As Governor Bala clocks 62

Few days after the Federation of Nigeria celebrated her 60th independence anniversary, governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State is celebrating his sixty two (62) years on earth.

Our beloved prophet (peace be upon him) said in a hadith that the best among human beings is the one whose life is elongated and his deeds are good, and the worst on the other hand is the one who is privileged to live long but his works are bad.

Bala Mohammed was born on October 5th, 1958 in Duguri to the royal family of the District  Head of Duguri in Alkaleri Local Government Area of Bauchi State. Little Bala was enrolled in Qur’anic school after which he had his primary education in Alkaleri from 1965 to 1971 and started his secondary School in 1972 to 1976.

Bala Mohammed attended the University of Maiduguri in 1979 to 1982, where he received a degree in English.  In 1983 he worked as a journalist with The Democrat as a reporter and News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)  and rose to the pinnacle of journalism as Editor of The Mirage Newspaper.

Mohammed later quit journalism and joined the civil service as an administrative officer from 1984 to 2000. He retired as Director of Administration in the Nigerian Meteorological Agency. He then served as a senior special assistant to Governor Isa Yuguda from 2000 to 2005. He was also Director of Administration at the Nigerian Railway Corporation from 2005 to 2007.

Mohammed began partisan politics in 2007 when he was elected to the Senate representing Bauchi South Senatorial District under the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP). As a lawmaker, he was among the pre-eminently vibrant who stood firm to ensuring that positive policies and programmes were made in the best interest of their constituents.

In 2010 the then President Goodluck Jonathan appointed him minister of the Federal Capital Territory in 2010, despite being a member of the ANPP.

Bala Mohammed brought extensive reforms to the FCT. He sanitized the land administration of the FCT and expanded the airport roads of Abuja. He built many roads including the Kubwa expressway expansion. He also built the rail track from Abuja to Kaduna and Idu rail station from the $500m dollars loan that the Nigerian government secured from China. He introduced the land swap policy that used land as a resource to fast track infrastructural development in the FCT.

In 2018  Senator Bala Mohammed emerged as the Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate for Bauchi State and was elected as the governor in 2019.

Ever since he came on board as the Executive Governor of Bauchi State, the state has been undergoing an amazing and unprecedented metamorphosis in terms of infrastructural development, health, education, agriculture among other sectors.

Bauchi State has witnessed within the first one year of Bala Mohammed’s led administration what could have taken others long to complete. This is excluding the recently awarded huge projects across the state which require a fortune.

He revitalised the economy of his state by creating an enabling environment for the private sector to take advantage that exists in the global market for both unprocessed and semi-processed agricultural products that abound in the state.

In July 2020, Bauchi State, under the leadership of Governor Bala Mohammed became the first and only state in the North Eastern region of Nigeria to domesticate the VAPP Act since it was enacted. The VAPP Act is the single law  that transcends the criminal and penal code in guaranteeing justice and protecting the rights and properties of victims of sexual and gender-based violence across the country.

In Education, Governor Bala Mohammed, within his first year in office, constructed 270 new classrooms and renovated another 405 across the state. These projects were expanded into hard-to-reach areas of the state to ensure that quality education isn’t the prerogative of only urban dwellers.

Governor Bala’s administration deployed a radical approach against the issues of ghost workers in the state—an illegal scheme which the governor described as “a pre-existing corrupt salary regime.  During the process the government identified and removed over 1,000 ghost workers and instituted an investigation of another 41,000 civil servants who currently do not possess the mandatory Bank Verification Number (BVN).

Dear Governor Bala Mohammed as you clock 62 I’m not congratulating and celebrating with you for the age per session, but the rare opportunity the Almighty granted you to serve humanity through out your life.

Suleiman Maijama’a, Faculty of Communication, BUK

sulaimanmaija@gmail.com