THE ROAD AHEAD

BEING AN ADDRESS AT THE FIRST NASARAWA STATE SUMMIT OF NASARAWA LEADERS OF THOUGHT BY ALHAJI ABDULLAHI ADAMU, (SARKIN YAKIN KEFFI) EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR OF NASARAWA STATE, ON THE 25 SEPTEMBER, 1999.

On behalf of the state government and myself I warmly welcome you to this historic summit. Your presence here is a source of joy and inspiration to us, and an eloquent testimony to your unflinching support for the programmes and policies of our administration. We cannot thank you enough for this singular show of support and solidarity. We thank the Almighty Allah for making this meeting possible. May He continue to guide us in our sincere and collective efforts to take our people to the promised land.

This assembly today is the first in a series of consultative meetings we have initiated to keep you fully briefed on the state of affairs in Nasarawa State. This forum is not intended as a talk shop. We conceived it as an important forum to put our heads together to meaningfully respond to the needs of our people and chart a course for the future of our state.

We have invested hopes in this forum. Through it, we will periodically appraise you of the activities of our administration and shop for your views and suggestions to enrich our thinking and help us in the urgent task ahead. I urge you to speak freely.

We must all be active participants if the forum must serve its purpose. Our views must be objective and our proffered solutions must be informed and practicable. Let us not dress them in the false garments of vested personal, sectional or even religious interests.

We have not convened this meeting in response to any criticism or pressure from outside. It is out of our conviction that the good people of this state have a right to take part in the process of governance.

Since our inauguration a little over one hundred days ago, we have involved the relevant segments of our society in our programmes and policies. As some of you would recall, the broad policy thrust of this administration evolved from the collective wisdom of the leaders of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and informed indigenes of the state.

We lay no claims to monopoly of wisdom or infallibility. We are always open to opinions and suggestions offered in the interest of our people. As far as we in this administration are concerned, only the interest of the people matters. In the face of the urgent task facing us to make a difference in the lives of our people, we cannot spare time to massage anybody’s ego.

You are the political and opinion leaders in this state. We expect you to be genuinely concerned about what is going on in the government and the state. Where you feel that something is going wrong, you have a moral duty to say so. My humble advice is for all of us to resist the temptation to rush to the gallery for purposes of wanting to be heard or to score cheap political points. Leaders must learn to criticise from an informed position. And they should criticise with the objective of helping to build and not to destroy.

Our doors are open. We urge all those who have something to offer to come forward. I assure you that we are not, and do not ever intend to be, lone rangers.

Let us see the depressing picture of our depressed state as a challenge. Our duty, our challenge and our obligation all rolled into one, is to change this unacceptable face of our state. In the last three months, we have mapped out strategies for this change. The strategies are anchored on the cardinal objectives of our programmes and policies, namely: 

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2.  The evolution of a clear socio-cultural philosophy for the efficient management of our human, financial and natural resources for the greatest good of the greatest number of our people.

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4. Coordinated infrastructural development for a meaningful empowerment of our people.

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6. Poverty alleviation through self-actualisation within the context of a holistic socio-economic empowerment.

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8. Rapid educational, agricultural and industrial development of the entire state.

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10. Transparency and accountability in the conduct of government business.

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The execution of our policies and programmes is a teamwork. On August 12^th 1999 we formally constituted the state executive council. The council is made up of men and women whose commitment to the service of our people is transparent. For reasons that will become evident in the next few months, we call ourselves the dream team. We shall dream of a modern and prosperous Nasarawa State together. And together, we shall actualise our dreams to the joy and happiness of our people.

The dream team can do little without your active support. The backbone of any administration is a sound, committed and motivated civil service. We inherited a demoralised civil service.

But we are in the process of its comprehensive re-organisation to tailor it to the needs and exigencies of a democratic government. The recent removal of Permanent Secretaries is part of this re-organisation.

We have taken steps to motivate our civil servants. We have paid all outstanding salaries and allowances. We have also promoted those who were due. We have introduced the furniture loans scheme for workers. Arrangements are in top gear to distribute motor cycles and bicycles supplied by the PTF on loan to workers.

Civil servants now enjoy a one-hour break from 12pm to 1pm. This has helped to reduce cases of loitering during office hours. Workers who have children in school can now take them home during their official break. We have also provided cafeteria services for civil servants at the workplace. To encourage interaction among the civil servants, staff clubs for senior and junior workers are being established.

Most importantly, we have started routine on the job training and retraining programmes for civil servants in the state.

A characteristic of this administration is its determination to let its actions speak louder than words. Within our first hundred days, we demonstrated that beyond any reasonable doubts. We promised during our electioneering campaigns to provide a hospital in every local government headquarters where there is none.

We have begun to fulfill our promise. We commissioned the Akwanga and Wamba general hospitals on September 6 as part of events marking our first one hundred days in office. Keana, Obi and Awe general hospitals are next in line.

We plan a women and children’s hospital in Doma. We are expanding the Nasarawa Comprehensive Health Centre with a wing for women and children. We are providing a similar facility in Nasara-Eggon. A new hospital in Keffi is in the pipeline because the federal government is taking over the present hospital and will convert it into a National Health Centre. We are also working on the Mararaba health centre in Karu.

Given our lean financial resources, we do not promise to provide health for all by the year 2000. But we promise to solve the basic health problems of our people within one year of our assumption of office.

