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Friday, March 29, 2024

Bauchi And Need For Constructive Criticism

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Through destiny, he aspired and won the election to govern Bauchi State in 2015. He took an oath to serve without fear or favor. He took the reins of office under difficult conditions. He inherited a vandalized treasury and a politicized and least productive civil service. The kleptomania of the past had grounded the State to almost a halt. His journey to provide good governance started on a cracked foundation.Ā Ā 

With determination, Bauchi Governor Muhammed A. Abubakar started piloting the state affairs with courage. Unknowingly to him, his action tailored to transforming the State was against the interest of some political merchants. Their usual interest in politics lies with illicit wealth accumulation and misuse of power for selfish advantage.

To M.A Abubakar, such a mission is against his oath of office. Then his detractors resorted to blame game including a clownish ganging-up to score selfish goal. It was surprising for the governor to have inherited a pervasive and alarming rate of insolvent treasury, unemployment, corruption, infrastructural decay, insecurity, political intolerance, moral decadence and other societal vices that deeply ate into the system. Though, he is battling to tackle the problems, it requires the highest level of commitment and contribution. However, misplaced priority and irrational criticisms from those that form the opposition within and without are major issues of concern. It will be difficult for any government to progress if internal opposition adopts unpatriotic and inconsiderate tendencies as is the case in Bauchi State, but M.A Abubakar is not deterred. Instead, he focuses more on actualizing his mandate through service delivery.

In civilize democracies, the common priority of the opposition is replacement of non-performance, but in Bauchi State it is to achieve diabolical aim including trading in mischief and hate speeches.

Though, nothing is wrong in opposing any government if the priority is reasonable, objective and patriotically pursued; but it becomes undesirable if dubious, criminal, unreasonable, wicked and unpatriotic in the pursuits. In other climes, those in the opposition put the interest of the state foremost in their criticisms against the government but in the case of Bauchi State, it is personal interest against the peopleā€™s interests. A gang-up is assiduously working to ridicule the legitimate government in power. The offence of the State Governor is his rejection of selfish requests and his determination to protect public treasury from vandalization. In return, spurious allegations fly against his person and administration.

Opposition is beclouded by selfish interest and refuses to study the policies and programs of the government in power to devise ways of improvement and present same as additional manifesto to swerve the electoratesā€™ votes in favor of the ruling party in future elections.

Although, in the Nigerian context, external opposition is always an avenue to pull down those in power, in Bauchi State the bulk of opposition is from the ruling party itself. Some members of the ruling party are unnecessarily bitter with the style of governance that is battling the odds to address the mess of the past. Their interest lies more with corruption than service as some of them defrauded the state of several millions of naira through non-execution of contracts.

Some politicians of Bauchi State extraction are only known for pursuing their selfish interests, not minding the negative effects of such actions on the state. Every step and policy of government are condemned or painted worthless and appalling in the eyes of the electorate by those charlatans. The trend is synonymous with our democracy and has persisted since M.A Abubakar took the oath of office. One important aspect of the struggle for good governance is the efforts put in by patriots before democracy was restored that cannot be quantified. With the Fourth Republic, one expects the people to have learnt lessons to handle governance maturely by curtailing, if not eradicating the trend of unnecessary opposition, but, the reverse is the case as the situation gets worse by the day.

The issue of oppositionā€™s misplaced priority is not an ideology of a particular group, party, ethnic group or religion; most politicians are guilty of this anti-democratic activity. In as much as this piece recognizes that in politics, there are no permanent friends or foes but, permanent interest, Bauchi politicians have misconstrued this principle to mean personal and selfish ambitions/interests. As a result, the permanent interest of opposition within and without is to pull down the government not minding the damage or pains it may inflict on the state. Those in government are right to see the opposition as enemies as mutual suspicion has pervaded the polity.

Despite the governorā€™s efforts for reconciliation with those ā€˜aggrievedā€™, they mischievously maintain a cat and mouse stance for deceit. In desperation for a pound of flesh from the innocent, they are carrying their mischief to the highest pedestal. They are regular visitors to several important personalities to spoon-feed whoever cares with folk tales. The interesting part of the drama is that the electorate have learnt a lesson from the past and are now resisting walking into another tight corner. As we commend the achievements of the M.A Abubakar administration, we should continue to resist the antics of blackmailers and political urchins and we must handle issues objectively. There is no gainsaying the fact that the efforts of the present administration in the state are yielding positive results.

We should eschew baseless internal opposition for total freedom from poverty and other societal vices. Parties will come and go; governments will come and go; politicians will come and go; people will come and go; but, Bauchi State remains.

Maigamo is the Dattuwan Manga of Wuntin Gumau

 

 

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