By: Abubakar Nasiru Gombe
It’s always expected that, whenever elections approaches, desperate politicians surface with different foxy and crafty activities designed to either bamboozled their gullible supporters or achieve simple and cheap publicity to fake relevance within a particular political environment.
It’s on this note that, with the 2019 general elections getting much nearer, the good the bad and the noxious politicians would be occupying and saturating various media platforms with all sorts of interviews, write-ups to inundate people especially the gullible ones as well as the typical Nigerian politicians for selfish gain.
One of these jaundice and gadfly, was an interview granted by gatecrashed and self-imposed All Progressive Congress (APC) chieftain and governorship aspirant in Gombe State, Jibrin Barde with the headline; There’s total collapse of infrastructure In Gombe appeared yesterday on the online platform of the Blueprint Newspaper and in its print version of the Saturday March 17, 2018.
It is worrisome and laughable that this kind of grossly misguided utterances which lacks objective and a clear misrepresentation of truth aimed as misleading the general populace for selfish political reason. Ordinarily, I shouldn’t have glorified such a wild short with a response but, my silence and those of other Gombe indigenes who are in the know about the political calculations in Gombe and the true transformation the state has witnessed under the purposeful leadership of His Excellency, Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo (Talban Gombe) may be misconstrued to mean acceptance of the Barde’s blind-dive into issues that are clearly aspersion and political hyperbole.
In his vilifying commentaries to trickily chart a course of his au courant and strange political agenda, Jibrin Barde has denied all the out of the open achievements of the Dankwambo administration which has undeniably turns the state as the beehive of state of the art infrastructures cutting across all the sectors of the economy.
Is it because he was a banker that he became obviously benighted and birdbrained to know what infrastructure means, how could someone whose family house is sandwiched by two different dual carriage asphalt roads constructed by Dankwambo denied that fact and accused same administration of collapsed infrastructure? Maybe it is because he hardly visits the state, because from wherever he may come from, he must drive on beautiful and smooth roads into the city built by a cosmopolitan accountant and it could be an irony for Barde to reject this fact.
According to him, he has reached the pinnacle of his career as a banker and it is time to give back to the society and the only way he can do that is to take the position of leadership and he has a clear vision of empowering youths. And I vehemently disagreed with his position because in Gombe State today, we have countless number of people have excelled in their careers and businesses who has helped either in building the state or getting jobs for our teeming youths without occupying any seat of power. As the former managing director and chief executive officer of the SunTrust Bank, can Barde tell us how many citizens of Gombe State he has employed in the services of the bank or what is contribution to the development of the state?
Let me remind Jibrin Barde that, the only branch his bank has in Gombe State has been closed denying our citizens benefits. Interestingly, we have sons and daughters of the state who provides scholarship, dug boreholes in the communities, provide transformers, provide medical care interventions, and lots more without having any elective position and what is your own contribution, if I may ask Jibrin?
It’s laughable enough that, Jibrin Barde as a banker he doesn’t have idea on the federal allocation to the states when he compares Gombe and other states in terms of the allocation. Let me imbue and edify Barde that, Gombe State is second to Bayelsa State in terms of lowest allocation even though, Bayelsa is collecting 13% oil derivation funds, Dankwambo has utilized the lean resources to developed Gombe State and pays regular worker’s salary in the state.
I can’t believe that, a banker who doesn’t have knowledge of the federal allocation may have statistical knowhow to tells us what we spend annually in buying water. In fact, what Dankwambo inherited was a water project that wasn’t reticulated to other part of the state and his administration immediately has successfully done that to the major areas. While on the education and healthcare systems, Barde is either quick to forget things or he might be imbecilic of the development in the state. Dankwambo has constructed model primary and secondary schools, renovated the dilapidated ones, he built cottage hospitals and supplied dialysis machines to the specialist hospital, and many more. To justify that, Jibrin Barde can trek from his house to the newly upgraded IDI women and children hospital fully equipped with modern healthcare facilities, and the renovated Idi primary schools. It amounts to underrepresentation of reality to give account of Dankwambo’s infrastructural development in Gombe State.
While on his political ambition, Jibrin Barde should know that we are students of history and let him bear in mind that, Gombe is not Enugu and painting people’s houses in the state and doling out money doesn’t measure one’s political strength but cluelessness. His political godfather will surely have a flourishing business in 2019 and succeed by imposing him against others but we’ll reject all their scheming and machinations orchestrated to bring an interloper into our state’s politics, let it be in Enugu State. I could go on but it will be pointless, the bottom line is, we’ll not allow someone to succeed in insulting the kinesthesia of the high pitch intelligence of Gombians with his fabrications and I dare say deliberately skewered comments and if there’s any shred of decency still about him, he will tender an unreserved apology to the present government, and the good people of Gombe for whom he has so disrespected with this political missive.
Nasiru is a public commentator he writes from Gombe
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2017/12/24/news/nigeria-gombe-budgets-n104-9-billion-for-2018-fiscal-year/
