Dear Prof,
I congratulate you over your recent election as Governor of my dear State. The votes that turned you in and delivered President Muhammad Buhari were remarkable to the point of opposition aggression. We have always been proud of our place in history and in Nigeria. And we can never be more proud with the determination of our people and their resolves, at the risk of life, to make sure you were delivered legitimately.
The resurgent attacks on the eve of the elections were meant to scare us away from voting. The people responded even with a stronger voice that our roots are deep the grounds of our ancestors. They did so under serious conditions that threatened their lives. They defied ensuing attacks to stay calm and vote, giving the elections the desired peace and the votes the honoured legitimacy.
Borno has always been an APC, Buhari base. So your win and that of the President were not surprise. What was surprise were the conditions under which some of our people voted and the high number of votes turned in. That determination was unprecedented in the annals of voting pattern since 1999, but also a strong message to the insurgents that business may not be as usual.
Make a heart, Your Excellency. As commissioner of Recons and Rehabs, you marked the sand with your impact on both the office and the people. No doubt. It was the single reason and your humility as a modest academc that informed Governor Kashim Shettima to pick a successor in you. You have brought us good name. You have added to our pride. But it seems the job did not even start then. It is about to. Soon.
You are the first ever Professor to be Governor in Borno State, if not in the north and Nigeria. That is another remark about your election. It is not only a professor but one from the citadel, the root of scholarship and the door to the greatest message to humankind. The foundations that set the Borno Empire are reflected in your assumed status as the next leaders with the example of an Imam, Leader and Judge combined.
Your professorial claim as an elected Governor and Chief Executive soon, must stand out unique enough to debase the sad argument about the academia as the most corrupt of all institutions, next only to the police. Recent political developments in Nigeria have bought the citadels of learning and some of our scholars to serious disrepute.
That sad development pains. It pains every scholar and serious-minded because we have chosen the academia as a constituency of life then because of the honour and integrity then. Now, after the many years of sacrifice, we have no money but we thought we will have honour for integrity.
What happened? We may not know it all but we know that somehow many of us joined the bandwagon of a fast deteriorating society. We have seen many of them appointed and elected into public office only to strip naked of their conscience themselves. There was no justification except the wilful submission of their clean persons into the mud of public office.
The other remark about your ascension is your example of the timely rise of members of my generation to key offices of public and private institutions and organisations, something you now herald. And this is reason I am writing you.
This letter would not be possible as a public letter in the past, because all along it has been our elders or seniors who we revere in much value, and we may not have got any guts to talk to them about key issues in public or private.
Before the nominations, I was praying for someone I can talk to in free terms and walk away free. God gave me you. We have never met. My knowledge of you was a distance. I never came close. But my teleconverse with the then Rector of Rampoly from Zambia few years back beckoned me closer.
You were on assignment with my former boss, Dr. Shuaibu Musa who linked us on the phone from there. You asked about what it takes to set up a Department of Mass Communication at Rampoly.Thank God that I can say this now and can write you in public.
I knew you were coming into the most challenging of all tenure of a governor. Many good, gentle men were shattered, destroyed by the wants of politics and bastard public office. The prayer of many I talked to is the hope that you are going to be different. But I know that remaining to be different is a crime in Nigeria silently punishable by the impugn members of our society at different levels.
When you don’t play along you face a lot of sabotage, undermine, ridicules and disrespect. And it has dire other consequences, which may include pulling you down to grass. This may mean leaving before time or forfeiting a return ticket. Both are possible but only if God permits.
For us in Borno, our questions are too basic. For how long do we continue to keep our displaced persons in camps? How soon can we rebuild their homes and relocate them all back?
While at the camps, can we feed them three times a day? Can our wandering widows and orphans be safe from rape, abuse, poverty and hunger? Can we save their honour and integrity as our daughters irrespective of their statui?
Will the years passby to after your first tenure, Your Excellency, with us still carrying those burdens? Will your government inherit those burdens but will make sure you don’t pass them over to the next? Can you find men and women who can work with you on this vision and actualise it?
Our circumstances have humbled us into overcome such nonsense to the leadership that we pray for to deliver. We have come a long way out of different travails and we have worked enough to get to the point.
Two of your predecessors did their best and brought us to this point. Now, you are the next and final bridge. You need every good idea, every strong support. We do not have any room for stopping let alone delay.
And there is the way of God. Be inertly honest and do things for God’s sake and for the public’s interest. This is the only remedy to the antics of members and patrons of impunity, dogma and corruption. Once your objectives, policies and actions define the sake of the test of God and the interest of the public, no harm or effect will be cause on your way.
This is easy to do but also difficult. And both depend on the true you. I pray that you will be known truly as the Zulum we have known, the academic that defied and survived and the true son of Borno who wore our identity to true governance that was unprecedented.
You have reached the two highest echelons of success at this age when persons all over the world make grey hair and die in the process to make them: professor and Excellency. They are the echelons of men’s dreams.
