Challenges of Development

Text of a Speech by His Excellency, Alhaji (Dr.) Abdullahi Adamu (Sarkin Yakin Keffi) Executive Governor of Nasarawa State on the Occasion of Nigeria's 44th Independence Anniversary and the 8th Anniversary of the Creation of Nasarawa State, Friday, 01 October 2004.

On the occasion of Nigeria's 44th independence anniversary, I salute and congratulate all Nigerians for adding another year of growth and development to their history. It is indeed an anniversary worth celebrating because October 1 marks a significant turning point in the history of Nigeria. On this day, 44 years ago, British colonialists relinquished their political hold on our great nation as the Union Jack was finally lowered and the Nigerian flag raised in its place.  This day has come to be regarded as freedom day for us as a nation because it was on this day that we received the reins of power to determine our destiny as a nation. October 1st, 1960 will therefore continue to remain a watershed in our history as a nation.

The occasion of Nigeria's independence provides us with the opportunity to recall the sacrifices of our heroes who struggled for the independence of the country. Our gratitude goes to Nigeria's founding fathers like Sir Herbert MaCaulay; Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe; Chief Obafemi Awolowo; Sir Ahmadu Bello; Alhaji Tafawa Belewa; Mallam Aminu Kano and a host of others who made heroic sacrifices to end British colonial rule and win independence for Nigeria. Though most of them are no longer alive, to their memory we commit our service to this country as we remain grateful to them for their exemplary patriotism.  The history of this country will never be complete and accurate if their names and roles are not recorded.

In spite of the obstacles and challenges recorded in the last 44 years of Nigeria's history, we are proud to be looked upon as Africa's greatest hope at the international scene.  This Country has continued to be the rallying point for most African countries. Nigeria has certainly blazed the trail for other African countries on the foreign scene.  It is on record that the pivotal role of Nigeria in the struggle against colonialism and racism on the continent through rugged diplomacy and sacrifices saw to the independence of countries like Zimbabwe, Guinea Bissau, Namibia, Angola and South Africa.  Our role in resolving the political impasse in Sao Tome and Principe, in ending the Liberian and Sierra Leonean protracted civil wars are pointers to the leadership position Nigeria occupies in the African continent. His Excellency, President Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, who is the African Union chairman has done a lot in projecting the image of Nigeria at the international scene.

From humble beginnings in 1960, our great country has definitely made tremendous progress in the provision of social, economic and political infrastructure in the key sectors of transportation, communications and technology, education and health amongst others.  Nigerians certainly have a cause to celebrate 44 years as a sovereign nation. Our array of professionals are also contributing their lot to the development of the nation, the continent and the world at large. Indeed the contributions of Nigerian professionals to world development is growing by the day. We salute all our country men and women who are working tirelessly to ensure that they place the name of our country on the map of world achievements and inventions.

Today, we are happy that our country has joined the comity of democratic nations. The progress witnessed in the 5 years since our country returned to democracy cannot be compared with the decades of military rule.  We salute our President, Chief Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo, GCFR, for providing able and exemplary leadership in the new democratic process. We are grateful to all our leaders, particularly members of the Peoples Democratic Party who have made enormous sacrifices to stabilize the polity. We urge them to continue in this spirit as we all look towards the future with high hopes and expectations.

For us in Nasarawa State, today's celebrations are two fold. In addition to marking Nigeria's 44th Independence Anniversary, our State marks 8 years of its existence since its creation on October 1, 1996.  We remain eternally grateful to the many individuals and groups who fervently prayed and struggled for the creation of the state. For a struggle that lasted over two decades, there is no doubt that the sacrifices were great. However, as we look back to the eight years of our creation, we can declare that the struggle was worth it. Our communities now breathe a new air of freedom and opportunities for development. We can now see what it means to be truly independent and self-governing.  Indeed we can say that for the first time in our various histories as communities, our people are now beginning to see the face of government through projects, programmes and policies.

When we took over the reins of government in 1999, we promised to bring attention to the various issues of development assailing our people. We promised to address their yearnings for meaningful social, economic, educational and political development. We promised our people access to modern life and living. In just a little over five years of democratic governance, we have tried to address these legitimate challenges of development.

Recognising that education is a catalyst to modern knowledge and development, we have not relented in our programme of massively rehabilitating the education sector. We have established primary schools in almost all communities in the state. We have made the first nine years of schooling free and compulsory. We have launched a scheme to boost primary school enrolment throughout the state. We have established almost two hundred secondary schools across the state. Our programme of improving instruction at the primary and secondary school level has seen our students excelling in the secondary school certificate examinations. To accommodate the rise in qualified secondary school graduates, we established four new tertiary institutions, to wit, the school of nursing and midwifery, the school of health technology, the state polytechnic and the Nasarawa state university. We are satisfied that these institutions are providing unparallel opportunities for our sons and daughters to fulfil their educational aspirations.

