News Analysis: SETTING THE PACE FOR CHANGE AND TRANSFORMATION IN NASARAWA STATE
- By Super Admin
- Published 07/8/2010
- News
- Unrated
Nasarawa State was no doubt destined for greatness, judging by the palpable conviction and passion with which the founding fathers of the 14 year old state fought for its creation dating back to Nigeria’s Second Republic. But it is not far-fetched to observe the uncommon ease with which similar struggles in other parts of the country, upon realization, soon degenerated to vacuous recriminations, endless strife and socio-economic retrogression, in essence defeating the salutary objectives that animated such agitation in the first place. Nasarawa could adjudge itself to be lucky in that regard, in the sense that the rising tide of drift which had set in hitherto was promptly nipped in the bud.
Thus, in several ways, the emergence of Alhaji (Dr.) Aliyu Akwe Doma, OON, Maduachin Doma, as the second democratically elected Governor of Nasarawa State on May 29th 2007 broke the mould. It seemed apposite indeed that the crucial task of steering the ship of the young state at such a critical juncture in its history fell squarely on the broad shoulders of a notable mastermind of the campaign for the creation of the state. Without gainsaying, Alhaji Doma’s towering stature was an ever-present fixture in the long-drawn out struggle that culminated in the creation of Nasarawa State by the late Gen. Sani Abacha’s administration on October 1, 1996.
Once firmly in the saddle, the seasoned bureaucrat and administrator embarked on a mission to reclaim and reinvent the grand vision of the founding fathers of the state; to bring about development and empowerment to a diverse demographic space that had since independence in 1960, been literally confined to the backwoods of history. Few commentators from the so-called Northern Plateau, the entrenched, mainstream half of the old Plateau State actually gave a putative Nasarawa State any chance to succeed. As a matter of fact, a popular essayist in the Jos-based “Standard Newspaper” had in his column sometime in 1983 dismissed the embryonic agitation for a Nasarawa State as “an idea whose time would never come”. Such was the avalanche of pessimism that greeted the early stages of the struggle, that looking back presently, it seems quite an age.
Doma and his fellow travelers from the days of the struggle had weathered worse psychological storms. An abiding lesson from that era was the imperative to continually forge ahead against all the odds. The new helmsman, in charting a policy thrust, would take his cue from the civil service which he met in utterly anemic and dysfunctional state. The situation was such that the civil service could neither discharge its functions as the engine room of the state administration, nor serve as the fulcrum for the implementation and monitoring of government policies and programmes. To say the least, the service needed to be jolted from its debilitating lethargy.
The reorganization and reform of the state civil service that followed was conceived within the framework of Governor Doma’s 13-point agenda, a broad outline of the critical areas of the public sector which the administration considered to be of utmost priority. The range and scope of the agenda present a vivid mirror of the unfulfilled expectations of the state especially under the nascent democratic dispensation. Above all, they capture in clear perspective, the apparent dilemma of a people desperately in a hurry to catch up with the rest of the country before the train of the 21st century passes them by.
It is hardly surprising therefore that the 13-point agenda is all encompassing; designed to set the pace for change and transformation of the state. Apart from the reorganization and reform of the civil service, the remaining twelve components include: security, agriculture, education, health, tourism, urban development and industrialization. The others are: rural development, economic empowerment, solid mineral exploitation, housing and cultural reorientation.
Essentially, the template of reforms envisaged under the emerging dispensation is designed to redress social infrastructural deficits as well as deficits in virtually all sectors. They are as well targeted at accelerating rural development, improving and expanding the agricultural base of the state and tackling head-on, the pandemic of poverty. This developmental model places premium on the repositioning and restructuring of education and healthcare delivery, in addition to concerted human capital development as strategic tools of socio-economic advancement. Inevitably, a tidal wave has been set in motion with profound implications for good governance, accountability, transparency, openness and efficient service delivery in the state’s public sector.
