-one Balanga Dam project is also housing a gigantic water work tagged Gombe South Regional Water Supply Scheme. When completed, it will supply water to Balanga, Billiri, Kaltungo and Shongom local government areas in Gombe south district and Akko in the central senatorial district.

    The Dam on the other hand supplies water through a well over 30-kilometre stretch of irrigation canal thereby making possible an all-year-round farming within the belt. Further in the area of agriculture, 35 grounded tractors have been refurbished and the same number procured. Government still not feeling satisfied ordered additional 200 unit of tractors from Pakistan.  with the aim is to make the implement more available and affordable at the State Tractor Hiring Unit.

    In the interim however, an unprecedented 34,000 metric tons of assorted fertilizers were made available for last year’s farming season just like improved seedlings have been made available for the present farming season. In the same vein, the moribund Poultry Production Unit has been put back on track with 500 workers working to regain the unit’s lost pride.

    Within the period under review, Gombe state government has constructed 55 stone-base asphalt laid roads in the state capital. The semi urban areas have enjoyed about 20 roads of the same quality with the same number of regional roads designed to open up the mostly agrarian rural communities.

    In order to take advantage of the central location of the state in the Northeast sub-region, project for an International Conference Centre that will seat over 1,000 with an annexed 150 room hotel and other ancillaries has been flagged-off. Also to be flagged-ff later in the year is Petroleum Tankers’ Bay with a capacity to hold close to 200 long vehicles; and a Mega Motor Park would will harness all five motor parks in the state capital with the state-owned transport service. Features would among others include police station, banks, lock-up shops, fire station and others.

    Among other invisible achievement of the present leadership of Gombe state is the disbursement of N 250 million revolving loan to 74 groups across the state. The loan is jointly funded by Bank of Industry on a 50 – 50 basis. Similarly, another N 750 million loan has bee set aside for distribution to Gombe Market Traders and Gombe Village Market Traders Associations. All packages are targeted at reigniting the dying embers of commerce in the state.

    Dankwambo and his team may have stayed briefly, but have left a mark that will forever remain in the sand of time for good. Space may not accommodate the listless achievements wroth in just one and a half year in office, but if there is any place where value for money and justified use of public funds is exemplary, it is certainly Gombe. And to quote the Governor, it is indeed, “not the amount of money available, but how it is spent”

     

    •M. L. Ismail writes in from Bolari Quarters in Gombe state.

     

  • Presenting Dankwambo’s brilliant scorecard in Gombe

    The celebration of this year’s Independence Day anniversary may have been low keyed, but it is certainly not the same in terms of score card. This is because, apart from the usual elaborate fanfare, an independence anniversary is a time for sober reflection from the leader and the people.

    An anniversary period is a time when the leader reviews his activities to see if he is on course, if his activities are in line with his promises and, above all, see how positively he has impacted on the lives of the people. The people, on the other hand, see it as a period they examine the level of commitment to the responsibility of the leadership to the led in terms of delivering the goods.

    In Gombe State, it is no longer news or a big deal how the Independence anniversary days are celebrated. Instead, all that the people look up to is how they have fared under their leaders. And under the leadership of Alhaji Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo, Gombe State has been counting its blessings since May 29, last year, till date with horde of infrastructural and human capacity development projects to show for it in their numbers.

    As I write, the Gombe State Government, under the administration of Dankwambo, has awarded over 50 roads for construction across the state. The roads, worth billions of Naira, run into several hundreds of kilometres with several completed and many others at different stages of completion.

    One of the landmark projects in this direction is the hitherto abandoned 54-kilometre Kanawa–Jagali–Deba–Jauro Gotel Road with a spur to Kuri in order to open up the international grains market there and the nearby communities.

    In the light of the understanding that water is life, Governor Dankwambo has taken the jinx-breaking Gombe Regional Water Supply Scheme to a higher level by extending it further from Gombe town to Bojude and Kwami communities and the environs in Kwami Local Government Area. Water supply in the state capital is being properly reticulated to new layouts.

    But that is not all about water. An even bigger water project in mass and coverage than what we have in Gombe is springing up in Gombe South. Tagged Gombe South Regional Water Supply Scheme due to its location, the project when completed will take care of the water needs of Balanga, Kaltungo, Shongom, Billiri and Akko local government areas.