We have confronted the challenges of rural development and agriculture which is the main stay of a large percentage of our population. Our programme of opening up our rural areas saw us building many kilometres of all season roads. In this regard, we are determined to complete the Nasarawa Eggon - Mada Station and the Agwada roads. Almost all our villages from Kadarko in the southern senatorial district to Nyanya at the FCT border now enjoy electricity for commercial activities. To supplement inadequate power supply from the national grid, we decided to establish an independent hydro-electric power plant at the Farin Ruwa waterfalls. The project, which is on-going, is the first of its type to be undertaken by any sate government in the federation. When completed, it will improve power supply for industrial activities in our state.

In the agricultural sector, we have continued to encourage best practices in farming techniques. We have provided seeds and seedlings to our farmers to improve crop yields. We provided tractors to cooperatives in all local governments areas to encourage the opening up of large farms in our rural areas. Our agricultural policies continue to improve the profit margin for our farmers through the purchase of excess yields by the state government. We will continue to make concerted efforts to address all the problems of agriculture.

A well known adage states that "a healthy nation is a wealthy nation". Health concerns have occupied our attention since we assumed office in 1999. At inception we had 4 general hospitals and a few other primary health care clinics that served a population of 3.5million. We immediately commenced a programme to provide comprehensive and adequate medical care for our people. Through this programme, we now have one specialist hospitals and a model hospital that render tertiary level health care in Lafia and Mararaba Gurku respectively. There are now thirteen secondary level general hospitals, with additional ones at various stages of completion at Udege, Panda and Agbashi. In order to stem the tide of infectious diseases, we have established ninety-seven primary health care clinics in our rural communities. These clinics provide the most basic medical attention to our people before being transferred to the general hospitals for further attention, if required.

Taking a cue from renewed federal government attention on tourism, we have commenced a programme of opening up our state and its enormous tourist attractions to the world. The Farin Ruwa water falls is a world class tourism site. We are presently concentrating our efforts at developing its potentials. We have arranged many activities to take place at that venue between now and March 2005. Our intent is to draw the attention of all tourists in and outside the country to this great wonder of nature. Other tourist sites in the state will continue to receive government attention till we fully develop the state's potential in tourism.

We are not unaware of the concerns of our youth about unemployment. Most of our young men look unto government for employment, but from hindsight, we know that government cannot employ all those who seek for employment. To reduce the incidence of unemployment for our young men and women, we have introduced various schemes that will encourage them to go into private enterprise and be self employed. Recently we established a youth self-employment scheme and over 200 youths have been offered loans to engage in animal husbandry, fishery and poultry production. To compliment this effort, we will soon distribute tri-cycles to unemployed young men and women who desire to go into the transportation business.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, this is probably an opportune time to inform you that Nasarawa state has been chosen to serve as the pilot state to test-run a novel school feeding programme being introduced by the federal and state governments in conjunction with several private establishments. The school feeding programme is currently practiced only in a few countries of the world. In Africa, the programme is practiced in Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and South Africa. The programme seeks to address noticeable deficiencies in the nutritional requirements of our children through the provision of daily packs of dairy products while in school. Adequate nutrition is essential for the mental and intellectual growth of our children. In the next weeks, this programme will be launched in selected primary schools in the state. We are grateful to the federal government for selecting our state as the one to kick-start the pilot scheme. If this pilot scheme succeeds, the programme will be fully launched across the country in March 2005.

We would like to commend all our people for keeping faith with us while we sorted out the constitutional difference we had with the federal government over the creation of additional local government areas in the state. After tortuous discussions with federal authorities and consultations with well meaning elders and opinion leaders in the state, government came to a painful decision to request the house of assembly to downgrade the new local government areas to development areas. We are firmly resolved to ensuring that our new local governments receive the necessary consequential orders from the national assembly before the end of our tenure. We urge our people not to despair as their hopes and dreams for new local governments will surely come to fruition by God's grace.
As we look to the future, we wish to thank our people for the peace we have enjoyed across the state in the past one year. We are encouraged by the love of our people for the peaceful resolution of differences in spite of many situations to the contrary. We must remind ourselves that peace is the most primary ingredient for development. In this regard, we wish to pay tribute to our traditional rulers and elders who have continued to intervene to ensure the peaceful resolution of conflict situations. We urge them to continue in this spirit in order to ensure a solid foundation for our future generations. In the same light, we thank our local government officials who have constantly ensured that the security of their areas are well attended to. We urge the local government chairmen to always ensure dialogue and consultation in the decision making process.

In conclusion, I wish to thank the good people of Nasarawa state for their unflinching and continued support for this administration. Our feats thus far could not have been possible without your support and understanding. As we commence another year of our corporate existence as a state, I urge you to remain loyal and committed to the ideals of the founding fathers of Nasarawa state.
Happy celebrations and may God continue to bless our efforts.

Thank you.