By Abubakar Salisu

Politics is about development and not shouting on pages of newspapers.” This was the declaration of the highly-elated President Goodluck Jonathan during his two-day official visit to Katsina State recently. One can easily deduce two things from the statement. The first impression is that despite all the propaganda against Governor Ibrahim Shema-led administration, without reaction of any form from the state governor, the President saw many things on ground to disprove it. The adage, which says ‘seeing is believing,’ has been proved in Katsina.The second interpretation of the President’s statement is that ‘it is the empty drum that makes the loudest noise.’

Jonathan must have spoken from experience. He has been to virtually all the states in the country. His assessment of developments in those states may be that the achievements of most state governors only appear on pages of newspapers, with nothing on the ground to justify the revenue allocated to  them. Apart from this, most governors are leaving behind huge debts for their predecessors, debts that could hinder  the future development of those states.

Within seven years of the Shema-led administration, more than 200 new secondary schools were built across the state. This is in addition to 34 newly established girl-child secondary schools across the state. Similarly, special foreign scholarship fund scheme was introduced for students. Through this scheme, over 700 students have been sent to foreign nations to study in critical areas of the need of the state  – pharmacy, medicine, computer engineering, environmental engineering, marine engineering, physiotherapy, dentistry and geology.

Record shows that every student sponsored to study abroad, the state government pays up front to the university the entire course fee for the duration of the programme.  The state government also pays stipends, accommodation, book allowances to the students so that they will not have reason to bother about fees or feeding.

The process of picking the students was transparent. Findings revealed that there is no local government in Katsina State today that does not have a medical doctor, a pharmacist, marine engineer, environmental engineer, physiotherapist, and radiologist. Not less than five were trained from each of the state’s 34 local governments.

The Shema administration equally embarked on massive construction of projects. The roads leading to eight local government headquarters have been dualized and fitted with street lights; Katsina, the capital city, has a ring road around it. The government established an ICT Institute because information technology is the way of the world today. In this direction, the government is partnering with an institute in Singapore.

The government built a 250-bed orthopedic hospital and hostel and also signed an MOU with a centre in Egypt to run the hospital.

The government built about 80 primary health centres in collaboration with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Medicare is free for malaria patients, for people who need constant dialysis, for children from date of birth to age five in Katsina State. Shema’s administration also introduced the rural-urban ambulance scheme because there are some hard-to-reach rural areas, such that some medical personnel would have to be taken there to attend to patients.

Agriculture is on the state’s  priority list. As a means to boost food production and supply,  27 irrigation schemes were expanded. The state government provides for farmers, seeds, fertilizers, mechanized inputs. About 340 tractors were purchased and sold to farmers, with each local government getting 10 tractors. The administration also slashed the cost of the tractors by half. Livestock development is not left behind.

The state government has been paying the WAEC fees for all the students in public secondary schools.

As a testimony to the Shema administration’s feat in agriculture, it won the Central Bank of Nigeria award for the best state in implementation of Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme (ACGS) in 2008. It won the African Independent Television (AIT) award for the fastest growing state capital in Nigeria.

At the cost of almost a billion naira, over 10,000 families across the state have benefited from the state government Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme aimed at providing cash support to poor households on the condition that those households nroll and support their children’s education. Similarly, to support the Almajiri education,  Shema built over 70 ALLO Model Schools across the 34 local government areas of the state with total students’ population of 17,091. In the ALLO model schools, everything is free for the pupils including feeding and school uniform. The schools were established to address the menace of almajiri system.

Shema has achieved so much without obtaining any loan. No wonder, President Jonathan asked, ‘Shema, ata time every state and the Federal Government are complaining of lack of funds, where did you get the funds to execute these monumental projects?’. Definitely, Shema administration will for a long time be a case study in honesty and prudent management of public resources.

*Sanusi is resident at Ibrahim Badamosi BabangidaWay, Katsina.