There is nothing else that can count and beautify them to emeritus is only if you go through the four or eight years of governance with flying colours, which definition comes from the glare and opinion of the public as represented by the very targets of the benefits of your upcoming government. Nothing else matters. So it is worth every risk to trade on the side of the people, only. So, you are going to be the litmus test of governance to the taste of our people.
I know you are working hard to pen down issues, areas of concern, of quick intervention and on. The transition committee is also going to be remarkably different in due course, because the incoming and the outgoing government are close persons who have come closer by fate of our place, who have risen and fallen together, cried and wept together in the face of all the challenges the insurgency has enforced on us.
They have come a long way. They know each other and they know the issues. They may like have known too little or too much. No one knows. But try to strike a balance between the two groups of too low and too much knowledge. Both groups are a problem to the running of a government.
The little knower feels inferior and that defines his approach to issues and may be critical. The too much knower that is not humble (and there are few among politicians) assumes too much power over the ignorant others and take their own ideas as the only ideas all the time.
But sir, please do not rely solely on their input. Your own knowledge as a member of the groups is important to strike a balance that steadies the basis of the new government. Find the traces of your own vision, thoughts and ideas and let your experience help you look at thing and issues with the adequate spectacles of success.
Make a heart, Sir. It is not everyone you appoint in positions that come for the work. They come for the reward. Most of them careless about delivery of public expectations and care more about the package that goes with the office. This trend is national and sad. For a state like Borno that has given too much, it is time for us to think about giving it back, too.
It is okay to take the pay and package. But your administration must find a way to force every appointee to stand up, walk and run in dire performance. We need so much but we have too few persons to give. It cannot be enough. We need redoubled efforts from the individuals that we expect from. This is one key area on which your performance hinges.
Try to cut recurrent expenditure to drastic measures. This is one reason many states cannot perform. Many of such recurrents were either unnecessary or overbloated to impossible figures. Please find strong ways to cut costs and cancel unnecessary spending. Make a heart. God will help you.
Make a heart, Sir. If you run a government in a way that no one, no group complains then your government is a failure. God knows there are much needs and wants government cannot provide for all at once for everyone. A leader who tries to do so is asking for instant failure.
People must complain, cry even. But a serious government, once set policies and priorities must not stop and turn back. It must walk fast and accurate on the track to finish of the projects and programmes under view.
Make a heart, Sir. You must be dogged to do the right thing. It is the best judgment ever to do about your time after long you must have handed over. Keep an eye on the line ministries which must wake up to do their work. The committee system is not totally bad. The making of many committees has rendered the line ministries and agencies redundant.
Make a heart, Sir. Demand action from them and charge them to report to you biweekly or monthly. Such reports must be reviewed before the next Executive Meeting where the rising issues will be addressed. This is huge task. But it is sure way to getting those who perform and those who don’t. Ask the underperformers to leave office or wake up.
Make a heart. You have been among the people. Do not delink on assumption of duty. Keep in touch. Walk free and tall that you are. Go places, even at odd hours, as much as security can allow. You will see a lot of things and issues first hand. I know you are a good listener and people want to see a leader who listens to them. That is like sharing their problems, which is half a solution to those problems.
All problems can’t be solved. But listen to them makes you feel the gravity and the depth of the issues. That is immense leadership value demonstration. Be resolute. In most cases, it is your aides that will discourage you from going down. Don’t let them. Amake them understand if they will. Then make them comply.
Make a heart, sir. You have a neighbour that is goodhearted in Mai Mala Buni of Yobe. You share common history, problems and challenges. Consult. Meet. Work together. See what works in Yobe and do it Borno. Exchange ideas and concepts, strategies. You have common problems. You will achieve much more than in working alone on many issues.
Make a heart, Your Excellency. There is so much to do and little time to do them. Thank God there will be no litigation that will take your time in the first year. You have come clean. Time is limited.
You need to act fast and quick, without the unnecessary habit of rushing things to finish for finish sake. No. Be calm and steady. But do not let contractors and officials pull your paces back. Ask them, demand from them to work on time and deliver results with little or no complains.
Make a heart, Your Excellency. The insurgency is a national challenge. But you are at the heart of it. While military strategies are working, you explore other avenues. Seek the good heart of some of them and their sense of justice. They understand and will listen to a good man, especially when they read sincerity on your face.
They know you have not been a core politician. Destiny brought you to rebuild their spoils. They know how much you tried. Tell them the extent of damage, ask them how far can we continue with this and to what ends? Seek their understanding on the need to stop this and rework out ways to replace the lost.
Give them the example of two family members. One is destructive. The other is amending. But the destructions are taking away the energy and will of the good brother. Why not stop the destruction and help in the mending. It is easier. It is possible. And with that your influence will also put to rest the endemic fight of the insurgency on which many are wrongly feeding.
Sure they will give you a chance to see how much sincerity you are worth. And they will not regret.
I wish you the best of luck and wishes. You have my prayers.
Make a heart, please. Make a heart.
Thank you.
Hassan Alhaji Hassan can be contacted on 08032829772/08050551220 (text only with full names and address)a[email protected]
