That our state is agrarian is not in doubt and most of our people are peasant farmers. They rely on the government for awareness on modern farming techniques and so previous administrations ensured that an agric agency tasked with informing farmers on when to plant and harvest their produce as well as assist them acquire required implements to perform their activities was established and properly funded. They have several extension agents with the requisite skills and equipment in all nooks and crannies of the state encouraging farmers to produce food. The state agric mechanization agency also used to provide farm implements at subsidized rates to farmers. All these are now exclusive preserves of few privileged individuals. Majority of our farmers are left to make available for themselves and some even lost their farms to the privileged followers of Ali Sheriff who continued to pauperize the citizens of Borno and enriched themselves.

Most hospitals are in a deplorable condition and it has been on record that the state medical workers have been on strike for the past eight months. People in Borno mostly patronize patent medical vendors and the wealthy go to private clinics. Many people have sold their lifetime savings and assets in a bid to pay for medical bills. These are all part of the pauperization and impoverishment policies of Ali Sheriff.

Ali Sheriff believes that the poorer the people become the more they would become dependent on him hence his determination to break all those who have some form of economic independence in the state by making all the institutions that provide public service malfunction thereby subjecting citizens to make available for themselves the services that were hitherto provided to them by their government.

Considering the evil nature of this self centered politician and the numerous atrocities he committed against the good people of Borno state in the past eight years it has become imperative on the people to answer to the wise counsel of the leaders of thought who said we have had enough of the Ali Sheriff years and will not have more of him either by proxy or by extension!!

The arrival of Governor Goni on a salvage mission is timely and appropriate and the people of Borno are expected to rise in unison and give the state to someone who can provide it with the required leadership in order to steer our ship on the right direction. That person is the only and one time governor Alhaji Mohammed Goni who has been tested, tried, trusted and excelled in all spheres of human endeavor!

Governor Goni has what it takes to revive our civil service and make it functional, proactive, and efficient, use public funds judiciously, continue with his industrialization blue print which saw to the establishment of shoe factory, wire and nail factory, flour mills etc, develop the state’s manpower through training and retraining ( which he has done before), take health care to the door step of the people by providing properly equipped health centers and trained medical personnel to Borno citizens no matter where they live, provide qualitative education and functional training  to deserving youths, make water available to the people and empower farmers through encouragement and support from the state. These are some of the legacies of Mohammed Goni when he was governor from 1979 to 1983 and which the people of Borno are in dire need from him once again now.

 

 

 (c) The Optimist Voice. Al rights reserved

 

NIGERIA NEWS

Governor Goni Should Win Borno

Abba B. Shuwa, Leeds, UK

The PDP in Borno state has made a wise choice in picking His Excellency Alhaji Mohammed Goni as its flag bearer in the April governorship election. That is because the state has been badly governed and suffers a condition akin to situations found in failed states such as Somalia due to widespread insecurity and collapse of infrastructures and government machineries. As a result of the current situation we found ourselves in Borno it has become necessary to look for someone with experience and wisdom such as Governor Goni to restore sanity and  bring back the machineries of government to function properly once again.

Borno has been governed as a fiefdom for the past eight years under the strangle hold of Ali Modu Sheriff. The ruthless and dictatorial nature of the governor has turned the people to become submissive, docile and timid since all form of dissent or opposition was mercilessly and brutally being dealt with by thugs known as ‘ECOMOG’ sponsored by the governor and aided by the police in Borno state.

As a result of the violence unleashed by these thugs most decent people stayed away from election related activities which therefore paved the way for SAS and his cronies to manipulate elections in their favor. It is certain that the people of Borno had enough of this brigandage and brazen attempt to thwart the will of the people through violent means by insisting that they want to bring back sanity and make the state for what it is known for, being the home of peace hence the collective decision taken by the citizens to support Governor Goni to do the work he is known for doing best!

It is unpardonable that our state has become notorious for lawlessness, mass murder and executions which are the legacies of Ali Sheriff and the current state of insecurity has slowed down our development and made investors to lose interest in the state. Several man hours are lost because of early closure of business activities and many citizens have been impoverished as a result of their inability to perform their legitimate work.

The damages inflicted on Borno by Ali Sheriff are enormous and correcting the ills requires the resilience and expertise of someone who has been there before. The youths have become reliant on patronage doles which does not last them long and so resort to all means fair and foul to provide for themselves. The institutions that would help groom them to become responsible citizens are destroyed and no longer in existence.

The civil service has become politicized and unqualified personnel were elevated to perform functions they were not fit to undertake. Most workers are made redundant and basically appear at work once a month to collect salaries or where they go to ‘work’ they are found resting under trees until afternoon when they go home.

Education has collapsed and the state government does not care about the performance of its students in examinations in which the state is rated among those with high rate of failures in WAEC and NECO exams. Most schools are neglected and teachers have not been provided with basic teaching aids to do their work. Students were also subjected to the harshest conditions that are not conducive to learning. Most go to class with empty stomach and have no relevant text books to use, lack writing materials and other basic utensils.

The Sheriff administration has failed to provide citizens with required funds to pursue further education even as the state is among those that are backward educationally. He cancelled the salaries previously paid to medical students as incentives to encourage indigenes to read medicine, reduced the allowances paid to law graduates who attend Law School and delayed payments of scholarship allowances. Ali Sheriff destroyed our education institutions perhaps because he is not intelligent and has been a failure when he was in school and now he is venting his anger on the entire education system as revenge!