Governor Inuwa Yahaya’s promises and the realities- Umar Ahmad Abubakar

By: Umar Ahmad Abubakar

From inception, Gombe has been blessed with visionary leaders who laid the foundation that today, makes it become an enviable edifice in the whole Northeastern region.

Away from the buildings and the constructions that have seen it become the envy of its neighbours, it has also been fortunate to have, governments which were bent on creating enabling environment for its people to thrive.

Those governments understood that without building the people, whatever structures they might initiate would be what Nigerians refer to as ‘beautiful nonsense’. I can recall that the former governor of the state, Dr. Ibrahim Dankwambo once remarked that he will not tax his people until he was sure that they were fully employed and taxable.

This was the empathy that characterized the governments that the state has had from its inception until now.

Down memory lane, precisely on the 17th of January, 2019 right after the BBC Hausa gubernatorial debate, Gov. Inuwa Yahaya granted an interview on a program tagged ‘Fitilar Siyasa’ in a local radio station which enjoyed massive airplay.

In that session, Gov. Inuwa, who was a candidate then, laid out what many who tuned in believe to be his manifesto. He talked big about the failings of the then incumbent government; they all do, and promised to do better.

Listening to him address some of the challenges of the state and their possible solutions, you knew that he was a capable man who had what it took to continue the peerless building his predecessors had started. I remember listening with awe, stripped of every doubt because I knew that this was a land of governors who talked big and acted even bigger.

Also, in his speech, he spoke about things that he considered matters of urgency. Chief among them was water. The interviewer, a seasoned journalist, got him to commit to promising to solve the problem of water in Gombe within his first 100 days in office, Gov. Inuwa Yahaya immediately promised to solve this issue within a day.

Today, he has spent more than a year in office and what should have been a closed file from day 2 continues to be an elusive dream. In some parts of the state, one may say that things have gotten even worse.

While it would have been inconsiderate to expect the governor to actually live up to his promise concerning water within the said timeframe, many expected that he would create the same enabling environment that his predecessors created for the people of Gombe to thrive.

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Sadly, he has failed in this regard as well. The minimum wage which was approved by the federal government was sluggish in becoming a reality in Gombe. While the implementation came with the speed of a chameleon, it disappeared with the speed of light.

The excuse the governor made about his reversal of the implementation of the minimum wage, while understandable in light of the Coronavirus pandemic, at least on face value, betrays common sense.

This is because the governor has continued to expand on projects such as roads in areas that do not necessarily need them. This insensitivity has led many to conclude that it is his history in estate development that has made him more inclined to building structures and more apathetic to building people.

This, yet again, goes against the promises he made for the people of Gombe when he talked big about his plans for the welfare of the people.  This insensitivity has led us to have new classrooms with under-motivated teachers; it has led us to have new hospital buildings with doctors looking to jump ship.

In the book “Why Nations Fail”, Acemoglu and Robinson write that ‘poor countries are poor because those who have power make choices that create poverty.’ This poignant stance comes to mind whenever the highhandedness with which Gov. Inuwa’s administration taxes the small businesses within the metropolis is considered.

Some of these businesses with a total capital of less than two hundred thousand (N200,000) get taxed up to the sum of thirty thousand naira (N30,000). This anti-people poise is against the flowery people-centred promises the governor made before ascending the gubernatorial position.

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What’s worse? It is a stance guaranteed to cripple the businesses of these people, sentencing them to a lifetime of poverty. As a man coming from one of the biggest business dynasties in the north, the governor surely knows the implication of unfair tax regimes especially on businesses that are still finding their feet.

Still, in the pipeline of misgovernance, another serious issue concerns the dismissal of the ‘Marshals’ who have been transformed and reintegrated into their society by the previous administration to man schools, traffics, and communities, have sadly been sent back to the street to continue with their reign of terror by the present government.

This completely goes against his promise not to discontinue the program having understood what it stood for.

But, all hope is not lost, however. There is still time for the government to remedy its excesses. In all fairness to Gov. Inuwa, I would like to recall the words of Theodore Roosevelt the 26th President of the U.S who said that ‘it is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.

So, as the governor strives in this arena which promises both glory and ignominy, he will be wise to choose the side of the people so he can continue in the path of his predecessors and set the bar ever so higher for the governments that will come long after his tenure has elapsed.

Umar Ahmad Abubakar writes from Gombe.