Yobe citizens rue Buni’s long absence

Mixed reactions have continued to trail the absence of Yobe State Governor Mai Mala Buni from the Northeast state, following his appointment as the National Caretaker chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Correspondent Duku Joel examines the impact of the distraction and absentism on governance in the state.

Perhaps, one of the highest commendations that heralded the two years of Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe States came from the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan. In his message to the governor, Dr. Lawan, who hails from Yobe State, praised Buni for leading with “integrity, honesty and great ideas”.

“Your excellency, you have been leading our state with commitment, integrity, honesty and great ideas. Your energy and dedication to duty have made you a great achiever and a blessing to our state,” Lawan said.

He also acknowledged the contributions of Ibrahim Geidam, the immediate past governor, who laid the foundation for Buni to succeed. He said: “Your excellency, you have been building on the solid foundation laid by your predecessor, Senator Ibrahim Gaidam and you are indeed taking Yobe to the next level of development.

“Your success particularly in providing infrastructure across the state, employment opportunities and supporting the Federal Government to improve the security situation, amongst others have been quite remarkable. All of us as indigenes of Yobe State should therefore continue to pray for the administration and to support the governor in his commitment to improve the conditions of our people and sustain the positive trajectory of taking our dear state to the next level of development, growth and prosperity. “

In another message to the governor, the Minister of State Works and Housing, Abubakar Aliyu, who also served for more than a decade as deputy governor, saw Buni’s achievements beyond Yobe State in a  message he posted on his verified Twitter handle @sadiqatfifty. It said: “It’s two years now since you received the mantle of leadership in our dear state. Your great effort and ingenuity have continued to maintain the state and the nation on the path of prosperity. The journey of these successes will continue in the coming year’s Isha Allah. Congratulations.”

Former Governor Bukar Abba Ibrahim summed up the performance of Buni in the last year as “superlative”. In a statement, which he personally signed, Bukar noted that Buni has raised the bar in service delivery in the state despite the existing fiscal and security challenges.

The message reads: “His excellency, our governor is governor and National Chairman of our great party. We are very proud of him. He is doing very, very well, as he has picked up from where we left and is even doing better than we did and therefore he deserves all our support. So, I want to use this opportunity to call on all our good people of Yobe State, particularly the political elite to rally around the governor and give him the moral boost that he needs so as to do even better.

“As a former governor who served the state for 10 years and senator for 12 years,  I am very much satisfied with the performance of Governor Mai Mala Buni governing Yobe amidst national duties, I will only urge him to continue with the good works to make Yobe even greater as a pride of the Sahel.

“Let me say that, since I left Government House, Damaturu, this is the first time I was so happy with the level of development across Yobe State where every local government has several projects been undertaken to make life better for our people.

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“I congratulate my governor for the achievements he has recorded so far in education, health, agriculture, women and youth empowerment which are people-oriented and added value to the welfare and wellbeing of our people over the last two years. This shows that democracy is working in Yobe and we are doing even better under Governor Buni who is the acting chairman of our great party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) , a party for greater future for Nigeria and Nigerians.”

Other prominent sons and daughters of Yobe, including Khadija Bukar Abba Ibrahim, Ibrahim Bomoi among others have also paid glowing tributes to the governor and his administration for clocking two years in the saddle.

Apart from prominent individuals in the state that have praised Buni’s, the state chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) organised a two-week ministerial press briefing where all ministries and parastatals and heads of boards in the state  came forward to presents what they called fact-based  achievements of  Gov. Buni  in the last two year.

From service delivery to infrastructure, the heads of ministries in the state all rated Buni so high in the last two years of his administration as governor.

But, one of the criticism, faced by the governor, is the appointment he took on June 25, 2018, as the acting  National Chairman of the ruling  APC. This assignment has greatly put Buni’s popularity to test in the state as many people, even within his party circle, now  regard him as an “absentee governor”, who spends more time in Abuja than Damaturu the state capital that he was elected to rule.

The Yobe State chapter of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has also expressed their displeasure over the huge travel cost the governor is incurring for the state in the course of engaging in his appointment as the Acting Chairman of the APC.

Its chairman, Amb. Umar  Mohammed El-Gash said  Gov. Buni is only legendary in travelling in and out of the state in the last two years attending to party issues instead of concentrating on his job as governor which the people of Yobe elected him for. Amb. El-Gash told The Nation that the travelling of Gov. Buni even started before he was appointed as the National Chairman of the Caretaker Committee of the APC while rating him A+ in his travelling and scoring him very low in governance.

