This book "Legal Tactics and Antics"

t is simply a classic. Please do get a copy for yourself or for a loved one.

This book "Legal Tactics and Antics" is a great and thorough intellectual legal work done by my Boss Terhemen Oscar Aorabee Esq., an erudite Legal practitioner of over 20 years post-call experience in active law practice.

It will be launched/publicly presented tomorrow 27/9/2014 at Smile View Hotel, Fr. Hunter Street, Nyiman Layout, Makurdi Benue State by 9am prompt. It can however be delivered to you anywhere in the country upon indication of interest.

The book is rich, well researched and simply written to benefit legal practitioners of all classes. Both those who are already many years at the bar and the young lawyers. It exposes the Tactics and Antics employed by lawyers in winning their cases and making the best out of even seemingly bad ones.

If there ever is a gift I have cherished so much in my life, then this sure is. There are some things that when they get into your hands, you value them much more than money. I mean real money. This certainly is one of those things. God forbid that I advertise the book. I won't. But let me humbly recommend it to whoever must have had anything to do with the law or the legal profession. You just have to read this book!!!

It is simply a classic. Please do get a copy for yourself or for a loved one.

we refer you to where you can order  for the book
for a referral fee [MTN Recharge card of N 200 to 08030485016]

My stewardship as Abia governor (1999-2007) – 1

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By Our Reporter on September 13, 2014 · Back Page / Columns, Kalu Leadership Series

