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From Olanrewaaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
For the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in Kebbi State, the achievements of Governor Nasir Idris elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress(APC) are not worthy of celebration. To them, the one year in office was a waste of state resources and mismanagement of Federal Allocations.
But APC government in the state thinks otherwise, saying many of the stakeholders criticizing the present administration were looking for attention and that some of them were even surreptitiously looking for a way to defect to the ruling party through the back door.
The main opposition party, through its Public Relations Officer(PRO), Hon Garba Liman while assessing the performances of the APC led government in the past one year, argued that, the present administration of APC had no blueprint or manifesto like the opposition parties, which should be a guiding torch in governance.
According to him, “you would recall that in the build-up to the 2023 General elections, all the leading Political Parties in Kebbi State, namely the PDP, APC, and PRP campaigned on the premise of Security, Economic Development, Educational revival, Accessible Healthcare delivery, Enhancement of Agriculture, Peoples Empowerment and Jobs creation among others. Both PDP and PRP presented their Blueprint Documents as the strategic roadmap towards positioning Kebbi State on a greater developmental pedestal and, regrettably, APC had none and did not, therefore, present any to the public.
This indicates that the party that won the gubernatorial elections came empty-handed, without any clear developmental direction or strategic plan in the short, medium, and long term to guide governance in the state.”
Liman, who spoke on the education, economy, security, palliatives distribution and agriculture programmes of APC government, said that, the main opposition party was not impressed at all.
He said; ”today, as we reflect on the one year of stewardship of the APC administration in Kebbi State, the story is almost the same despite the huge amount of money garnered from various sources, such as the Monthly Statutory Federation Account Allocation Committee FAAC, Palliatives Support Fund, Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), International Grants and other Interventions running into Hundreds of Billions of Naira within the year under review.
“As a Critical Stakeholder in Leadership and Governance in the state, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) boasting 11 elected officers at the State and National Assemblies is an important voice for the opposition that should be advancing the cause of justice, fair play, accountability, open governance and transparency in the state. Following this firm premise, it is imperative to stress that within the period under review, the Kebbi State government has received over N97,181,578,760. 81K from FAAC (OAGF 2024), N5 Billion worth of palliatives, and in 2023 over N9 billion from Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) (NBS 2023), in addition to Hundreds of Millions from Development Partners.
“Similarly, the 21 Local Government Councils have so far received a combined sum of N77,950,692,202.63K from May 2023 to May 2024 (OAGF 2024), added to an unspecified amount of Internally Generated Revenue IGR from the respective Local Government Areas. But, regrettably, there is no tangible record of performance on the ground that is commensurate with the amounts at both the State and Local Government levels. PDP is justifiably displeased with the style of governance, especially around the ongoing flamboyant spending spree by the state governor and some officeholders in the state.
“In a rural state like ours with so many lack and lags manifesting as inadequate and poor quality of drinking water in towns and villages, low literacy level, poor hygiene, environmental challenges, rising unemployment, and destitution, poor healthcare indices, non-availability of qualified manpower at local and state levels, poor quality of schools, infrastructural facilities, and high prevalence of poverty, among others, the government has still chosen to embark on an unprecedented expensive lifestyle capable of drying off the coffers of the state; a situation that will be both unfortunate and unjustifiable”.
The Spokesman of PDP in the state, also disclosed that, they had written letters to the state government to demand for the necessary documents on the government activities based on the Freedom of Information Act without any response.
“The Party has written to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of Kebbi State to furnish it with information about matters of Finances, Contractual agreements, Procurement Documentation, and Budgetary performances from May 2023 to date. This was to enable us to make an unbiased analysis, critical appraisal, and constructive inputs, where necessary. It has been more than 25 days since the last dispatch of the letters, but only acknowledgment copies have been received so far. This goes to show that the rudiments of accountability, transparency, probity, and responsiveness have sadly been thrown to the wind in present-day Kebbi State.
“In the same vein, following a critical look at the sectoral performance within the period under review, PDP is displeased with the record of performance by the APC-led Administration in Kebbi State.
“To this end, the party is admonishing the State Government as a signatory of Open Government Partnership (OGP) to be more open and transparent in the management of public resources, especially in Public Procurements and Tenders, and ensure Quality and Standards in the execution of projects, open up for constructive criticism and inputs from well-meaning Individuals and organizations in the state.”
The PDP claimed that since the governor was a teacher, they expected him to have settled all the teachers with confirmed backlogs of promotions and entitlements’ payment arrears and all the Primary and Post Primary Schools with inadequate furniture and teaching aids must have been catered for.
It stressed that by now, strategic plan must have been designed to address the problems of low output by students in WAEC, NECO, and UTME examinations, as Kebbi is currently placed at a disturbing position at the National ranking level.
They opposition party is also worried about lack of Professional Teachers in Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, and Biology in Secondary schools and insisted that, the Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Aliero is still suffering from the inadequacy of qualified manpower, especially in the Engineering Courses and some notable departments.