In particular, the quest to reinvent the civil service has engendered enhanced professionalism, productivity, capacity building and efficient service delivery in the system. The key instruments for accomplishing this include improved remuneration, training and retraining programmes through structured workshops and retreats, in addition to sustained upgrades of infrastructural facilities in order to provide a conducive working environment for all categories of public employees in the state. The immediate evidence of a successful reorganization exercise can be boldly seen in the return of medium term development planning as the lynchpin of the budgetary process, culminating in the design of the state’s five-year rolling plan 2007 – 2012, the first development plan in the history of the state.
Besides, in realization of the fact that the task of governance anywhere is not accomplished until security is guaranteed, the administration has been quick to elevate the issue of maintenance of law and order and the protection of lives and property to a fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy. With the strict enforcement of the law and the promotion of peaceful co-existence and inter-communal harmony amongst various cultural and religious communities in the state, it may be said that Nasarawa has never been more peaceful, and has never at any other time experienced greater social cohesion than presently. Governor Doma is working very hard in relentless collaboration with security agencies to deepen the prevailing climate and to make it even more sustainable. To this end, the state government donated 50 brand new vehicles to the Nasarawa State police command to bolster their capacity in the fight against crime. To further underscore his convictions not to economize on security, Governor Doma has constructed and equipped a number of model police stations in the state in support of the Nigerian Police Force. The state’s security model duly recognizes the place and role of traditional rulers as an indispensable bulwark of communal order. Thus, it incorporates the traditional institution and its local security mechanism into the larger state security architecture, and this has gone a long way in enhancing overall security management in the state.
Elsewhere, the state’s Chief Executive has had to adopt a hands-on approach in grappling with the challenges of both the health and education sectors. This stems from an informed assessment of the combined potentials of both sectors in the state’s quest to leap-frog its current level of socio-economic development. The crises in both the health and education sectors which the Doma administration inherited had their roots in two distinctly related factors: inadequate funding and infrastructural decay and obsolesce.
With significantly improved funding, the present administration has reversed the ignoble reality whereby both health and education had literally fed on scraps. An important spin-off of this initiative is the massive renovation and expansion of existing infrastructure and the construction of new ones across the two sectors. With specific reference to health, Governor Doma signaled early enough his strong desire and determination to address the deplorable state of healthcare delivery he met by the establishment of the twin committees on Healthcare Assessment and Healthcare Implementation which have been central in shaping the new direction of a healthcare delivery system that is founded on efficiency and accessibility.
Improved funding of the health sector has particularly had a beneficial impact on the provision of ultra-modern healthcare facilities and equipment, recruitment of trained healthcare personnel, and the supply and availability of drugs and medicines in public hospitals throughout the state.
Despite its perennial tag of a rural state, Nasarawa is not without lofty ambitions of modernization, industrialization and technological advancement, that would enable it catch up with the rest of the country. Indeed, the Doma administration has not hidden its long-term goal of fast-tracking the industrialization of the state. The quest for industrialization is motivated by a desire to diversify the economic base of the young state and eliminate the near total dependence on the public sector. The drive is built around a triple strategy of: aggressive development of capacity for solid mineral exploitation and commercialization; economic empowerment through entrepreneurship mentoring and skills acquisition; and capacity building to be able to attract foreign and domestic private sector investments, flaunting its status as an important gate way to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
It seems obvious that the role of the state government is crucial to commerce, tourism, industrialization, solid mineral exploitation, and the development of an indigenous entrepreneurial class. The helmsman is particularly eager to see the state play a leading role in ensuring that Nasarawa, acclaimed as the “Home of Solid Minerals,” derives tangible economic benefits from the exploitation and commercial utilization of the huge solid mineral deposits in the state.
At the same time, the state has developed a blueprint that would rapidly facilitate the transformation of its existing townships and urban centres into big cities and important metropolitan districts within the shortest possible period. This is borne out of a conviction that the socio-economic transformation of the state is inextricably intertwined with the quest for renewal in the major urban centres such as Lafia, Keffi, Akwanga, Karu, as well as headquarters of local government councils.
In furtherance of this resolve, the administration has continued to expand the scope and coverage of his administration’s aggressive programme of construction, rehabilitation and expansion of intra-state and urban roads infrastructure, drainages, solar-powered streets lighting, improvement and enhancement of energy and expansion of urban and regional water schemes across the state. The focus of this policy thrust incorporates a sustainable waste management and environmental protection schemes in addition to a planned, ordered development of the urban centres.