The need for me to publicly give ac­count of my stewardship when I served as the governor of Abia State has become inevitable, because of the way and manner my successor in office, Chief Theodore Orji, has tried in recent times to twist the facts and, by so doing, mislead gullible members of the public. Those not aware of the smouldering crisis of confidence raging between me and the governor could easily believe some of the propaganda materials his administration has continued to churn out in the past three years, particularly since he left our politi­cal ‘family’ to seek shelter elsewhere.
The reason I did not sound my trumpets about my performance as governor was that I had thought that government was a continuum and, therefore, there was no need trying to cre­ate dichotomy between one administration and another. Again, I had reasoned that since the man that was to succeed me was a key player in our administration, he would build on what we had done and carry on with the road map we had collectively designed. Sadly, that was not to be.
Though different books were published at different times in the course of our govern­ment, especially toward the end of my tenure as governor of Abia State from 1999 to 2007 documenting for posterity our achievements as an administration, there is still a need to make further clarifications and elucidations through this series. None of the books in question, to the best of my knowledge, was launched in public and, therefore, might not have made the desired impact in terms of outreach and mileage. More so, I am sure it was not every person who should get the books got them for the reason I had given: Our administration was winding down and all attention focused on the hand-over process and the compelling need to get the governor (and my Chief of Staff then) released from prison.
Those who knew what really transpired would confirm that nothing else mattered to me then other than to get Chief Theodore Orji released from prison. The plot of our detrac­tors was to keep him in prison until the date for his inauguration was over. Sensing this plot, we swung into action, pulling all available strings and, in the end (we give God the glory), we sailed through. The day Theodore Orji was released from prison was my happiest day in life. Our joy almost turned sour when informa­tion filtered to us that our detractors planned to re-arrest him to make his inauguration an im­possible mission. In our usual way, we devised a strategy to counter this latest plot.
To avoid any mistakes, I personally char­tered a flight to take him from Lagos to Umua­hia to prepare his inauguration – a few days away. Not only that, I accompanied him on that flight to the Owerri Airport and returned to Lagos on the same flight to ensure that all went well. The crowds we mobilized to re­ceive him at the airport were such that any plot to re-arrest him was almost impracticable. I thank God the whole thing went as planned, and today Theodore Orji sits atop the affairs of Abia State as governor.
Sincerely speaking, securing the release of Theodore Orji and ensuring his subsequent successful swearing-in remain one of the most exciting aspects of my stewardship in Abia State.
Prior to the Theodore-Orji-for-Governor project we had transformed Abia State in sync with a carefully-packaged developmental agenda. Let me quickly state at this juncture, that on assumption of office on May 29, 1999, Abia State was something in the neighbour­hood of a pariah state – infrastructure was non-existent, workers’ morale was down, be­cause of two-month unpaid salaries, with pen­sions and gratuities of retired workers running into several years in arrears. Added to this bag of liabilities we inherited was an N8 billion debt accumulated by past regimes, compris­ing arrears of salaries, pensions and gratui­ties, contractual obligations and other matters relating to the administration of government. The foreign debt portfolio we inherited was 680 million United States dollars. The loan was secured during the NPP/NPN era for the building of Enyimba Hotel and Glass Indus­try – both in Aba, Ogwe Chicken Farm in Ukwa, and Metallurgical factory at Olokoro. Curiously, we were made to pay up the loan by then President Olusegun Obasanjo before the end of our administration. The Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is there to confirm the veracity of this statement. Again, it is good to place it on record that our state’s share from the federation account reached the N1 billion mark for the first time in Novem­ber 2004. After that it oscillated between N1.2 and N1.6 billion. It never at any time hit the N2billion mark. Despite the paucity of funds, we were still able to meet our statutory and contractual obligations.
Do I need to shy away from the fact that hundreds of communities had no electricity and pipe-borne water, school buildings were dilapidated and abandoned; facilities in exist­ing health facilities were insufficient, while those available had no operable staff and equipment? The State Teaching Hospital was like a cottage hospital, not to talk of the palpa­ble state of fear among the citizens of the state, occasioned by frightening rates of crimes. Enyimba Football Club of Aba faced relega­tion from the elite division to the second divi­sion. This was the situation on ground when we assumed office in May 1999.
That is not all: The Enyimba City – the biggest commercial centre in Africa, which is also called the Japan of Africa – was a shadow of its old self. In fact, it looked like a deserted city as its residents wallowed in self-pity and abandonment. There was also no single state-of-the-art conference centre anywhere in the state, except the Okpara Auditorium (which lacked the necessary facilities for conferences and other formal events).
It was in this state of hopelessness and de­spair that our ship of redemption berthed in Abia State. The few days I stayed in the state before my inauguration revealed the rot in the state and the urgent need to hit the ground run­ning. So, from day one, it was business till the chapter of our administration closed formally in the midnight of May 28, 2007.
I must not fail to express deep gratitude to God for the vision and courage to achieve the much we did in spite of obvious impediments in our way. We thank the well-meaning people of Abia State that believed in us and voted us into power. It was their love and support for our government that made us go into covenant with them. The covenant was hinged on the fear of God and respect for human dignity and life.
In any case, every person who was resi­dent in Abia State in the period I was governor would recall with little effort that we worked assiduously to reposition the state and make it the economic hub of Nigeria, nay Africa. Even a blind man saw the transformation of the state from obscurity to global preeminence. We took Abia State to every nook and cranny of the universe, attracting investors and other partners in development, who brought in their investments with confidence.
Aside the economic package for the devel­opment of Abia State, we paid serious attention to security of lives and property. Our thinking was that no reasonable investor would come to a state that was unsecure. The plan we set in place for security was unparalleled. Kidnap­pers and other hoodlums scampered for safety. In fact, Abia State was adjudged one of the se­curest states in Nigeria. Security was such that no single case of kidnapping or political kill­ing was recorded throughout the eight years we served. I could count about five brother-governors that approached us then to copy our security master plan.