He said: “inadequate funding for research and related activities that have continued to hamper its academic output. The state Polytechnic DakinGari still cannot offer courses that have national accreditation as a result of continued neglect by the state government. At the state College of Nursing, Sciences, indigenous Students are no longer receiving study allowances embedded in their studies, which has given room for students from other parts of the country to take over available admission spaces meant for them. Since it assumed office, the APC-led administration has not paid a dime to these sets of Nursing students from the state.
“It is on record that Kebbi State is still incapable of filling its admissions quota in tertiary institutions within and outside the state, yet no deliberate policy design is in place to address it. Several reports from tertiary institutions within and outside the country indicate that a series of malpractices occur annually in the management of scholarship, forcing many students to abandon their studies. These anomalies must be addressed for the betterment of education in the state.
“Available national records indicate that Kebbi State still has the highest number of out-of-school children in the country with a staggering 67.6% (NBS and The Cable Index 2024). This calls for a serious rethink and, as a matter of utmost priority, the State Ministry of Education and Universal Basic Education Board should convene a stakeholders’ roundtable to design a workable strategy for addressing this frightening societal imbalance. We must not toy away with the fate of our future generation”.
While speaking on the security, PDP PRO noted that the party wouldn’t have made any input on security being a sensitive matter but for the gaffes by the Kebbi State governor during the recent Uhola festival in Zuru where he stated that the Kebbi State Government spent the sum of 500 N500million.
The party however asked; how much does every security organization receive monthly from the Kebbi State Government? If the Nationally approved amount for each Security Agency is N10 million from the state governments, then what happens to the remaining balance of over N400 million monthly?
However, when reacting to the opposition party claims, Kebbi State Governor, Dr.Nasir Idris, insisted that he would not be distracted by the opposition criticism as long he was doing the right things for the people that elected him.
According to him, “Some anti-progress forces and naysayers have been busy publishing some negative stories and false information about our people-oriented administration. This will fail; arm-chair critics are not happy with the myriad of achievements we have attained in the last one year.
“These unwarranted and unpatriotic criticisms will not in any way deter us from the humble course we have taken to take Kebbi to greater heights. Those in the blind opposition are just jealous of our modest feats in all sectors of the economy in fulfillment of the various promises we made to the law-abiding and peaceful citizens of the state.”
Governor Idris vowed to sustain the happy trajectory of development his administration has taken to put Kebbi State on the right path with its contemporaries of the comity of states.
He noted that his administration was not owing any salaries, pensions or gratuity up to 2024 and stressed that his administration is neither owing any bank, nor has it taken any bank draft for the ongoing construction of projects in the state.
He said: “the bank managers should testify against or for me if I am lying…We are open and transparent in whatever we are doing. We will sustain this just as we will continue to spend the money of Kebbi State for the people of Kebbi State as the money belongs to them”, he said.
While reacting to the PDP assessment, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Idris, explained that the PDP in the state are jealous of the administration of Governor Nasir Idris because what the opposition party failed to do in 12 years they were in power, APC government under the leadership of Governor Idris has done it within one year.
He said: “Governor Idris knows the importance of security and will not join any party to politicize it. Everyone knows that many parts of Kebbi State including Danko-Wasagu and other parts of Kebbi South, Kebbi North and Kebbi Central are affected by security challenges. The Government insists that more than N500 million is spent monthly on security in the state. The government has no regret and will be willing to do even more to ensure the safety of lives and property of the people of Kebbi State.
“The PDP had claimed that the office of the SSG has denied it access to vital documents that would have assisted it to make informed and unbiased assessment of government’s performance. This has confirmed their conference to be a heap of lies, concocted figures, a smear campaign and a fruitless attempt to portray a good government in bad light.
“If working hard and achieving good results is a source of pain to the Kebbi State PDP, if assisting the people and helping them to improve on their welfare is a source of sadness to members of PDP in Kebbi State, if transforming Kebbi State unsettles the PDP, then a tough time awaits them because the transformation agenda of Dr. Nasir Idris is just getting better and hotter. This will mean more joy, more satisfaction and more development for the people just as it will mean more pain, more frustration and total rejection for the PDP.
“The PDP is a house turned against itself. It is a party in disarray in Kebbi. It is a disorganized family as members continue to fight each other. A family without elders is a family doomed to destruction. How can you have an opposition party whose leaders abandon the followers the moment elections are won and lost and will not come back until another election? Where is the opposition in a party which failed to conduct a successful primary election? Where is the opposition party whose members have become orphans overnight even when the parents are alive?
“We advise the PDP to go and put its house in order, imbibe patriotism, embrace the love of Kebbi State in its heart and join the revolutionary administration of Dr Nasir Idris in making Kebbi State better. This administration is focused and ready. Kebbi must be better. It is a case of no retreat, no surrender”, he said.