Tourism development is integral to the economic transformation strategy of the Doma administration. Given the tremendous potentials of the industry in the state, tourism could actually be transformed into a major economic activity, revenue earner and leading employer of labour as well as an engine of wealth creation. Culture, is of course, the bedrock of a viable tourism industry. Nasarawa State on the other hand has firmly established itself as an important cultural crossroads of the Nigerian nation. Within the context of Governor Doma’s three years of giant strides, the state has significantly succeeded in fashioning a conducive climate in which tourism and culture mutually reinforce each other for the greater economic benefit of the state.
Notwithstanding, it is in the area of agriculture and rural development that the present administration has scored a bull’s eye in its developmental strides in the state. Without doubt, agriculture is the mainstay of Nasarawa fledging economy. As the largest employer of labour, the place of agriculture in the overall welfare and wellbeing of the population of the state can hardly be overstated. In this regard, the state enunciated an agricultural policy which main thrust is to revitalize and upgrade agriculture towards the attainment of food sufficiency, creation of employment opportunities and wealth generation.
The Bada Koshi agricultural scheme is one such initiatives designed to maximize the agricultural potentials of the state and to further transform and expand agricultural output in the rural areas. The scheme was launched with a view to engendering a co-ordinated and accelerated growth in the agricultural sector and consolidating on the position of the state as the leader in food production in the country. It aims, above all, at stimulating interest in agriculture, mobilizing the populace to engage in agricultural activity and ensuring that farmers in the state obtain economic value from agriculture through appropriate pricing mechanism.
This has inevitably deepened the derived linkage between agriculture and the upliftment of the social conditions of living of a majority of rural dwellers in the state. The on-going initiative has added value to agricultural produce through enhanced storage, processing and marketing. For example, the state through its Produce Development Marketing Company has been engaged in the export of branded yams “PEPA YAM” to the United Kingdom and other countries of the European Union since July 2009.
The gains of the agricultural sector in the past three years offer a pedestal to refocus public policy on poverty alleviation by means of an integrated programme of sustainable rural development. What Governor Doma has been able to demonstrate in a passionate manner over the past three years is that: change and progress are possible as conditions of social renewal, given a combination of the appropriate policy matrix. Being able to lift Nasarawa State from a dead weight by force of personal example, in essence, constitutes the defining vision of Governor Doma in the past three years.
Thus, in several ways, the emergence of Alhaji (Dr.) Aliyu Akwe Doma, OON, Maduachin Doma, as the second democratically elected Governor of Nasarawa State on May 29th 2007 broke the mould. It seemed apposite indeed that the crucial task of steering the ship of the young state at such a critical juncture in its history fell squarely on the broad shoulders of a notable mastermind of the campaign for the creation of the state. Without gainsaying, Alhaji Doma’s towering stature was an ever-present fixture in the long-drawn out struggle that culminated in the creation of Nasarawa State by the late Gen. Sani Abacha’s administration on October 1, 1996.
Once firmly in the saddle, the seasoned bureaucrat and administrator embarked on a mission to reclaim and reinvent the grand vision of the founding fathers of the state; to bring about development and empowerment to a diverse demographic space that had since independence in 1960, been literally confined to the backwoods of history. Few commentators from the so-called Northern Plateau, the entrenched, mainstream half of the old Plateau State actually gave a putative Nasarawa State any chance to succeed. As a matter of fact, a popular essayist in the Jos-based “Standard Newspaper” had in his column sometime in 1983 dismissed the embryonic agitation for a Nasarawa State as “an idea whose time would never come”. Such was the avalanche of pessimism that greeted the early stages of the struggle, that looking back presently, it seems quite an age.
Doma and his fellow travelers from the days of the struggle had weathered worse psychological storms. An abiding lesson from that era was the imperative to continually forge ahead against all the odds. The new helmsman, in charting a policy thrust, would take his cue from the civil service which he met in utterly anemic and dysfunctional state. The situation was such that the civil service could neither discharge its functions as the engine room of the state administration, nor serve as the fulcrum for the implementation and monitoring of government policies and programmes. To say the least, the service needed to be jolted from its debilitating lethargy.