The success we made of security was hinged on a simple formula: Design a strategy that would nip crimes in the bud. In short, we took the war to the criminals and made the state inhabitable for them. We also considered the personnel that would execute the plan and reasoned that the best way to get the best out of them was to motivate them. Apart from providing them vehicles and communication gadgets and occasional monetary rewards, we also put in place an insurance scheme that insured each of the 3000 policemen posted to our state. These incentives indubitably fired their morale and made them ready to sacrifice their lives in defence of the state and its people.
We kept faith with our covenant with the police – to cater to their welfare. This manifest­ed when we lost a policeman on essential duty. His family was instantly handed his insurance benefit of N10 million. According to available records, it was the first time any state in Nige­ria could do such a thing.
As people went about their legitimate businesses without fear, life started booming all over the state. In less than two months in office, we had succeeded in clearing the two-month salary arrears owed the workers by the previous administration and established a sys­tem that ensured that workers got their entitle­ments every 25th of the month. We kept faith with this plan until our exit.
When we had achieved the plan for regular payment of salaries, we then turned to pen­sions and gratuities. We were not deterred by the many years of arrears owed. We started somewhere, hoping to settle a reasonable per­centage of the arrears before our tenure ran out. And so it happened. By the time we left office, only an infinitesimal percentage of per­sons were yet to receive their gratuities.
It is important to state here that throughout our tenure, there was no single industrial ac­tion by workers in the state. There was harmo­ny between the workers and government. The only time workers went on strike was when the Association of Staff Union of Universities embarked on a national strike. I went to Abia State University and negotiated a deal with the state’s ASUU and they told me they would join their colleagues to commence the action and would back out after two days. And they kept to their word. And so, academic activities were never interrupted in any of the tertiary institutions in our state throughout the dura­tion of our government, making our students graduate when they should.
Subventions to the Abia State University, Uturu; Abia State Polytechnic, Aba; and the College of Education (Technical), Arochuk­wu, were arithmetically increased. The same could be said of infrastructure and other fa­cilities that enhanced cognitive capacity in the citadels of learning. I will still come to the re­habilitation of primary and secondary schools later.
Next in line were roads. A visit to Aba would make one cry openly. Almost all the rods in the city were in a state of disuse. We sprang into action. Wait a minute! What was our monthly allocation from Abuja then? I think something in the neighbourhood of N150 million. Can you imagine what N150 million would do for a state with non-existent amenities? We were not dismayed. Rather we looked up to God, motivated by the fact that our emergence in the saddle of governance was not by accident.
Determined not to fail, I personally raised N500 million from Guaranty Trust Bank through the instrumentality of its Group Man­aging Director then, Tayo Aderinokun, who was also a close friend, to start five roads in Aba. Abia State will never forget his invalu­able contributions to the development of the state. We pray God to grant his soul eternal rest in Heaven. By February 25, 2000 when then President Olusegun Obasanjo paid his first official visit to Abia State the roads were ready for commissioning. The President was moved to emotion by what he saw in Aba that he openly awarded me the title of the “Action Governor of Nigeria”. Don’t mind we disa­greed along the line and he started tormenting me. What I went through later in the hands of Obasanjo was horrifying. Thank God, we sur­vived.
After the initial five roads in Aba, we em­barked on massive reconstruction of the road networks in the city. We knew this would cost us enormous financial resources and so we were prepared for the task. The bulldozers and caterpillars rolled in. In less than two years, the city was transformed. Those that deserted the city started coming back. Life gradually picked up. Aba started regaining its lost glory.
One of the ways we had planned to boost the new confidence in the residents of the city was to save Enyimba Football Club from relegation. The team was at the verge of rel­egation when we assumed office. Because I had deep knowledge and experience about football and club management, I was able to set in motion a redemption plan for the club, which yielded immediate result. By the close of the 1999/2000 football season Enyimba had regained its winning power and shunned relegation. We did not stop at that; we started another project: this time to build a new Eny­imba team that would win the elusive African Champions Cup.
By the time the new season of 2000/2001 started, we had a brand new Enyimba team. At the end of the season the team had won the National League. In 2001/2002 season, it won the national League and Challenge Cup. In 2002/2003, it won the league back to back. The next target was the African Champions Cup, which we won for Nigeria for the first time in 38 years in 2003. All these achieve­ments in sports would not have been possible without building the necessary infrastructure. So, we started the expansion and upgrading of facilities at the Umuahia and Enyimba Stadia.
In subsequent editions, we will discuss oth­er crucial issues, especially the finances of our administration from 1999-2007: How much we received and how much we spent and on what. In fact, I’m working toward publishing the financial account of our administration in a fully-paid 24-page pull-out in The Sun News­paper very soon to put a lie to the culture of falsehood taking root in Abia State. I am do­ing this, despite the fact that our government published monthly report on its finances in the dailies.
I was in London when the Group Managing Director of The Sun Newspaper, Femi Adesina, called to break the sad news of the sudden death of Dimgba. Initially, I did not believe the news, be­cause it sounded like a fairy-tale, since I spoke with Dimgba the night before his death, as we dis­cussed future plans for the paper. Don’t forget: I had appointed him Vice Chairman of The Sun just last year.
In order to confirm what I had been told (not that I did not believe Femi), I put a call through to his family. I spoke with his wife and son, and both expressed disbelief that their breadwinner and caring father would die in such a horrendous manner.
It was when the news had finally sunk in that I realised the damage it had done to my system: I felt hollow and devastated. My mind ran riot. Memories of things we did together started flashing back. Oh, my God, it was horrific!
I would not have believed it if even the most prominent prophet had told me that he saw that Dimgba would be dead by Sat­urday, September 6, 2014! Why would a man with such vivac­ity, large dreams and an unusual knack for excellence and perfor­mance die in his ‘youth’ (at 58)? I am yet to come to terms with this loss. It is too true to be true.
Dimgba was too good to die at the time he did, but who are we to question God? I will do a proper tribute at the appropriate time.
Fare thee well, my friend and brother!

