- Elite consensus is a key ingredient of progress of societies anywhere in the world. We have a duty to develop our own elite consensus as a people. Adamawa Community Association in Abuja is an example of such development. Let us build on it and achieve a greater Adamawa elite consensus and understanding…
- Genuine unity and understanding can only exist in an atmosphere of shared prosperity. And for me, our starting point is to provide a Degree Awarding Tertiary Institution and a Tertiary Health facility in the southern Senatorial District of Adamawa state…
By Ahmad Sajoh, PhD
“Competition is the law of the jungle, but cooperation is the law of civilization”
— Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)
Introduction:
Permit me to commence this brief conversation by talking about choices. There are a number situations where we have choices, but there are some where we have no choice. There are others where the choices come not immediately but after some time. We have absolutely no choice in deciding our parentage. We have no choice in determining our ethnic group. We had no choice in the determination of our state of origin, nationality, religious affiliation or siblings and relations.
At birth, these are given to us by our parents. However, while we can denounce our relations, change our nationality, assume a new religious belief, we cannot in anyway change our parentage or the ethnic group, which our parents pass unto us. As a matter of fact, liberalism has promoted the concept of choice to the point that the human person of today can even change their gender or their sexual orientation. As children the choices were mostly divine choices, but as adults our choices are choices.
Therefore, this intervention is premised on the fact that all of us who still bear the title indigenes of Adamawa State of Nigeria have affirmed the divine choice of God in our life in terms of both our nationality and state of origin. Even those of us whose parents decided for us in February 1961 through a vote to become Nigerians have affirmed that choice. This is because all of us here have a choice to change our nationality if we so desired to. So, having made the choice to be Adamawa State indigenes and leverage on that to be Nigerian Citizens, we are therefore obligated to make certain commitments to our state and nation. Such commitments should include, though not limited to promoting the unity, peace, progress and development of our state and country.
For me, such a commitment is absolute. Every choice one makes must necessarily have consequences positive or negative. This discourse is premised on the assumption that we have chosen Adamawa as our state and Nigeria as our Nation. And we are absolutely committed to the progress and development of Adamawa State and of course Nigeria.
Development – A contextual definition
Development is a concept that has engaged the attention of both scholars and promoters of the progress of society over the years. Most scholars and even development experts including those at the United Nations are unanimous that Development is a process that creates growth, progress and positive change. This could manifest as the addition of physical, economic, environmental, social and demographic components to the existing situation within a polity or a political entity.
Thus, development is expected to lead to improvement in societal wellbeing. It is within this contextual definition that certain parameters or indices are determined with which developments are measured in countries, subnational entities such as our states in Nigeria and indeed all of societies. One of such measuring tools is the GDP or Gross Domestic Product.
Nigerians are often at a loss when our GDP is said to be rising, which is an indication of positive growth, but our standard of living is falling. This is mainly because GDP is not about standard of living but a combination of consumer spending, business investment, government spending and net exports. In this combination, the citizen assumes only the responsibility attached to consumer spending. All the other factors could take place to a large extent with little or without the citizen’s active participation and inputs.
Social Development – Human Capital Development
Adamawa State was created on the 27th of August 1991 out of the then Gongola State. The Capital City of Yola, which was the Capital of Gongola State remained the Capital City of the state. It is divided into 21 Local Government Areas with 226 electorate wards.
The state has a landmass of 36,917 square kilometers making it the 8th in Nigeria out of the 36 states. By the results of the 2006 population census, Adamawa state had a population of 3,178,950 persons living within its geographical boundaries. However, the 2019 population estimates of the National Bureau of Statistics NBS puts the population of Adamawa State at 4,536,948 which places the state at No.21 among the 36 states of the Federation.
Like it is with societies everywhere in the world, the most potent instrument for human development is education. A society can only attain the highest levels of progress and development if it educates its citizens. Thus, the major developmental challenge facing Adamawa state today is to address the education needs of the citizens of the state.
According to a UNESCO report of 2012, the literacy rate of Adamawa State is 40.5% close to the National Average of 50.6%. However, that puts Adamawa State at No. 23 on the national scale of 36 states. This is made worse by a large number of out-of-school children of nearly 200,000 children, mostly girls. However, on the scale of number of out of school children within the 36 states of the Federation, Adamawa State is ranked 17th with only FCT, Kwara, Kogi, Gombe and Nasarawa doing slightly better in the North.
But the crisis of education in Adamawa state goes beyond just literacy rates and out-of-school children. We have poor infrastructure in many of our public schools which is a culmination of gap between resource allocations and actual need assessments over the years.
Consequently, most public schools have shortfalls in facilities available to meet their carrying capacities vis a vis enrolment. Additionally, the poor maintenance culture of our societies meant increase dilapidation of structures. For a few persons who could afford, public schools are expected to bridge the gap. But it is hard for them to fill that gap because of poor regulatory frameworks to the extent that majority of them have no playgrounds, no libraries, very few trained teachers and they do not adhere to policy guidelines or curricula.