The reorganization and reform of the state civil service that followed was conceived within the framework of Governor Doma’s 13-point agenda, a broad outline of the critical areas of the public sector which the administration considered to be of utmost priority. The range and scope of the agenda present a vivid mirror of the unfulfilled expectations of the state especially under the nascent democratic dispensation. Above all, they capture in clear perspective, the apparent dilemma of a people desperately in a hurry to catch up with the rest of the country before the train of the 21st century passes them by.
It is hardly surprising therefore that the 13-point agenda is all encompassing; designed to set the pace for change and transformation of the state. Apart from the reorganization and reform of the civil service, the remaining twelve components include: security, agriculture, education, health, tourism, urban development and industrialization. The others are: rural development, economic empowerment, solid mineral exploitation, housing and cultural reorientation.
Essentially, the template of reforms envisaged under the emerging dispensation is designed to redress social infrastructural deficits as well as deficits in virtually all sectors. They are as well targeted at accelerating rural development, improving and expanding the agricultural base of the state and tackling head-on, the pandemic of poverty. This developmental model places premium on the repositioning and restructuring of education and healthcare delivery, in addition to concerted human capital development as strategic tools of socio-economic advancement. Inevitably, a tidal wave has been set in motion with profound implications for good governance, accountability, transparency, openness and efficient service delivery in the state’s public sector.
In particular, the quest to reinvent the civil service has engendered enhanced professionalism, productivity, capacity building and efficient service delivery in the system. The key instruments for accomplishing this include improved remuneration, training and retraining programmes through structured workshops and retreats, in addition to sustained upgrades of infrastructural facilities in order to provide a conducive working environment for all categories of public employees in the state. The immediate evidence of a successful reorganization exercise can be boldly seen in the return of medium term development planning as the lynchpin of the budgetary process, culminating in the design of the state’s five-year rolling plan 2007 – 2012, the first development plan in the history of the state.
Besides, in realization of the fact that the task of governance anywhere is not accomplished until security is guaranteed, the administration has been quick to elevate the issue of maintenance of law and order and the protection of lives and property to a fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy. With the strict enforcement of the law and the promotion of peaceful co-existence and inter-communal harmony amongst various cultural and religious communities in the state, it may be said that Nasarawa has never been more peaceful, and has never at any other time experienced greater social cohesion than presently. Governor Doma is working very hard in relentless collaboration with security agencies to deepen the prevailing climate and to make it even more sustainable. To this end, the state government donated 50 brand new vehicles to the Nasarawa State police command to bolster their capacity in the fight against crime. To further underscore his convictions not to economize on security, Governor Doma has constructed and equipped a number of model police stations in the state in support of the Nigerian Police Force. The state’s security model duly recognizes the place and role of traditional rulers as an indispensable bulwark of communal order. Thus, it incorporates the traditional institution and its local security mechanism into the larger state security architecture, and this has gone a long way in enhancing overall security management in the state.
Elsewhere, the state’s Chief Executive has had to adopt a hands-on approach in grappling with the challenges of both the health and education sectors. This stems from an informed assessment of the combined potentials of both sectors in the state’s quest to leap-frog its current level of socio-economic development. The crises in both the health and education sectors which the Doma administration inherited had their roots in two distinctly related factors: inadequate funding and infrastructural decay and obsolesce.
With significantly improved funding, the present administration has reversed the ignoble reality whereby both health and education had literally fed on scraps. An important spin-off of this initiative is the massive renovation and expansion of existing infrastructure and the construction of new ones across the two sectors. With specific reference to health, Governor Doma signaled early enough his strong desire and determination to address the deplorable state of healthcare delivery he met by the establishment of the twin committees on Healthcare Assessment and Healthcare Implementation which have been central in shaping the new direction of a healthcare delivery system that is founded on efficiency and accessibility.
Improved funding of the health sector has particularly had a beneficial impact on the provision of ultra-modern healthcare facilities and equipment, recruitment of trained healthcare personnel, and the supply and availability of drugs and medicines in public hospitals throughout the state.