FOUR YEARS OF BRIDGE BUILDING

FOUR YEARS OF BRIDGE BUILDING

Alhaji Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar III


By Uche Ezechukwu
Monday, March 07, 2011,BACK PAGE


At a time when Nigerians are faced with horrendous and disappointing failures in leadership at the various levels, it is not surprising that superlative performers at their leadership posts are nowadays treated with lack of recognition. At a time when betrayal has become the distinguishing habit of most of those to whom we entrust our lives and circumstances, it is hard to blame citizens when they fail to extol men and women who are making sterling contributions to the society. One of such rare people is a retired army general, astute and intellectual diplomat, scholar and administrator – among many other attributes – and currently the Sultan of Sokoto, the head of the Sokoto Caliphate and the leader of Nigerian Muslims.

Last week, the second of March, marked the fourth anniversary of the coronation of Alhaji Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar III as the 20th Sultan of Sokoto and the head of the 200+ year-old Caliphate, founded by Sheikh Othman dan Fodio in 1804. (He had ascended the throne in November of the previous year, 2006 at the death, through a plane crash, of his predecessor). It would almost be trite to assert that before ascending the most prominent and enduring traditional stool in Nigeria, if not Africa, the former army general (whose bio-data is as thick as a book) had been adequately prepared professionally, intellectually and politically to occupy the position which, like most other such institutions, was being confronted by the challenge of marrying the ancient with the modern ways of life of millions, while at the same time trying to make both relevant in the vicissitudes of the present day demands.

Abubakar III ascended the leadership of the Sultanate, two years after the bi-centenary celebrations, during which the essence of the Caliphate was being put to question by some who were not great fans of an institution which they claimed had outlived its usefulness, just as better informed people, who have had the benefit of studying and watching the operation of the Sultanate from very close quarters, have continued to insist that its roles have become even more relevant now than ever. A major relevance of the Sultan is that as the head of the Muslim community (umma) in Nigeria, he holds a delicate but very important ace to the stability of Nigeria which can only be assured through a deft management of religious relationships in the country. Remarkably, Sultan Abubakar III ascended the throne at a time of great challenges in inter-religious and ethnic relationships in the country.

He personally acknowledged this fact on October 28, 2008, while receiving an honorary doctorate from Anambra State University. The Sultan acknowledged that the country was experiencing great challenges in its religious and ethnic relationships occasioned by the escalation of religious and ethnic differences, particularly over the vexed issue of indigene-settler relations. Wondering how Nigeria had been brought to a stage where “friend turned against friend, neighbour turned against neighbour and state turned against state, to maim and kill, without any compunction and to leave a trail of destruction...”, he reasoned realistically that the sooner Nigerians of all backgrounds appreciated that it does not make any sense for anybody to be regarded as stranger in his or her own country, the better for all, and unless Nigerians were not desirous of existing as citizens of one country, sturdy bridges of understanding must be built consciously by all Nigerians of all ethnics and faiths to achieve the imperative of peaceful co-existence.

He has acted more as a doer than a preacher in the way he has immersed himself deeply into activities that would realistically and sustain build these bridges. Through the instrumentality of the Nigerian Interreligious Council (NIREC), which the Sultan as the head of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) co-chairs with the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), a big momentum was generated in the management of religious relationships in the country. Needless to say that the dedication and level-headed activities of this council of the 50 men and women (25 each from the two religions), has contributed immensely to keeping these crises from going overboard. The unique maturity and chemistry between the Sultan and another great bridge builder, Archbishop John Onaiyekan, the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, have gone a long way in erecting these bridges across the religions and cultures.

