Also though the citizens want a change, but do not want that to come from the immediate family of the incumbent. That opportunity offered itself after the brutal assassination of the candidate earlier nominated to stand who was a nephew of the governor and with the nomination of Kashim Shettima, a banker and economist the prospects of the party became more prosperous.

Quiet well Borno State is underdeveloped and requires a lot of improvement in the provision of basic services such as health care delivery, qualitative and quantitative education, water supply, agricultural and forestry development as well as housing and urban development among others. However there has been some measure of success recorded in some of these areas over the years and equally some achievements on rural development were recorded. That the ANPP has its roots in grassroots participatory democracy is never in doubt when we look at it from the manner people turned out in support of the party from the villages all over Borno state hence the complaint by PDP that they were rigged out from those areas where they failed.

Undoubtedly the state deserves to revert to its old glory where it was known as the home of peace and Kashim Shettima is vested with the task of achieving this feat. It is not by wielding the big stick or use of brute force but by coming to terms with reality and engaging in dialogue with all stake holders. He should allow people to have a say and create an atmosphere of trust and togetherness among the people, so that his administration would tap from the knowledge and wisdom of our trusted and tested intellectuals, technocrats, businessmen and women, religious leaders, students and youth groups, as well as tradesmen and artisans.

The era of politics of vendetta and hatred is over and the dawn of reason has arrived with the emergence of a new generation of ANPP in Borno state. We must put all hands on deck to prove the doubting Thomas’s wrong and salvage the state by uniting the people and focussing more attention on providing the basic needs of the citizens. The task is not that of the governor elect alone but it is a collective responsibility of all sons and daughters of Borno state.

 

 (c) The Optimist Voice. Al rights reserved

 

NIGERIA NEWS

Reasoning Won It For Kashim Shettima

Abba B. Shuwa,  Leeds UK ...April 30, 2011

The people of Borno state North-East Nigeria have once again proven that they would never align themselves with hard-line conservative politicians as epitomised by the PDP in Nigeria, and will always opt for liberal progressive ideals which the ANPP and some other parties stand for. This trend has been repeated throughout the history of the state from the first republic when BYM under the leadership of late Alhaji Ibrahim Imam defeated the NPC; the feat was replicated during the second republic when the GNPP led by the late Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim routed the NPN and now the state has been in the safe hands of the ANPP ever since the emergence of the third republic.

Indeed the people have cause to celebrate the victory of Alhaji Kashim Shettima for ensuring that the principles and ideas that the people of the state believe in and work for has been sustained against all odds. Furthermore, it is an attestation to the fact that the citizens of the state are politically active and are not easy prey for manipulation which was the reason why even though there has been some coordinated efforts to steal power from the people by the PDP which employed crude use of the might of federal authorities such as the police and the army, the attempt failed because the voters refused to succumb to intimidation and arbitrary use of force against them.

The campaign for the governorship was largely based on sentiment and the PDP wanted to capitalise on it to capture power. It is evident that the overriding need of the people of Borno is peace without which no meaningful progress would be achieved. The people have suffered a lot from the ongoing religious crisis which escalated after the extra judicial killings of some members of a religious sect and the poor handling of the crisis by the outgoing governor.

Though the handling of the religious conflagration by the outgoing state governor is faulted on several grounds but the fact that failure of security is a burden that rests on the shoulders of the PDP led federal government is indisputable. That is because even though state governors preside on security matters affecting their states, yet again they have no control over the security apparatuses.  In addition, while issues of security threats in some other parts of the country were solved through dialogue by the federal authorities, same approach was not applied in solving the Borno crisis and the heavy handed approach only helped to escalate the problem. So the element of fear which PDP want to capitalise on to get an upper hand against ANPP failed woefully.