A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Gombe state Mallam Kera Hassan, has said there is nothing for the Inuwa Yahaya led administration to celebrate adding that the state has been dragged backwards.
Hassan who was a former Special Assistant to former Governor Hassan Dankwambo, disclosed this on Friday, in an interview with our correspondent.
He said, “You can find out from residents of the state many of them are not happy with the way things are going on in the state. There is no governor that will talk about development and still frustrate Tertiary institutions, as we talk one of the five state owned institutions after the coming of this administration has not received salary except the management staff, the remaining four institutions received salaries without overhead.
“If we place road construction side with education there is no way a governor that claims no money to support tertiary institutions will be constructing rural roads at the expense of Tertiary Education.
“The poor handling of isolation centres, if the government is serious there is no way you will have problem with an isolation centre and they will allow for a subsequent protest by other patients in another centre without addressing their grievances.
“We know that government is a continuous process we inherited Kalari Political thugs but our government later transformed the group through rigorous training and reorientation to Marshal so that they can be responsible citizens to both the state and their families with salary. All of a sudden this government, just for political reason threw them out to the street that has invariably increased the rate of crime in the state which they can’t curtail it was against this backdrop that the previous administration chose to absorb the youths and engaged them in meaningful ventures.
“Provision of supply has become worst technically the dam was constructed to serve a particular population and there is no way water supply can be improved without dam expansion.
This government chose to tell lies that they want to improve water supply how? The best thing to do should have been to increase the capacity and not to be mouthing Reticulation, you can’t reticulate when you don’t have adequate water supply, instead they cut supplies from other areas to concentrate supply to the metropolitan city, you can see how myopic they are thinking, just for people to say there is water.
“To us as a state we are disappointed they have moved the state backwards not forward. The state is managed as personal enterprise, in the years to come PDP will take over.”
Meanwhile the Gombe Governor Inuwa Yahaya gave his performance in office a pass mark despite inheriting debt to the tune of 120 Billion Naira.
Yahaya during a statewide broadcast monitored in Gombe to commemorate his one year anniversary noted that the state is on a path to recovery.
He stated, “On coming to office, the situation we met was very gloomy. The level of dilapidation of our educational and health institutions was unacceptable. There was complete neglect of our rural communities who formed the bedrock of our economic and social development. Available data revealed a high number of out-of-school children, poor performance in basic education, high maternal and child mortality, and water shortages especially in Gombe metropolis and other major towns.
“Public debt and other liabilities were to the tune of 120 billion naira and there was clear lack of direction in governance. This situation led to a huge disconnect between the government and the people that it was supposed to serve.”
He said his administration has managed to fulfill electoral promises to the residents of the state adding that education, health and welfare of workers have got top priority.
Yahaya added that his drive for change was the reason ministries were pruned down from 27 to 21, “to save cost, improve efficiency and enhance service delivery. Similarly, we initiated institutional restructuring which resulted in the creation of a Bureau for Public Service Reforms in order to improve the performance of the civil service being a critical vehicle for the implementation of our development agenda.”