It is on record that the Sultan made history when he journeyed to Abuja in May last year to officiate as a keynote speaker at a national event of CAN during which he elaborated on the need for a better appreciation of and on the imperatives of building on the things that bind Muslims and Christians rather than stressing on their differences. It would be useful for such a gesture to be reciprocated by an equally high ranking Christian leader.

I had the opportunity of being invited to deliver the keynote paper at the NIREC conference in Bauchi in April 2010, and have since then, been afforded the opportunity of getting deep insights into the workings of the little-advertised Council as well as the enormous contributions which the organization and its members have made, as well as NIREC’s unprecedented potential for building religious harmony in the country. I have also been able to appreciate more deeply how far personal integrity, committed patriotism and deep knowledge of leaders can take a people and their society in the right direction. That fact ensured that Sultan Abubakar III and Archbishop Onaiyekan achieved a great deal and it is very obvious that even now that Onaiyekan has yielded his seat to another, by the virtue of his departure as CAN’s leader, the impact he left on NIREC and the society will remain enduring, as long as the sultan remains a part of that patriotic commitment and vision.

The Sultan is a man of great knowledge and patriotism, and contrary to what some might think, the Caliphate is not a conservative institution and will continue to remain relevant because it is guided by a deep belief and commitment that no society can survive and endure without building strong bridges of understanding, continually repaired and strengthened across many aspects of the society. For the Sultan Abubakar III and his forebears, these bridges must be built on justice, knowledge and good governance, through the service to the people and not through a situation, whereby leaders, “simply regard politics and struggle for political power as the shortest route to fame and fortune”, as the sultan stated in his lecture paper entitled ‘The Responsibilities of Leadership in National Development’, at NIPSS, Kuru in March 2009.

Like the 19 others before him, Sultan Abubakar III has continued to insist that justice and knowledge constitute some of the strongest bedrocks of a sane, progressive and stable society. In his paper at the Fifth Annual Lecture of the Post Graduate Studies of UNILAG in June 2009, the Sultan succinctly remarked that, “the Sokoto Caliphate...was predicated on the firm belief that knowledge constitutes a necessary ingredient for effective leadership and good governance. Leaders must not only be educated and knowledgeable but must also be guided by knowledge and understanding to manage efficaciously, the affairs of the citizenry”. To him, good education is a sine-qua-non for good governance and good citizenry, just as he holds that Nigeria cannot go forward without justice to the citizens. Most Nigerians today bemoan the fact that lack of knowledge and inadequate education has become the bane of our national and local politics.

He has shown an unparalleled commitment to ensuring that leaders and the led continue to appreciate the great gains that can be made through the enthronement of certain imperatives which, as he believes, Nigeria cannot do without. These imperatives he recognizes as that of purposeful and visionary leadership; a common citizenship with its requisite rights and obligations; and nurturing talent and providing opportunity to each citizen to realise his or her potential.

According to him, “we must also nurture talent and provide opportunities for our entrepreneurs in different parts of the country to contribute their quota to national development. Where a particular region, like the South East, has specific talents in process engineering and manufacturing, the nation, as a whole must come to the full support of this region with the view of making Nigeria self-sufficient in its area of expertise. And the same should be done for other regions...”

Sultan Abubakar III has time and age on his side, and if the big bridges he has already built and building within this short time in office between the different peoples and their cultures and religion, not to talk about the unique vistas and knowledge which has brought to bear, from his vast and varied exposures and experience, on our society, are anything to go by, then Nigeria will be the best for it. Ultimately, it will be appreciated by all that what matters most are not the bridges of concrete across our physical terrains and landscapes, but rather those built across our minds, relationships and perceptions...because it is those that make for human progress, social justice and over-all social development.

