Zamfara PDP And Misrepresentation Of Facts

By Balkisu Salisu Gusau

It has come to many citizens of Zamfara with surprise and Schick when PDP decided to choose the way of lies and deceit in attacking the APC government led by Bello Matawallen Maradun in one of its publications in Vanguard, Trust, and the Nation Newspapers.

Although as opposition they are allowed to make a holistic review of our stewardship and present it for public judgment, as political party they are not expected to lay foundation with lies and deceit because instead of succeeding in castigating the government they will rather put fear in the mindset of the public regarding their sincerity to governance.

In my last article published in Daily Trust, I have pointed clearly the crises with the PDP and why it can’t win election in Zamfara and these facts presented do not change, for now, I expected them to join issues and tell us how things have changed against my submission but instead, they started beating around the bush.

Zamfara PDP And Misrepresentation Of Facts

As for me, I will go their path by picking all issues they raised against the government of APC one by one and counter it on the basis of fact for anyone to verify but they should also take note that they still have to respond to us on whether or not they are really battling with leadership crises as party and whether if it is true they can’t win election in Zamfara come 2023.

Before I went deep to bring down their lies and deceit to the waterway, let me remind our readers that, one of the reasons why Matawalle decided to abandon the PDP and join the winning team in the APC is because PDP does not believe in reality and the party’s ideologies do not always think the fate of the citizens rather than self-enrichment.

Now that he has left the party, they believed they have to go extra mile to castigate his long celebrated achievements which they were even blind to see and appreciate.

Let’s take education as they argue it, at the inception of Matawalle’s government within the first one hundred days Matawalle released over N3b to the state universal basic education as matching grants to UBEC counterpart funds that were laying dormant for years.

This singular effort resulted to the construction of over 1000 units of classrooms as well over 100 additional blocks with office and toilet facilities across the LGA’s.

He had also ensured the reinstatement of (500) teachers already employed and neglected by his predecessor for months and also ensure that their salary arrears were paid.

He has fixed and completely renovated Muallayadi day school in Maradun upgrade its facilities and set up a state of the earth ICT center for its students.

He has done the same for Science Shinkafi which is currently undergoing total renovation and upgrading with additional blocks of classrooms and ICT facilities.

Under the state government whole school renovation programmes Unity Gummi, GDSS Tsafe, GTC Kaura, and rest have been marked up for repair and upgrading and the initiative has reached the final stage of completion.

The Governor within his first one hundred days in office has also initiated his way to secure grant of one billion naira for the smooth take-off of the state University Talatar Mafara from Tetfund and also appointed principal officers for the university.

He also set up a committee to review the entire academic and administrative architecture of the University and came up with a complete strategy that will ensure a smooth take-off of the University.

Under the existing plan, the total of N5b has been pumped to the committee to ensure balance in the allocation of resources to the university. The Governor has also provided vehicles had also instructed the finance ministry to settle all outstanding liabilities of the visiting lecturers.

The Governor had also expanded between three to four billion naira to support the state college of education, polytechnic, school of nursing, and college of health sciences.

If PDP Zamfara is not aware Matawalle has invested heavily in an infrastructural revolution in the state school of nursing to ensure that it has secured its migration to college and the ministry of health soon unveiled its financial plans for the massive infrastructural revolution in the state school of nursing.

The Governor is also expending about a billion naira to finance the take-off of another school of nursing in Zurmi. A site has been allocated and funds have been provided while a committee to ensure the smooth take-off of the school was set up.

Coming back to human resources also the administration had done well in making sure that all promotions for teachers are implemented and salaries of the teachers are paid uninterrupted since his assumption in office.

The government has paid millions of naira to finance (200) state indigenes to Cyprus, India, and Sudan all to study engineering, medicine, nursing, and other science-related courses.

In the area of health sector, Matawalle has done well by providing additional (145) primary health centers and also renovated and upgrading many of the existing ones.

He recruited (500) health workers in his first year in office and an additional (500) during his third year in office.

He also recruited over (150) medical doctors while he funded the completion of Shinkafi referral hospital which was started by the regime of Mahmuda Shinkafi since 2009.

He has passionately taken the bold step of not only renovating General Hospital Mafara but upgrading it to the status of a Specialist Hospital and also ordered that the job be completed before the end of his first tenure.

While coming on board, he completely renovated General Hospital Kagara in Talatar Mafara and that of Birnin Magaji including brand new doctors and nursing quarters.

He is currently undergoing the total renovation of General Hospital Gummi, Tsafe, King Fahad Ibn Abdul Aziz hospital, Farida Specialist Hospital, and of Bakura.

He has launched the distribution of ambulances to all the (23) secondary health facilities and also provided (145) Keke Ambulances for the primary health care centers.

He has invested heavily in setting up one of the best Covid-19 treatment center in Nigeria with state of the earth facilities and ensuring that Zamfara was among the Frontline states that worked harder to ensure the Covid-19 pandemic has not done bad to the socio-economic development of the state.

Coming to the area of security, I think it is only if PDP is blind that it will boldly say nothing is done to manage the inherent security situation rocking the state.

The Governor within his first hundred days in office distributed (200) operational vehicles and visited security chiefs and President for so many times to agree on common modalities to end the social conflict facing the state.

He has come up with the idea of RUGA and set up two prototypes in order to ensure that Fulani herdsmen are made to be comfortable as citizens of the state.

He has provided funding to the security operatives, and supported them with additional reinforcement of the local vigilante all to ensure that security is restored back.

When things get out of hand, the Governor has introduced the doctrine of self-defense and took the mostadvl appropriate steps of making sure that weapons are legitimately issued to citizens and groups to support the existing effort of conventional security outfits.

Because the security situation is not peculiar to Zamfara the Governor sometimes last year took the bold steps of shutting down telecommunication network in order to abort the activities of the informants the same supporters of the PDP kept putting unnecessary pressure despite the fact that the measures are yielding the desired result.

Coming to Agriculture through insecurity is doing harm than good to our farmers the government has never been relaxed in doing the needed things.

Since inception, it has sustained the culture of issuing fertilizer to local farmers on subsidized basis and also provided agro-allied facilities.

This year alone the government is planning to distribute close to (1000) trucks of assorted fertilizer to local farmers and it is making effort to ensure that the needed security is provided for the farmers to their farms through the recently employed community protection guards (CPG).

It will be interesting to remind PDP that for the past fifteen years this administration has taken the giant step of reviving the Zamfara poultry production company and now eggs are being produced and sale to the citizens on subsidy basis.

Approval was also issued to begin poultry production in large scale so that our poultry farmers must not go to Kaduna or Ibadan before accessing day-old broilers or layers of chicken.

In the area of job creation PDP is not aware that for the first time this administration had graduated over (10,000) people who were trained on various skills acquisition programmes and through the ministry for commerce, a grant of over a billion naira was distributed for young skilful entrepreneurs to start businesses.

Through the bank of industry and Covid-19 initiative, thousands of young entrepreneurs were also empowered to start a business and even recently the development resulted to empowering over (1000) people on various business loans.

It is on this premise I challenge the PDP to instead of resulting to misleading the public concentrate in supporting the state government initiative aimed at bringing lasting peace.

When it is time for politics APC would face Zamfara people and give narration of its stewardship but it is unfortunate that PDP is bending on using lies and deceit to gain support.

BY IYABO AINA

Publisher Of News Rain Nigeria