Governor Ahmed's new deal with the people

Patience, according to Fulton Sheen, is power. It is not an absence of action, but rather "timing" of it. Patience waits on the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way.? Leaders, in the words of the same late Arch Bishop of New York and televangelist, should remember to always love people and use things rather than to love things and use people. Fulton probably had Governor (Dr) Abdulfatah Ahmed in mind, for to Ahmed the people come first so much so that barely a week to his inauguration after a successful second Term bid, the people of the state are starting to get a feel of the new deal in a better relationship and what to expect as his government prepares for a fresh start on May 29th.

Only recently, misguided youths mistook Maigida's patience and love for all for granted. They took to the streets causing mayhem and breakdown of the public peace in some parts of the state. Worst still, they assaulted our culture by attempting to brake in to the palace of Mai Martaba Ilory.

Governor Ahmed, whose philosophy of tolerance was to empower the youths through various form of empowerment, surprised sceptics and doubting Thomases in reacting to the ugly incident. ?The visibly angry governor ordered the security agencies against the hoodlum and cleaned up the city. ?The Governor was prompt and decisive to the admiration of all. "We can't continue to tolerate this", he was emphatic.

Appropriate reading the mind of the Governor, the Ilorin Emirate Descendants Progressive Union (IEDPU), visited the governor to pledge their support, loyalty and commitment to the Governor in his herculean task of not only ensuring that peace and security reign but more importantly, supporting the governor in his determination to further reposition and deepen development in the state.

Commending the group, Governor Ahmed praised IEDPU for what he described as a complimentary development partnership with the association. "I want to sincerely commend IEDPU for its efforts so far," the governor said, continuing that he would equally like to see the group take a position paper to government idealizing and isolating areas that are critical to the people. "So" he stressed, "what you gave us will necessarily serve as a feed back in involving the way forward to drive development and growth. Everything you have in your position paper is perfectly in line with the plans that we have for the next four years."

Never known to allow opportunities slipped by, Dr Ahmed took the visitors down what may be referred to as the next lane of the next four years of his administration. "The next four years", he began, "will be years of massive infrastructure development, improvement on revenue, healthcare service delivery, as well as security and youth employment". The Governor told the visiting IEDPU members that his government is already fashioning out a workable administrative mechanism that will be capable of handling issues relating to the activities of miscreants in the state. "We are bent on ensuring that there is no hiding place for miscreants. We want to make sure that we create programmes for them that will rehabilitate them so that they become useful to the society".

While identifying the danger idle youths pose to society at large, the governor warned that his government would not, however, fold its hands while some people made life difficult for others. "Truth is" the governor said, "while we would do everything we can to attend to the needs of our teeming youths, only those ready to make a living through hard work and a devotion to excellence would qualify as partners with the government as we strive to consolidate on our successes in the last four years."

Poised to leave a legacy that would forever redound in the heart of every Kwara residents, Governor Ahmed listed among others, creating an enabling environment for private businesses to thrive and also propping up investors confidence, which ultimately would create employment opportunities for everyone, including skilled and unskilled artisans, and graduate youth population in the state. Maigida bemoaned the growing hate politics in the state and advised the people and politicians alike to always separate politicking from development, as according to him, in every society where personal interest is put far and above state or national interests in the name of politics, development suffers tremendously, and the general public usually lose.

Citing the issue of the development of Amusement Park in Ilorin, Governor Ahmed pointed out that the park has been lying fallow for more than 13 to 14 years; regretting that such facility would have been turned into a revenue spinner where government had the capacity to make it a lot more useful than it is presently. "Revenue is dwindling while there is population explosion. Globally, governments are trying everything possible to reduce its involvement in facilities except for those that must be managed by government. With a growing need to improve on infrastructure, provide functional and efficient health services, security, schools, among others, governments all over the world are realizing the need to withdraw its presence from doing business", he stated. He stressed the need to encourage investors to come into the state to invest, especially on areas where government cannot properly and effectively manage. "This is why," he noted, " we are saying that anyone who says he can translate any facility we cannot use into a revenue generating venture should be allowed to do so. Ilorin is a fast growing town and all we need do as a government is to create the enabling environment for investments to thrive and then, allow anyone with the financial muscle and desires to invest to come in and help in creating jobs for the youths. But what do we have today? Some spurious litigations came in between and derail programmes that ordinarily would have benefitted the state. That was the plan we had for the Amusement Park until litigations came in."

Drawing from the success stories of industrial, business and tourism destinations such as Dubai, Shanghai, Tokyo, United States, Malayasia, the governor pointed out that these big cities were not made by government, except for creating an enabling environment for investors to come in. "Therefore," he stressed, " we need to change our way of doing things and reasoning in line with the changing times. With government involved in road construction and development projects such as constructing new class room blocks and hospitals, things like Amusement Park and other things should be done by individuals."

Governor Ahmed noted that government alone cannot create opportunities for jobs, but also individuals from far and near the state. He said that in a sprawling place as the Amusement Park, a whole lot of other facilities can function along side other things for people's pleasure. "Who says we cannot have a zoo, supermarket and other recreational facilities around the Park? And, if government can't do it, why prevent those who have the money to invest from doing so as well as creating job opportunities for the unemployed? The important thing is service delivery."

Governor Ahmed encouraged members of IEDPU to always stand up for the good and interest of the state, as according to him, often, some people are driven by mischief and greed to act in way that is inimical to the development of the state. "When we have a group like IEDPU objectively looking at issues in the state, we would begin to change the way people reason and react to government programmes aimed at improving on people's standard of living. We will go a long way in building a long-lasting legacy for the generations unborn. The reason is because it is easy for individuals to want to settle their scores by using public interests to fight themselves. Often, it is the general public that suffers."

The governor enjoined the IEDPU to raise their game by providing a veritable platform for gauging and sieving personal interest from collective interest as it affects growth and development in the state and country at large. "That Amusement Park space was going to be developed by the owners of Park 'N'Shop in Lagos. They were ready to invest N2.5 billion, but because of litigation issues they have moved to Calabar, Cross Rivers State. Our children would have been employed to work in such establishment but we lost the opportunity," he bemoaned. Bad as it were, however, Maigida assured that the next four years of his administration would deepen his development strides and make the state the pride of Nigeria.

*Oba, is the Press Secretary to Governor Ahmed of Kwara State and writes via e-Mail: abdulwahaboba@gmail.com

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