My friend and I were talking about how far our people have come in educational attainment.
“I remember when Bida had only one professor: Shehu Bida,” I told my friend. “It was to him I took my first completed book as a teenager. As his expertise was in veterinary medicine, it was a silly move from me. But the wise man kindly passed down the book to the late Abubakar Gimba.”
We must have up to a hundred now in Bida, I wondered. Then my friend shocked me by announcing, “In our family alone, we have four professors. In pharmacy, medicine, mathematics and mechanical engineering.”
Much later, during one of the Bago campaign trips to Mokwa Local Government, I was in the same car with three elders: ex-commissioner Ashaka, Yamusa and Col Sharu and I related my speculations about Bida professors and my friend’s revelations.
Alhaji Ashaka counted a few aloud and then said, “Even in Mokwa LG, we may have up to 100.”
Here’s the point of these anecdotes.
In a video clip, I heard the Governor-elect responding to those who were dissatisfied with the constitution of the transition committee. Some people indeed complained about the inclusion of some names and the absence of others on the Bago Transition Committee, suggesting some competent people who should have been there. But Niger is a state of competent people. We have too many of them. If you’re going to populate the committee with all of them, you’re not going to have a committee but a state.
Imagine including all the competent people from Agaie alone or all the brilliant people from Lapai.
Only a couple of days ago, Professor Yahya Kuta added someone from Kontagora to our WhatsApp group. The guy is a Salford-educated economist. I was blown away by his bio. The guy is working internationally to help African countries with their macroeconomic issues. But last week, I didn’t even know he existed.
I do understand that some fear that if they are not on the committee, they’re not likely to be included in government. Valid as this may sound, it’s not necessarily true. But if you’re not appointed, so what? We should be satisfied when the right people other than ourselves are appointed.
Therefore, those who didn’t see their names in the transition committee should be patient and be consoled by the fact that they’re adequately represented by the remarkable people who made it. Imagine a committee headed by Sulaiman Ndanusa.
Indeed, the governor-elect should be commended for sourcing such a brilliant collection.
PS: I’m also not on the transition committee, but I’m more than happy to be represented by elders such as Bako Shettima and Dr Santuraki and friends such as Mustapha Ndajiwo, Ali Baba and AlKasim Abdulkadir to name a few – I’ve unshakable confidence that these people only want the best for my state.
PPS: Let’s not push our governor-elect to second-guess his decisions. We need a confident and firm leader who will make tough calls. As a human being, a few decisions will be wrong yet he must decide.