    The northern part of the state is equally adequately covered with water works under construction at Dukku and Nafada Local Government Areas to end the thirst for water by the areas and other parts of the state.

    The governor, in his foresight, understands that all the places cannot be covered, despite the gigantic nature of the waterworks. To ensure that none is being left out, therefore, about 50 solar-powered boreholes are at presently being sunk at different locations across the state and they are all at various stages of completion.

    On Thursday, September 27, Governor Dankwambo constituted a committee to look into the modalities for establishing a state polytechnic, which has been sited at Bajoga, the headquarters of Funakaye Local Government Area, in the northern part of the state.

    This development is coming on the heels of the establishment of state College of Education at Billiri, Gombe South, where work has already begun. But prior to the establishment of both tertiary institutions is the establishment of the School of Remedial Studies at Kumo, headquarters of Akko Local Government Area.

    The school, which is an extension of Gombe State University, is designed to admit 1,500 students per session. It remediates both junior and senior secondary school pupils. It also has the capacity to train people on trades or sports, if they are not interested in further pursuing their academics after completing their remedial programmes.

    The secondary and primary levels are not left out in the process of breathing quality and standard into the state’s educational system.

    Thus, model schools (15 primary and 15 secondary) are being created from existing ones while many others are undergoing massive renovation, reconstruction and expansion, as the case may be. Books, worth hundreds of millions of Naira, were recently procured for distribution to pupils and students across the state.

    In agriculture, the Dankwambo administration has turned around the moribund and hitherto abandoned Gombe Poultry Production Unit into a major employer of labour in the journey towards regaining its lost glory. The unit is a major distributor of eggs locally and to parts of neighbouring countries.

    Thirty-five new tractors have been procured, in addition to renovating the existing but grounded 35 others to bolster the state’s Tractor Hiring Unit.

    Gombe State procured and distributed metric tonnes of assorted fertilisers for distribution to farmers at highly subsidised rates in the current farming season.

    Recently, Gombe got 55 transformers under the present administration. The government had distributed 50 transformers to various locations as well as embarked on the electrification of rural communities.

    “But of what use would it be to build infrastructure when the people, who are to benefit from them, are not catered for?” This was Governor Dankwambo’s question when he defended the obvious need for capacity development. It did not come as a surprise, therefore, when the administration put in place some skills acquisition centres across the state.

    Much earlier, 320 persons graduated from four vocational centres where they learnt seven different trades. They were resettled with tools of their trades and given N200,000 revolving loan each to enable them start their businesses.

    The centres, trades and trainees have since been scaled up to broaden participation and ultimately strengthen the economy of the state.

    The Gombe State Government, under the present administration, entered into an agreement with the Bank of Industry (BOI) to facilitate the disbursement of jointly funded N1 billion loan to individuals and multipurpose societies in the state. The first N500 million has been disbursed and 74 groups and individuals have benefitted.

    In the area of security, the governor has successfully clamped down on the Kalare phenomenon. He disbanded the group during his inaugural address and followed it up with the arresting anyone found in the act.

    But upon realising that the Kalare is beyond hooliganism and has become a means of livelihood, as it were, the Dankwambo administration set up the ‘Talba Youths Rehabilitation and Orientation Programme’ under which 1,997 youths were rehabilitated and trained into Ward, Traffic and Environmental Marshals. These youths have helped in effectively complementing the efforts of relevant bodies.

    The list is endless and the independence anniversary celebration was a happy one for the people of Gombe State, who are grateful to God for delivering the state into the care Alhaji Dankwambo and for all the governor has done for them in last 16 months. “It’s a brief period of time, but it is full of harvest. Only God knows how developed Gombe would be in 2015,” said an analyst on the activities of the Gombe State Government.

    “There is a lot to do. And we will continue to do our best to put smiles on the faces of the people. But we wish there is more fund available to us to enable ,us do the much we wish,” Dankwambo said at a recent public function. Suffice it to say it is a period of brilliant performance and enviable scorecard

    •Ismail wrote from Bolari Quarters in Gombe.