For close to a decade now, Zamfara State has been engulfed in a volatile security atmosphere, the magnitude of which has assumed a humanitarian crisis displacing many villages, women, children and the aged; only God knows the exact number of people killed by cattle rustlers, bandits and other criminal elements. It is only logical to forecast the likelihood of an outbreak of communicable diseases such as cholera, measles, tuberculosis and other vector-borne diseases. I will come back to this later.
The era of erstwhile Governor Abdulaziz Yari was marked by huge vacuum of responsible leadership while the state paraded some of the worst human development indices – poverty, insecurity, maternal and perinatal mortality.
One would naturally feel a sigh of relief for the distressed people of Zamfara with the coming of Governor Bello Matawalle. Expectedly, he started facing the insecurity monster head-on in the first few months of his administration. No evidence that such commitment was sustained, and the rampage on communities got worse by the day. Politics and consolidating political power preoccupied his mind and space. Nocturnal meetings and plans for defecting to the ruling party got him more engaged in Abuja than the banditry ravaging Zamfara farmers – a quick revival and metamorphosis into a Yari.
That Zamfara State meagre resources will be expended as assistance to finance a religious function to the tune of N85 million earlier last week in Gusau is both absurd and betrayed the trust of Zamfara people. I am sure God would have loved the governor to inject this humongous sum of money into the security, medical and social welfare portfolios of the state. Not financing an inconsequential ritual to commemorate the life of a spiritual leader. There are many of such spiritual leaders with a mass followership pool within Zamfara and outside; financing such jamboree should be left to the followership and not Zamfara State coffers. How many times will such financial assistance be given and to how many such groups?
I commended the governor when news broke about two weeks ago that he was employing 100 doctors and nurses to man the public health facilities of Zamfara; an additional N85 million to provide medicines, consumables and potable water would have averted thousands of cases of cholera, polio, enteric fever and an avalanche of communicable diseases.
Northern Nigeria and its political elites must learn that these sorts of absurdities do not hold water in the 21st century. It’s interestingly so in an emerging Nigeria where states like Zamfara are constantly mocked and reminded that they bring nothing to the table. Governor Matawalle appending his signature to that memo just reinforced that lazy consumer mentality syndrome. He needs to do better and live above primordial and primitive interests.
Zaharaddin Abdullahi, Kafin Hausa, Jigawa State ([email protected])
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