That being so, it should no longer the likes of Julius Berger who should be extolled but the likes of Alhaji Muhammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, the 20th Sultan of Sokoto, that should be decorated with the shibboleth of Nigeria’s bridge builders.
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Igwe at his best, may his soul rest in peace[RIP]

From Katsina with Ibrahim Shema’s good tidings

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By Our Reporter on September 2, 2014 · Back Page / Columns, Columns, Sideview

Originally, it was said the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. But nowadays, Nigerians have paraphrased that powerful scripture to the fear of Boko Haram is the beginning of wisdom. So, when the Nigerian Guild of Editors announced that this year’s All Nigeria’s Editors’ Conference, ANEC, was going to hold in Katsina, the question was, why Katsina of all places? Or anywhere in the North for that matter!
The way everyone, including this reporter, reacted, you’d think that the Guild was planning to hold the conference in Chibok town, near the evil forest of Sambisa. “Are we safe?” I had asked the Guild President, Femi Adesina. It turned out that it was the question on every lip and Femi had answered it so many times already.
“Katsina is said to be the safest part of the North,” he explained. But it was when I heard that the issue had become so contentious that the northern delegates, who had faithfully attended three or more consecutive annual conferences in the South threatened to pull out of the Guild if the venue was changed that I made up my mind to be there, perhaps, as the disciples of Jesus said at the Lord’s most harrowing hour, “let us go there and die together.”
But far from dying, Katsina offered us a beacon of hope and good things. To avoid landing in Kano and the attendant logistic challenge of travelling to Katsina from Kano, delegates from Lagos and Abuja had a chartered Boeing 737 flight to take us straight to Katsina en route Abuja.
I was last at Katsina in 1991 with a couple of other journalists that included the then NTA’s Chris Anyanwu and we had come for project inspection during the regime of Military Administrator, Col. John Madaki. Katsina, home to the famous Yar’Adua dynasty and former head of state, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (from Daura), then was a low-key urban town with limited roads and other infrastructures. Then, we inspected mostly boreholes, rural roads, schools, clinics and electrification. The contrast today is very stark. Katsina today is a very modern city, with good roads. We now drove through a new city paved with a six-lane ring road on both sides around Katsina town with made-in-Katsina solar-powered street lights. But, as we piled into buses at the airport, my eyes were alert. Where are the armed security squads to protect us in case? There were none. I’ve gone to many places in the South here where we were escorted by armed security, but not in Katsina. At the large Liyafa Palace Hotel where all the Fellows of the Guild were lodged in suites, not even a single policeman was visible – just, plain private civilian security guards, the type you have in your homes.
The first night, I was thinking, what if Boko Haram hear that editors are in Katsina, wouldn’t we be a great target of the terrorists to draw global attention? But as it turned out, Katsina is a very peaceful state, with no security concerns. Indeed, when we drove from the airport to the Government House for a brief welcome reception with the State Governor, Ibrahim Shema, and his cabinet members, we encountered minimal security. After our registration for the conference the next day, the soldier manning the conference hall suggested that we drop our conference bags with him and collect it after the opening ceremony ostensibly because the Governor, the Senate President, the Minister of Education and other top dignitaries were expected, but surprisingly, I was able to convince him easily to allow us in with our bags because it would be too difficult for each person to retrieve their bags afterwards since the bags are uniform! Such sensible ease speaks about the ambience of peace and security of Katsina.
Over 200 editors besieged Katsina town, stretching their hotel infrastructure. We had come to explore a theme, Credible Elections and Good Governance: The Role of the Editor. We were exploring the foundation of credible elections and good governance. Apart from the keynote address by Alhaji Umaru Muttallab, other papers were presented around this theme by INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, legal activist, Ms Ayo Obe, media icon, Ray Ekpu, plus an interactive executive session with host governor, Ibrahim Shema, representatives of Lagos State Governor, Tunde Fashola, and Bayelsa State Governor, Henry Dickson.
Good governance or credible elections, which drives the other? Papers and debates went back and forth. I was one of the three discussants of the keynote address by Muttallab – my co-discussants were NTA’s Director-General, Shola Omole (represented by NTA’s Executive Director of News, Shola Atere), and Professor Umar Pate. I concluded by arguing that good governance, to a great extent, should drive credible election. Since June 12, 1993, the average Nigerian voters had demonstrated time and again their willingness to deliver free and fair elections, it is the political class that is dragging the electorate backwards with election riggings and instigation of violence. But where the elected office holders perform well in office, they don’t need to induce people with “stomach infrastructure”, rig elections or resort to violence to win elections. The average Nigerian electorate would fight to return them to office.