El-Gash said: “And as far as we are concern as opposition in the state, we are not honestly 100 per cent happy with the way and manner the APC administration under Gov. Mai Mala Buni is running the state. As a journalist living in the state, you can also bear me witness with the constant travels in and out of the state by His Excellency the governor of the state since assumption of office, and even prior to being appointed as the acting chairman of the ruling party, the APC. These travels come with heavy costs which the state bears.

“You see, to me actually, he should consider his assignment as acting national chairman of the party as secondary because they have not elected him to chair the ruling party, the APC over and above the state where he is elected to rule. Everybody is talking about this, not only the opposition; even those in his party are not happy with the way and manner he is given much emphasis to this assignment than the state to which he is elected to rule. For these reasons, I don’t know of what benefits his new assignment is to the state. He should have been home to work.

“I heard he was asked about this issue in the media and he ridiculously answered that, ‘he can work anywhere’. That,  ‘he can still treat files even if he is not in Damaturu’. This is unbecoming of him to have answered the questions in that manner. Besides, most of these projects that he executed, I think it is not within the context of the budget. I don’t know who his advisers are, they just sit down over night and sign anything  called contract like the Housing project that he is doing in the state.”

The PDP chairman said the biggest scam of Gov. Buni’s administration is the housing projects that are going on across the state.

Apart from the low quality of the houses and their tiny sizes which he has criticized, El- Gash also alleged that the state has forcefully collected the lands from the people without paying compensation to them. Instead, he said, “their plan is to relocate the landowners to lands of less value with the intention of embezzling the money allocated for compensation”.

He said the PDP would assist the shortchanged landowners to institute legal action against Yobe State Government. He described the action of the government as “satanic, inhuman, and irresponsible”.

Amb. El-Gash added: “The housing project of this government is actually the worst project undertaken by this administration. This is because they are not of standard and who is going to pay for them. They said it is a private company but who is paying those private company? Which company is doing that? Is it with their own money? Or the money meant for the state? Another scam is that you are building 3,600 houses on peoples lands who are not compensated. He added: “We learnt that the compensation has been put aside but now what they are trying to do is to reallocate somewhere else with less value to the landowners. This is satanic, inhuman and irresponsible.

“It is irresponsible for them to have engaged in such an exercise. Some of these lands were purchased for orphans and now the value of the land in the area has appreciated, they are forcefully taking it over. I learnt from a reliable source that some money has been put aside for their compensation. But what they are now trying to do is to short-change the landowners and allocate them somewhere far away.

“We cannot accept this. We have to fight for these people as an opposition party because some of our members are involved. If it means instigating the people to institute legal action, we are ready to do that.”

Despite his harsh criticism of the government of Gov. Buni, Amb. El-Gash however praised the building of markets in four major towns in the state, stressing that, “this is actually one good project that the government is undergoing, I must be fair to him on this. I give him a B in that one but he has an A+ in travelling”.

For the civil society community in Yobe State, the last two years of Buni has both positives and negatives vibes. One of the negatives is  the appointment of Buni as the Acting National Chairman of the APC, which the community believes  “is a huge distraction to governance in Yobe State”.

Bearing his mind on the performance of the government, the Executive Director, Network of Civil Societies in Yobe State, Alhaji Baba Shehu (ABS) said, “the people of Yobe needs to feel the presence of their governor whom they elected to deliver to them the dividends of democracy instead of having a governor who is always out of the state attending to issues of the party”.

He argued that the projects started by the governor would have been completed if he was present in the state to supervise and monitor both the speed and the quality of the works. He said: “As far as we in the civil society are concerned, the appointment of Buni as the Acting Chairman of the APC is a distraction to governance in Yobe State. This is because he spends most of the time outside the state attending to party issues instead of his state issues. I am sure all the projects he started would have been completed if he was regular in the state. But, if he was not given this appointment, he would have stayed in the state and I am sure these projects would have been completed because he would have been supervising them to make sure everything was going on fine. So, as far as we Yobe are concerned, his appointment as APC caretaker chairman is a distraction to his job as governor of Yobe State.

“It is important that the people need to feel the presence of their governor. The civil servants that he has left behind to carry out some of these activities also need to be monitored regularly and need to be held accountable. It is only when the governor is present that he will have the time to go round and check the speed and quality of work that is going on. Monitoring is key to achieving the quality of work and the quality of work also determines the quality of governance. His absenteeism in the state has a very huge negative impact on governance in the state.”

