Opposition parties, residents condemn North absentee governors
There is a sustained and worsening public outcry from several residents and stakeholders in the north over the absence of their elected governors who rather than sit in their various states prefer to govern the people from Abuja and other parts of the world, Arewa PUNCH reports.
The Gombe State helmsman, Mohammed Inuwa Yahaya who doubles as the Chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum, and his Kwara State counterpart and Chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum, AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq have been fingered as the worst culprits in this category of absentee governors.
Apart from the two, other governors also identified as being always absent from their domain are Kogi, Sokoto, and Zamfara state governors.
This development, investigations reveal, has attracted the hue and cry of their citizens and residents who say it negates the principle of good governance.
According to the governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress during the 2023 poll in Gombe State, Nafiu Bala, the continued absence of state governors is no doubt impacting negatively on good governance.
Bala faulted a situation whereby the governor spends most of his time in Abuja, Dubai, Turkey, and other parts of the world and from where he governs the citizens of the state “who elected him to office.”
He argued that the development is completely at variance with the constitutional provision that governors as Chief Security Officers must not stay outside their states for more than two weeks.
“It affects good governance because the governor has a statutory duty to sit and ensure lives and property are secured and protected. He is not expected to stay outside for more than two weeks because he is the Chief Security Officer of his state.
“The critical insecurity situation in the country is another reason why governors should stay more in their states,” he declared.
The governorship hopeful further decried the inability of the affected governors to transmit power to their deputies as legally required by the law for the sustained governance of their states.
“Most annoying is that these governors, including the Gombe State governor, don’t hand over to their deputy governors. Since Governor Inuwa Yahaya resumed, he had never anointed his deputy to take office as acting governor. This is wrong,” Bala stressed.
Also speaking with Arewa PUNCH, a social critic and an advocate of good governance and best leadership practices, Cliff Stanley, said Governor Yahaya’s repeated absence from the state in the name of “Abuja politics” has robbed the state of the much-needed good governance.
“Gov Yahaya’s emergence as the Northern States Governors’ Forum’s Chairman has made him concentrate more in Abuja politics to the detriment of governance in the state. Most times, he is not even in the state, and the Secretary to the State Government would always stand in for him at very important state functions and critical moments requiring his attention.
“So bad is the situation that most people in the state are now of the opinion that Abuja is his primary abode. Compare this is flight of fancy to his first tenure as the state governor, and you will know that the people are being shortchanged,” he said.
On his part, the Global Pan-Africanism Network North East Regional Coordinator, Musa Maishanu, who is also the National Director of GPAN Security and Intelligence Nigeria Chapter, said the governor’s continued absence is impedinńg good governance, thus, describing the situation as “unfortunate.”
There was no official response from the governor’s quarters as repeated voice calls initiated into the Director-General, Press Affairs Gombe Government House, Ismaila Misilli’s phone rang out with no response just as the text message forwarded to his mobile telephone as of the time of filing this report had yet to be responded to.
Also, in Kwara State, opposition parties admonished the Governor, Malam AbdulRahaman AbdulRazaq, to spend more time in Ilorin, the state capital, and ensure that the residents get the dividends of democracy.
The opposition parties informed Arewa PUNCH that since the emergence of the state governor as the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, he hardly settles down to preside over the state again.
First to throw the salvo is the Kwara State Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, Alhaji Babatunde Mohammed, who knocked the governor over his incessant absence from the state.
Mohammed said, “Since the governor took up the mantle of leadership of NGF, he hardly comes to the state to either oversee projects or spend time with the people,” he said, adding “the continued absence of Mallam Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq led to the illegal conversion of security vehicles procured to enhance local security into private use by the impostors he put in charge of our local government areas as the Transition Implentation Committee chairpersons.
“It should be noted that none of the vehicles have been put into any serious use by the security agents it was meant to serve, as the TIC chairmen still cruise in them as though they are their official cars.’’
He added, “We are calling on Governor Abdulrazaq to return to Kwara fully and face the business of governance which he swore an oath of office to. The governor should draw an example from the leader of the PDP, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, who was also a former NGF chairman but did not only stay in Kwara to run an efficient and people oriented government, but he also turned Kwara into a tourist attraction for other governors in Nigeria who thronged the state daily to learn from Saraki’s transformative prowess in the state.”
The National Publicity Secretary of the Nigeria National People’s Party, Mallam AbdulSalam AbdulRazaq, who noted that the residents did not only need the much-mouthed and hyped change mantra insisted that they also needed a total transformation.
He urged the governor whom he accused of not spending quality time in the state since he became the chairman of the NGF to attend more to his job of governing the state instead of junketing across the country.
He added that the governor’s appointment of inexperience technocrats into his cabinet had further exposed his absence from the state.
“If the governor has good hands in key positions in government and he gives them the free hands to operate, no matter how long he stays away from the state, his administration won’t suffer and people won’t know for how long he has been away from the state,” the NNPP spokesman observed.
Although AbdulRazaq hailed the governor for closing the gap in gender equality by giving more appointments to women, however, he noted that most of the women and the youth appointed into the cabinet, and other key areas in government are without the requisite experience in government business.
As a result, he admonished him to always appoint experienced people into key positions in the government, “so that no matter how long he stays away from the state, his administration won’t suffer if he gives them the free hand to operate.”
Good
There are quick to move to Abuja and foreign countries developed by their leaders. Shame on Nigerian political elite
Hmm??
Ok