As you very well know, lack of potable water is a major problem in most areas of the state. Existing water supplies are grossly inadequate. In many cases, facilities for providing potable water have broken down. Again, we took immediate steps to meet this basic human need. I am pleased to report that today, potable water flows in Lafia, Obi, Keana, Nasarawa Eggon, and Nasarawa. The water supply in Nasarawa is now over 60 percent of installed capacity.

Education is the backbone of modern development. This administration lays due emphasis on the provision of qualitative education in the state.

Despite handsome votes for education at federal and state levels over the years, education in the country generally has suffered from the violence of half-hearted approach to its development.

The result is that the standard of education is low. Our state is educationally backward. If we must catch up with the rest of the country, then we must do more than pay lip service to our educational development.

Our first step in this important sector as soon as we took over was to intervene and end the protracted strike by primary school teachers. We were able to resolve this problem through a constructive dialogue with the Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT. We thank the teachers for their understanding and cooperation.

To improve the physical facilities in the schools, we have constructed two additional classroom blocks in each of the 13 local government areas.

To urgently remedy our science education, we have established six Science Secondary Schools for boys and girls, two in each senatorial district. The schools are located in Nasarawa, Garaku, Wamba, Nassarawa-Eggon, Lafia and Obi.

We are also setting up a science and technology agency. To expand educational opportunities for our children, we will establish a state University and a state Polytechnic. A technical committee is looking into a suitable location for the polytechnic.

We have reconstituted the committee on the state University. We expect the University to take off as soon as practicable. For the moment we are concentrating on the groundwork for its ultimate establishment. The establishment of a university to provide requisite manpower for our state in the next millennium is a task that must be done. There is no going back on this.

Lack of industries has been the bane of our under-development. It is an irony that a state so richly endowed with natural and agricultural resources to sustain viable medium to large scale manufacturing industries, has none. We believe that we need to urgently address the question of our industrial development. As a take off point, we have commissioned the services of economic consultants to help chart a course for the rapid and comprehensive industrial development of the state, using its natural and agricultural resources.

We are talking with potential investors and financial organisations for the establishment of the following industries: Salt factory in Awe; Fertiliser plant in Lafia; Marble processing factory in Toto; Cashew and Citrus processing plant in Keffi; Dairy in Karu; Burnt Bricks factory in Keffi and Karu; and cement plants in Kadarko and Keana.

Meanwhile, work on the International Market project in Mararaba which was abandoned before the inception of the present administration will resume soon. The potential of the market as a gateway to our commercial development is obviously immense.

Our social, economic and industrial development is hampered by lack of electricity. Six towns in the state are to be linked with the national grid. The state will also benefit from President Olusegun Obasanjo’s rural electrification project in which he plans to provide light to 186 communities nation-wide in the next six months.

This welcome development will still leave some communities unprovided for. Our rural electrification scheme is designed for such communities. We are holding meaningful discussions with the appropriate agencies such as NESW and Siemens on this. We are reactivating the generators in Awe, Uke and Karu.

Distinguished ladies and Gentlemen, we did not set out to bore you with a long list of modest achievements in our first hundred days in office. We hope, however, that we have provided you with a comprehensive report on the current state of our state. Even with the little that we have done or are doing, it is obvious that the picture of the state we inherited is changing. Indeed, we have done no more than provided the catalyst for a comprehensive development of the state.

The challenge is enormous. The problems are gigantic. But our resolve to tackle them is unwavering. Our greatest achievement so far is the creative and resourceful application of our lean financial resources for maximum mileage.

As I said at the swearing-in of the commissioners and special advisers last month, our people must not only know that there is a change of government, they must see it and they must feel it.

We are encouraged by the enthusiastic support of the people. In my working tour of the local government areas, I saw the hunger for activity in the eyes of our people. I saw their readiness to do their part if the government will do its own. I assure you and them that this government will fully play its part.

The challenge to make a difference is for all of us, in and out of government. We do not need to be in government to be part of it; to dream dreams with the government and to actualise those dreams for the progress and the upliftment of our people. The fate of our state and its people is in our hands.

You are the cream of this society. You have the financial muscle to help make a difference. You have local and international contacts to attract serious investors to the state. It is now time for all of us to think home. No one will develop this state for us. We must do it ourselves.

This is no time for indifference. This is no time for sitting on the fence. It is time for action. Our hands must be on deck. Our thoughts must be creative. Because we are all in this together.

We fought for the creation of this state. We won our struggle. That victory would be in vain if we cannot make Nasarawa the State of our collective dreams.

We must now put away our political, religious and other differences and forge a bond of unity without which we cannot go forward as a team and as a people. Our tribes and our religions must be forces for unity and strength and not for disunity and weakness.

I extend a hand of genuine friendship to all other political parties and ask them to join us in the urgent task of developing our state.

Permit me to conclude this address by re-emphasising our expectations from this historic summit. We need well-reasoned, and practicable ideas and solutions to the following crucial problems facing the state:

What steps do we as a state take to redress the glaring injustice we suffered in the assets sharing with our brothers in Plateau State.

The foregoing are the challenges to which we seek urgent answers and solutions.

Permit me to caution once more that this August summit is not a political rally. It is not an arena for partisan diatribe and intemperate exchanges. It is a non-partisan forum called to enable us discuss as a family on the way forward for our state. Let our tune and tone of discussion be parliamentary, and our contributions well thought out and delivered in the most mature and civilised language so we can benefit from this effort.

Elections are over. Now is the time for collective action to develop our state.

Ladies and Gentlemen, now you know the challenges and the problems of our state. In your pockets and your minds lies the solution. As the Hausa say: Ga fili, ga doki.

Thank you for your patience and attention. I wish you fruitful deliberations. May God bless our efforts.