“We hope that, this will be addressed in the second quarter so that he can come back and concentrate on governing the state for the remaining years of his tenure to see that projects and completed and put to use.”

Speaking on the positives of the administration, ABS described some of the projects started by the Mai Mala administration as having a direct impact on the people when completed, Stressing that if Gov. Buni could complete some of the projects he has started, he would have succeeded in writing his name in gold”.

He said; “In the last two years, there are both positives and negatives in the performance of Gov. Mai Mala Buni’s government, especially when we look at the capital investment and capital expenditure to capital projects. He has done well in terms of initiating capital projects across the state. For us in civil society, starting a project and completing it is another thing altogether.

“We want to see those projects completed because the policy trust of the 2021 budget is completing the ongoing project and consolidating on the achievements of the previous ones. Therefore, if the previous projects are not completed and you start another one in 2021, it will not make sense. Our prayer is to see those projects completed without starting new projects. If he could complete the projects he has started, then he would have written his name in gold because the ongoing projects will have a direct impact on the people of the state.(markets in four major cities, roads, maternity complex, housing project). these projects should be completed and the people start benefiting from them  before the end of this year.”

The civil society also scored Gov. Buni very high in the area of service delivery. ABS’ words: “The health sector has a lot of improvement. He has established two very important agencies that have a direct impact on the people.  Implementing  the basic healthcare for achieving universal health coverage, which  is the Yobe version of the health insurance scheme, through the saving one million lives, many primary healthcare  facilities have been built and renovated, and the response to emergency in the state is also commendable. As a state affected by crisis and conflict, if you look at what SEMA is doing, it is a social protection initiative that is commendable.

“In the area of education, the basic education in the state needs to be revamped beyond the pronouncement of state of emergency in education. Teacher training, infrastructure etc. if we don’t get the basic education right, he needs to ensure that the quality of children transiting from primary to secondary school matches the standard it desires.”

Responding to the ceaseless travels of the governor, outside the state, the Commissioner for  Home Affairs, Information  and Culture, Abdullahi Bego saw it as a thing of pride for the state for Gov. Buni to have earned that confidence amongst his colleagues, the president and party men to be saddled with such an important responsibility.

He said: “Yobe should be proud that their governor one  among many other governors in the county saddled with the responsibility of repositioning such a large party with a huge followership across the country.

“I must say that the involvement of Gov. Buni with the APC assignment at the National level should be a thing of pride to the people of Yobe and shouldn’t  attract the kind of criticism that people are insinuating.

“For the records, His Excellency’s choice for the job is as a result of his master-class quality of peacemakers and he was chosen among his colleagues to reposition our party that has a very huge followership. That’s a thing of pride.

”I must also tell you that His Excellency Gov. Mai Mala Buni has never forgotten to attend to Yobe issues whether he is in Damaturu or in Abuja or any other part of the world. Everyone can testify that the governor has been making strategic visits to people that matter in Abuja. Recently, you saw him visit the Chief of Defense Staff, Chief of Army Staff, the Commandant NSCDC and a host of other very important personalities to discuss the security of the state and I am confident that we will start seeing the results on the ground.

“The job that governor Buni is doing now is critical, but a time-limited National assignment and he needs our prayers to succeed because the job is for the benefit of all Nigerians including Yobe State,” Hon. Bego said.

Clearly as it stands, there are discordant  opinions on the performance of Gov. Mai Mala Buni in the state. But most of the loudest complaints are coming from his inability to stay in the stay for at least a full straight month, a situation that many people even within his party are not comfortable with his non-presence in the state  and they continue to complain from his back.

The Nation investigation gathered that the growing apprehension among the people of the state over Gov. Buni’s continuous stay in Abuja attending to the APC national politics instead of staying with the people that elected him is pushing many of his supporters who mostly cheer him on the streets of Damaturu away.

Further findings have also revealed that the popularity of the governor on the streets of Damaturu is  dwindling  as he no longer receives the thunderous cheers from residents any time he drives in or out of the town.

Unlike in the past, our correspondent gathered that Gov. Buni was booed at the central roundabout in Damaturu when he drove into the city a few days before the Sallah celebration in the State capital. It was also gathered that a section of the crowd were not happy with governor Buni as he was driving for the Central Mosque in Damaturu for the Eid prayers but were suppressed in an attempt to boo him.

Apparently, Yobeans at the moment cannot wait for the National Convention of the APC so as to have their governor back to the state in other to feel his presence at least in the last remaining two years of his first tenure as the Executive Governor of Yobe State.