by Simon Kolawole
You don’t move from being a “bad” governor to a “good” governor simply because you defected from one party to the other yesterday. You don’t suddenly become Nigeria’s saviour because you left PDP for APC after a disagreement over the national cake.
Other Things…
Federal Government seems to be borrowing a leaf from Governor Babatunde Fashola on the way he dealt with the perennial doctors’ strike in Lagos: sack them. It worked. Now, Federal Government has directed that striking university teachers should return to work by December 4 or be sacked. They could be evicted from official quarters. All vice-chancellors of federal universities have been directed to re-open the campuses. I wish it would never come to unilateral action, and I am still silently hoping that there will be some peaceful resolution along the line.
If not for the protracted face-off between Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and former President Olusegun Obasanjo, we probably would have had a Fourth Mainland Bridge in Lagos today. The quarrel was personalised such that the Federal Government refused to issue the necessary legal backing for the project to take off in 2003. Ten years after, we would have been using the bridge and enjoying all the economic and logistical benefits. I hope the latest move to build the bridge through private sector investment, as announced by Lagos government last week, will work out.FERTILIZER FRAUD
Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, is always celebrating how he has saved us tens of billions of naira in fertilizer fraud since he became minister. Eight months after agro dealers supplied fertilizers to farmers under the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GES), I understand the dealers are yet to be paid. I hope this is not part of the “savings” Adesina has been making so much noise about. He has continued to rate the scheme a “huge success” while the interests on loans collected by the agro dealers are accumulating. These super ministers!
AT LONG LAST
It’s good to hear that President Goodluck Jonathan has finally decided to rebuild the Kabba-Omuaran-Ilorin road (Kwara-Kogi axis), which has been in a horrible state for more than 20 years. The last major work on the road was done around 1977, when Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo was head of state. You can imagine the stress of moving goods and services along the stretch. Africa’s largest cement factory, Dangote Cement, in Obajana, is within this axis. It is not as if it has no economic or development value. Thumbs up for President Jonathan!
I wish I could say that Nyako was a bad governor. Or a good governor. Or even a governor at all. Poor Adamawa people.
Why do the laws not work for us? Do we not have enough lawyers? I'm getting really impatient with the way we've given up the people's power to a few folks for a little too long. Can we, like, move forward from the 80s and 90s and the "rulers" of that time?