By Abba Isa Sidiq
It should be a good development in Sokoto that the new governor of the state is laying the foundation stone of 500 new houses to be constructed by his administration as part of his 100 days in office celebration. As someone, who still pledges to carry on with the “people oriented” policies of his mentor and former governor of the state, now senator, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, Ahmed Aliyu’s planned housing scheme recalls the one started by his godfather several years ago in Kalambaina, which is located in the same area as Aliyu’s proposed project.
The prayer amongst the people of Sokoto State however, is that the new houses will be built from foundation to occupation and Ahmed Aliyu will not emulate his master, by starting the project and abandoning site, as was the fate of three such projects by Wamakko; the 500 units in Kalambaina (which his successor had to complete from halfway to roofing), another 500 houses at Gidan Salanke on the same street and the flood victims quarters at Goronyo and Silame villages.
Incidentally, since Ahmed Aliyu’s 100 Days fiesta features the distribution of aid to flood victims, the gesture would go beyond mere ceremonies, if the governor pledges to carry on with the 500 houses started by Wamakko at Goronyo only to commission them as competed, after barely finishing a handful of the units facing the highway.
In fact, if Ahmed Aliyu would just solely focus on finishing the projects started and abandoned by Wamakko, he would have a very busy but productive first term. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, who took over from Wamakko and is now senator, took it upon himself to do so and his first term proved to be too short for the endeavor, even though he did complete many of such moribund projects.
Tambuwal had to complete the School of Legal Studies in Wamakko, Sokoto Conference Center from foundation, College of Agriculture and Animal Science, Wurno (which Wamakko commissioned at barely 50% stage) and Assare Water Works in Wamakko, while endeavoring to finish over thirty road projects he had inherited from Wamakko, which was actually the last count announced by Ahmed Aliyu, when he was Tambuwal’s Deputy and in charge of the Ministry of Works.
In spite of his commitment to salvaging abandoned projects, Tambuwal was compelled to leave some uncompleted Wamakko legacies as he found them because they were either financially insolvent or mired in financial scandal. These include the extension of Usman Faruk Secretariat, Goronyo and Silame Flood Victims Houses, Independent Power Project, which had gulped more then N6 billion under Wamakko and required an additional N2 billion to finish and Murtala Mohammed Hospital (which Wamakko commissioned as completed at the whopping cost of N2 billion).
Wamakko’s unfortunate successor faced these challenges against a more daunting difficulty: he was handed over an empty treasury! A Daily Trust story in 2015, early into Tambuwal’s first term, captured the situation, when it reported that, “it was speculated that he inherited an empty treasury from his predecessor, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, and he has to devise ways of meeting the expectations of his people. It would be recalled that during the handover ceremony, Wamakko was silent on the issue of finances of the state.”
If therefore, Ahmed Aliyu insists on following the footsteps of his “father”, that would leave the people with no positive expectations but great foreboding about what his administration sets out to achieve. In the meantime, the highlight of his 100 Days in Office program is the commissioning of the road leading to his mentor’s residence in Gawon Nama Area in Sokoto, laying the foundation for a proposed housing project in Wamakko, the home village of his master and beautification of the street approaching the Government House and his own neighborhood at Junaidu Road.
A rather positive side of Aliyu’s performance so far, besides the setting up of numerous probes on his predecessor’s government, is the ongoing completion of the flyover at Rijiyar Dorowa, which was started by the previous administration. That however, is expected to be an easy task because Ahmed Aliyu inherited the project at 99% stage with the remaining contract funds still intact.
Completing inherited projects is likely to be an easy task for Ahmed Aliyu, as most of the constructions are at the last lap and their funding is still accessible. Such projects include the State University Teaching Hospital, three premier hospitals, one in each senatorial district and the dual carriage bridge on River Rima in Sokoto have all reached over 90% of completion.
That is more an obligation for Ahmed Aliyu, who has already taken interest in projects like the Teaching Hospital, through the hasty and somewhat emotional cancelation its previous naming by the Tambuwal governm
Dr. Abba Isa Sidiq, a public affairs analyst, wrote in from Sama Road, Sokoto.
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