Despite its perennial tag of a rural state, Nasarawa is not without lofty ambitions of modernization, industrialization and technological advancement, that would enable it catch up with the rest of the country. Indeed, the Doma administration has not hidden its long-term goal of fast-tracking the industrialization of the state. The quest for industrialization is motivated by a desire to diversify the economic base of the young state and eliminate the near total dependence on the public sector. The drive is built around a triple strategy of: aggressive development of capacity for solid mineral exploitation and commercialization; economic empowerment through entrepreneurship mentoring and skills acquisition; and capacity building to be able to attract foreign and domestic private sector investments, flaunting its status as an important gate way to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
It seems obvious that the role of the state government is crucial to commerce, tourism, industrialization, solid mineral exploitation, and the development of an indigenous entrepreneurial class. The helmsman is particularly eager to see the state play a leading role in ensuring that Nasarawa, acclaimed as the “Home of Solid Minerals,” derives tangible economic benefits from the exploitation and commercial utilization of the huge solid mineral deposits in the state.
At the same time, the state has developed a blueprint that would rapidly facilitate the transformation of its existing townships and urban centres into big cities and important metropolitan districts within the shortest possible period. This is borne out of a conviction that the socio-economic transformation of the state is inextricably intertwined with the quest for renewal in the major urban centres such as Lafia, Keffi, Akwanga, Karu, as well as headquarters of local government councils.
In furtherance of this resolve, the administration has continued to expand the scope and coverage of his administration’s aggressive programme of construction, rehabilitation and expansion of intra-state and urban roads infrastructure, drainages, solar-powered streets lighting, improvement and enhancement of energy and expansion of urban and regional water schemes across the state. The focus of this policy thrust incorporates a sustainable waste management and environmental protection schemes in addition to a planned, ordered development of the urban centres.
Tourism development is integral to the economic transformation strategy of the Doma administration. Given the tremendous potentials of the industry in the state, tourism could actually be transformed into a major economic activity, revenue earner and leading employer of labour as well as an engine of wealth creation. Culture, is of course, the bedrock of a viable tourism industry. Nasarawa State on the other hand has firmly established itself as an important cultural crossroads of the Nigerian nation. Within the context of Governor Doma’s three years of giant strides, the state has significantly succeeded in fashioning a conducive climate in which tourism and culture mutually reinforce each other for the greater economic benefit of the state.
Notwithstanding, it is in the area of agriculture and rural development that the present administration has scored a bull’s eye in its developmental strides in the state. Without doubt, agriculture is the mainstay of Nasarawa fledging economy. As the largest employer of labour, the place of agriculture in the overall welfare and wellbeing of the population of the state can hardly be overstated. In this regard, the state enunciated an agricultural policy which main thrust is to revitalize and upgrade agriculture towards the attainment of food sufficiency, creation of employment opportunities and wealth generation.
The Bada Koshi agricultural scheme is one such initiatives designed to maximize the agricultural potentials of the state and to further transform and expand agricultural output in the rural areas. The scheme was launched with a view to engendering a co-ordinated and accelerated growth in the agricultural sector and consolidating on the position of the state as the leader in food production in the country. It aims, above all, at stimulating interest in agriculture, mobilizing the populace to engage in agricultural activity and ensuring that farmers in the state obtain economic value from agriculture through appropriate pricing mechanism.
This has inevitably deepened the derived linkage between agriculture and the upliftment of the social conditions of living of a majority of rural dwellers in the state. The on-going initiative has added value to agricultural produce through enhanced storage, processing and marketing. For example, the state through its Produce Development Marketing Company has been engaged in the export of branded yams “PEPA YAM” to the United Kingdom and other countries of the European Union since July 2009.
The gains of the agricultural sector in the past three years offer a pedestal to refocus public policy on poverty alleviation by means of an integrated programme of sustainable rural development. What Governor Doma has been able to demonstrate in a passionate manner over the past three years is that: change and progress are possible as conditions of social renewal, given a combination of the appropriate policy matrix. Being able to lift Nasarawa State from a dead weight by force of personal example, in essence, constitutes the defining vision of Governor Doma in the past three years.
