ANGO GENERAL ELECTIONS, JANUARY 11, 2025
Press Statement-Wildan House Gombe, Gombe State, Northeast Nigeria
PROTOCOL:
It is with great honour and deep sense of humility that we address you today January 11, 2025 after a successful, peaceful, and collective outcome of the very first election ever conducted in the long history of the Civil Society umbrella in Gombe State. And so today, history is made, and a statement made. This is a testament of resilience, determination, purpose and focus, sacrifice, and most importantly, unity and collective drive for the good of all. And we give God Almighty all the glory and the honour, He who owns all, and gives to all at will, by His mercy, and power.
Let me use this juncture to appreciate and thank most sincerely, the members of the Executive Council, under the able and loving leadership of the Acting Chairman – Idris Maigari Lawanti, for staying firm and united especially since April 2024 when the journey of transformation and consolidation of ANGO began. In-spite the challenges, the turbulence, and sudden uncertainties, we all agreed in totality to remain focused and forge ahead, and by this difficult decision God helping us, today we are here, opening a new chapter for our collective platform ANGO, thank you, thank you for all the sacrifice.
In the same vein, I will like to acknowledge and appreciate most sincerely, the support, prayers and wise counsel of our senior citizens in the struggle – our mothers here with us. Your encouragement, commitment, sacrifice and patience with us sure brought us this far, and we shall forever remain grateful, loyal, and sincerely submissive to your kind and wise counsel at all times and all the way. At this point, I will like to affirm my profound gratitude to the leadership of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD) for nominating my candidature, and even purchasing my nomination form for the post of the Chairman, I will forever remain grateful, and i assure you that this solidarity has just begun.
To all of us in the Civil Society In Gombe State, this is a time to remind ourselves that we all have responsibility to consolidate more, strategise better to face our ever increasing socio-economic and development challenges confronting our people and communities, especially the vulnerable. We must together harness all our strengths, expertise, resources, and goodwill in unity to deliver on our strategic mandate as the fourth Arm of our governance structure (after the Executive, the Legislature, and the Judiciary), and as the fourth tier (after the Federal, the State, and the Local Government) to ensure better and effective service delivery to our citizens.
I always like to remind all of us that, by implication, most of the CSOs In Gombe State have at one point or the other aided, or facilitated, or committed to, or been part of the Association of NGOs (ANGO) as a coalition. We have gotten connected with one another, and most importantly, we all are on one mandate – the people!
Let me use this opportunity to emphasize again and again that, over the years, we have worked with the Government in formulating sustainable and laudable policies and programmes for our dear people in numerous ways. At our onset, we engaged the Buhari Plan, and later the Presidential Committee on the Northeast (PCNI), and our Advocacy then was the sustainable development of the devastated Northeast region. Today we have the Northeast Development Commission (NEDC) investing in infrastructural development, social interventions, and the reconstruction of the region.
We all may recall our strategic role in formulation and development of our Gombe State 10-Year Development Plan 2021-2030 which is the fundamental development agenda for Gombe State. So also, we have been part of many other policies in the State including the VAPP Law, Social Protection Policy, Nutrition Policy, Better Life for Girls Policy, Standards and Guidelines for Medical Management of Victims of GBV, Gombe State Monitoring & Evaluation Policy, and many more.
In terms of service delivery, we all are witnesses of our various interventions working with various Government MDAs in various ways including Peace and Security interventions, Rapid response during surge and outbreaks, Palliative administration and Monitoring and strengthening Social interventions, HIV/AIDS response, Child Right response, Malaria and Tuberculosis response, War against Gender-based Violence, Climate crises response, and many economic empowerment initiatives.
Over the years many of our organizations have facilitated and pulled to our dear State laudable Interventions worth Billions of Naira put together in various thematic areas including Health, Education, Peace Security & Conflict resolution, Food and Agriculture, Climate change, Economic and Income alternative, as well as areas of research, capacity building, and community outreaches. All these through working with critical partners – Actionaid, Save the Children International, UNICEF, Marc Arthur Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Mercy Corp, Mary Stopes, CLEEN Foundation, Funds for Global Human Rights, Bread for the World, Harvest Plus, USAID, etc.
Worthy of mention at this juncture is our consistent commitment in influencing and shaping our State legislations with the State House of Assembly. So far in recent times we have successfully facilitated a number of Memoranda at the floor of the Assembly including Gombe State CBAs/CBOs Registration & Administration Office Bill 2024, the Persons with Disability Bill, Gombe State Social Investment Programme Agency Bill 2024, Gombe State Security, Traffic & Environmental Commission (GOSTEC) Bill 2024, Gombe State Urban Planning & Development Authority (GOSUPDA) Bill 2024, and the recent Position Paper on the Nigeria Tax Reforms Bill 2024 submitted to the office of the Senate President – the Nigerian Senate, National Assembly. I want to use this medium to thank Gombe State House of Assembly under the leadership of the Speaker, Right Honourable Abubakar Mohammed Luggerewo for the good working relationship with the 7th Assembly, and all our MDAs and Gombe State Government under the leadership of His Excellency, Alhaji Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya CON, the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum for the enabling environment arid the recognition and the opportunity to contribute in the Governance of our dear State. We commit to working more and better for our dear State.
In this new chapter of our collective efforts, we extend our hands of friendship, and in solidarity call on all our CSOs, CBOS, NGOS, CBAs, and citizens’ formations across our communities in all our 114 Wards in our 11 LGAS, and across the North-east, and beyond to work together as one big family and rise up to the very occasion of putting people first in all our endeavours the very essence of our legitimacy.
Going forward, we shall continue with our wider consultations within the Civil Society, and other critical stakeholders including the MDAs, Development Partners, Security Agencies, and Communities’ structures with the view to further reinforce strategic collaborations and partnerships so as to consolidate on our gains so far, and foster a more inclusive and accountable Civil Society In Gombe State.
In the coming weeks, we shall unveil our Civil Society Agenda for Gombe State looking ahead.
God bless Gombe State, God bless the Federal republic of Nigeria. And may God bless us all.
Dr. Bachana Yusuf fecp, GC-MSTCDC Denmark Chairman-Elect