As it turned out, the performance of Governor Shema in office became a good illustration of that point, an excellent case study in how good governance can drive credible elections. Shema shared his story both at the executive session with all the editors and at a private session with five elders of the Guild of which I was present.
When he came to power in 2007, he inherited N54 billion of awarded contracts obligations. The Nigerian tradition is usually to abandon those contracts, refuse to pay for them and then proceed to award your own contracts. But Shema, convinced that government is continuity, spent the first 18 months of his tenure, completing all the projects started by his predecessor and paying off the N54 billion. This of course, put him at odds with his supporters and powerful stakeholders, who wanted him to award fresh contracts. Some of those contracts included the Katsina airport where we landed, the completion of Katsina State University and Polytechnics, among other things.
Incidentally, it was in the area of education that Governor Shema seemed to have spectacularly excelled. On coming to power, he visited some schools and found them deserted – the pupils had been sent home because they could not pay school fees. Worried by what he saw, Shema calculated the total revenue that accrued from school fees in the state and was told they came to N450 million per annum. Shema then reckoned that if merely he saved N100 million monthly from the state’s monthly allocation of N2.8 billion then, he would save N1.2 billion a year. With that simple arithmetic, Shema then offered free education in the state from primary to tertiary level. The state government also pays for all exam fees like those of WAEC, JAMB, etc.
But it is not only that students from Katsina State are offered education free, Shema’s administration has offered scholarships to about 700 indigenes of the state to study abroad, all expenses paid. But the condition is that they must study science-based courses like medicine, pharmacy, engineering courses, especially aeronautical, environmental engineering, etc.
The story of an orphan boy from Funtua stood out. Thanks to free education by the Shema administration, the boy was able to make straight A’s in all his subjects. But then, he secured a job in the farm of a rich man where his singular duty was carrying fertilizers on a donkey. When Shema heard of his pathetic story, he offered him scholarship to the University of California to study Environmental Engineering. This year, the orphan graduated with First Class honours and won a prize, as the overall best graduating student. He is back for his youth service but before then, with tears in his eyes, he presented his prize to the governor.
In Katsina, the duty of husbands stops with impregnating their wives. After that, the state government takes over all delivery cost, even if it is caesarian section and the child enjoys free medical care until age five. All malaria treatment and dialysis or renal treatments are free while oldies enjoy fee medical care.
Governor Shema inherited a decrepit and leaky Government House from his predecessor, but today, he has built an ultra-modern Government House complex that rivals any in the country.
But the news is not the building of the Government House but how he funded it. His policy is that before he awards contracts, there must be total cash backing. He pays 40 per cent of the contract sum as mobilisation fee and invests 60 per cent in treasury bills and other financial instruments until the final execution. After three-year tenure, Shema was shocked to discover that the state had garnered a huge income of N10 billion from such investments. It was out of this income from the investments that he spent N8 billion to build and furnish the Government House complex and spent another N400 million to build official Government Lodge at Abuja. “This Government House was not built out of the state’s allocation or IGR,” he said. “It is almost free of charge to the government because there is no law that compels me to invest government money in the first place.”
How much did the six-lane ring road cost? Well, according to Governor Shema, Julius Berger quoted N37 billion for less than one-third of the ring road and declined to make any discount. Realising he could not afford to execute the entire project at that rate, Shema then got consultants, who provided him with bill of quantity and then Shema dared five of us, “Can any of you guess how much we eventually built the entire ring road?”
“May be N15 billion?” Ray Ekpu finally guessed.
Wrong. Wide off the mark! “We eventually built the whole of the six-lane ring road for N6 billion! People don’t believe me but that is the truth!”
In all his exploits, Shema wants it underscored that he has never borrowed a dime. All his projects are executed from the state’s federal allocation of N5 billion and N1 billion IGR.”
Yet, the state is not owing workers or pensioners. Yet, the state has a healthy cash balance of over N32 billion and about N20 billion in local government account. Perhaps, it is high time Shema conducted a tutorial on prudence and management of state resources to many of his colleagues, who have left a legacy of squandermania with nothing to show for it.