By Luka Binniyat
According to Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State, his agenda is a simple, but tough one – Peace, Unity and Development (PUD).
According to Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State, his agenda is a simple, but tough one – Peace, Unity and Development (PUD).
And in the areas of the Development (D), his supporters are saying that he has genuine reason to beat his chest so far.
Recently, a happy motley throng of thousands of cheering Hausa, men, women and children defied control at Hayin Danmani, a crowded suburb, about 5km west of Kaduna Government House as Yakowa arrived there to commission a project.
The Community every year, the densely populated got completely cut from the main town as a result of its flood plain rising to risky levels, sinking the planks that serves as a make-shit bridge. Each year, according to residents, not less than 10 people got drowned while trying to cross the fast flowing river that snaked pass the place.
Governor Patrick Yakowa
Even Muslim women in Purdah turned out in large numbers to join the celebration. It was the commissioning of a N589 million bridge connecting a 8 km ring road that has now linked the community to Kaduna town.
There was singing, dancing and ululation with prayers loudly said to Allah to protect and guide Yakowa. Yet this was a community once very hostile to his emergence as a Governor.
“These community did not vote for Yakowa. They voted for the CPC. But because of this bridge and road, they have changed their views about him”, said an aide of the Governor who did not want to be named.
Yakowa, has completed N1.6 billion 4th bridge linked by a N4.4 billion new road that now decongests the perennial traffic hold-up North of River Kaduna.
The projects, all done in less than two years, is regarded as the equivalent of the Lagos 3rd Main land bridge. Beside the new road lies the new Millennium City Mass Housing Scheme and the N4 billion ultra-modern, 300 bed Hospital in Kamazo village, that would become a University Teaching Hospital for Kaduna State University (KASU). All the projects were initiated and executed by Yakowa.
On roads, Yakowa’s Government, according to his Commissioner of Works and Transport, Engr. Suleiman Yahaya Richifa, at a Press Conference , informed the Press that 684 kilometer length of roads traversing urban and rural communities were under construction at a cost of N15 billion.
In the provision of water Kaduna State Commissioner of Finance, Barr. Sunday Marshal Katung, also told the Press that the state government has spent N27 billion to make Kaduna State the leading state in supply of potable water.
In Agriculture, Education, Revenue Generation, Sport and Gender issues, Yakowa is seen as managing the resources of the state most prudently.
Even his strong critics are amused how timid he had been about celebrating what he has been doing.
But, he has not been so successful with the Peace (P) and Unity (U) aspect of his PUD.
For instance, recently, representatives of Christians and Muslims bitterly pointed accusing fingers at each other in the presence of high caliber international guest visiting the state on a fact-finding mission to ascertain what went wrong after the last Presidential Elections. The visitors were a 28-strong International Delegation of World Council of Churches. The delegation also consisted of world renown Islamic Clerics from the Royal Aa-Al Byat Institute of Jordan , led by Prince Ghazi bin Mohammad (PhD) of Jordan, said to be a direct descendant of Prophet Mohammed. Also on the delegation was the Head of the Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mustafa Ceric (PhD).
Both sides accused each other of gory crimes, and said they were yet to get justice, denouncing government’s several peace initiatives as lame and ineffective.
An hour before then, Governor Patrick Yakowa had hosted the visitors where took about an hour to lament the gulf that the post election violence had created. He then went on to narrate how he was initiating several peace and reconciliation moves to unite the people of the state. He was still hopeful that his energy towards that direction would yield result.
“My focus remains Peace, Unity and Development (PUD)”, he told his guest, “and I have been doing everything within the law, resources and time available to me to achieve that”, he said.
In February, this year, alongside Mallam Halliru Maraya, Special Assistant to the Governor on Muslims Affairs and Ishaku Dogo Makama, Executive Secretary, State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) Kaduna State, Hayab addressed a Press Conference and said at that time, that N564 million had been expended mainly on displaced Muslims victims of the riot, who at that time were saying the state had done nothing for them.
Christian victims have also accused government of neglecting them, focusing on the other side.
Last month, Yakowa announced a donation of fresh N340 million as further succor to victims of the post election violence to cover destroyed homes and places of worship only.
The Principal Private Secretary (PPS) to the Governor, Mr. Allah Magani Yunana in December last year, while trying to reconcile indigenous Ikulu people and displaced Hausa living among them said that government was spending N1.2 billion a month to maintain the peace in Kaduna state. The figure caused disquiet in government circle, and the Media Assistant to the Governor, Mr. Rueben Buhari hurriedly came up with a statement, saying the figure was not true, though he did not state the real amount.
But in this years budget, N1.25 billion has been appropriated for security alone.
In some parts of Southern Kaduna, suspected herdsmen, occasionally leave causalities during night raids on Christian villages.
Bomb explosions and discovery of some unexploded ones kept residents of Kaduna state nervy most times.
And this fear was justified when suicide killers last June, bombed two Churches in Kaduna’s second most largest city, Zaria, and another Church in Kaduna leaving 17 people death and score in injured. Boko Haram later claimed responsibility. Christians youths in Kaduna responded by killing unfortunate, innocent Muslims found in the neighborhood, prompting the Governor to declare 24-hour curfew over the entire state.
Thus, if any gain had been made in the past, the last suicide religious violence had reversed by much.
Though peace and normalcy had since returned, the brick wall that once separated the love, peace and harmony of Hausa/Fulani Muslims, and other tribal groupings of Christians in the state, may have now cast into a fence of steel.
Today’s seeming harmony among the two divides in Kaduna is viewed as artificial and superficial. Though most residents desire peace, the grudge and suspicion among them is only kept from combusting at the slightest excuse by the might of Military jerk boot pounding Kaduna streets day and night.
Certainly not through forgiveness and genuine reconciliation. Meaning that Yakowa’s Unity has not been achieved.