Today in Adamawa State, almost all private schools terminate primary education at class 5 and parents are happy to avoid the payment of one year school fees rather than consider the mental development of their children.
In the same vein, secondary school students in most private schools and in a few public schools terminate their studies at SS2 instead of SS3. In order to justify these anomalies, cheating in external examinations have been institutionalized in the name of “wonder centers”. Moreover, private schools do not advertise their schools by promoting their capacity, exposing their infrastructure or quality of their teachers but rather by their performance at external examinations. My emphasis on education is based on the fact that it is the bedrock of human development.
However, social development is mostly about improving the wellbeing of every individual in the society. This is in order to enable them reach their full potential. No society succeeds if the citizen’s wellbeing is not properly addressed.
Other determinants of wellbeing include the UNDP’s Human Development Index or HDI which is a composite index of life expectancy, education and per capita income. These will translate to measuring societal achievement in key dimensions of human development such as number of citizens having a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable, having a decent standard of living and enlarging their freedoms and opportunities.
The 2021 UNDP Human Development Index HDI ranking of the 36 states places Adamawa State at No. 27 with 0.485. Lagos State has the highest at 0.681 while Kebbi has the lowest at 0.335. What this tells us is that overall, Nigeria is not doing very well. This is understandable because the latest figures from both the UNDP and the National Bureau of Statistics NBS indicate that nearly 66% of Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. In effect out of every 100 persons living in Nigeria today 66 of them have no access to quality education, quality health care services, clean water, electricity, decent roof over their heads, adequate nutrition and in extreme cases even toilet. Our dear Adamawa state has a fair share of these people.
A study conducted in the year 2015 shortly after recovery from Boko Haram occupation of 7 Local Government Areas in the Northern part of the state indicated that poverty prevalence spiked to about 74 – 80% as a result of the occupation of the affected Local Government Areas. The unfortunate incidence destroyed most socio-economic infrastructure in the areas and dislocated lives and livelihoods. To compound the situation, displacements and massive migrations created new challenges for Local Government Areas not directly affected. The consequence was that poverty rose in all the 21 LGAs of Adamawa State. Mercifully, after several support and interventions from all tiers of government, the donor community and the resilience of our people, the situation came down a little lower to almost the National average of 66%. However, the effect of COVID 19 in the year 2020 and the current challenges may have reversed the little gains made and affected the poverty situation in our dear state negatively as it did other parts of Nigeria.
Economic Development – Unlocking the potentials
Economic Development speaks to the strides made by an entity in the areas of wealth creation, poverty reduction, creating higher standards of living, improving productivity, raising literacy rates through better public education and increasing life expectancy through effective and affordable health care delivery service. There is an intersection between the programmes, policies and activities of government and the improvement of the economic well-being and quality of life of the people. This makes government the undisputed enabler of economic development. At No. 21 Adamawa State has a GDP of 2.66 trillion Naira or 6.59 billion US Dollars. Like I observed earlier this GDP figure does not necessarily translate to higher standard of living for the citizens.
But it is an indication that given the right policies especially in the key sectors of Agriculture, Minning, Commerce, and Industrialization, Adamawa state has the potential to create an economy that can compete with any state in Nigeria. Every of our over 36,000 square Kilometers of land is practically arable. Every crop that is produced in Nigeria can be cultivated in our state. Adamawa State is the only State in the North known to produce cocoa in Toungo. We also have coffee grown in Toungo and part of Ganye. Guyuk has the highest quantity of okra produced in Nigeria. Hong produces more groundnuts than most states in the North. Irish potatoes are produced in Kwaja Mubi South in quantities higher than Jos Plateau state, though most of it goes to Cameroon due to bad road network leading to other parts of Nigeria. Both Tingno in lamurde Local Government and Ribadu in Fufore Local Government Areas can provide enough paddy rice to feed the whole of the North East. These are just a few examples. In reality every Local Government in Adamawa state is a veritable food basket.
Adamawa is blessed with flood plains along rivers Benue, Gongola, Yedzeram and their tributaries that gives multiple advantages in Fisheries, dual rainy season cropping and Dry Season Farming. The potentials of Kiri Dam have not been explored up to 10% especially in the areas of hydroelectricity, irrigation, fishing and eco-tourism. The Limestone deposits of Guyuk and Lamurde, the Barytes of Ganye and Mayo-Belwa, the Kaoline deposits and even the potentials of Natural Gas deposits of the Benue trough as well as the uranium deposits of Michika have not been explored at all. With the largest Concentration of Cattle and other ruminants in Nigeria, Adamawa State’s potentials for meat processing, Diary farming and even leather Industries are high. All we need is a very good economic blueprint backed by sufficient political will in order to achieve our full potential. If we put our acts together, we shall achieve greatness through giant developmental strides that are definitely possible. That is the challenge before both our leaders and members of the elite class present here today.
Political Development – The Main Driver
Political Development addresses issues that enhance the capacity of a political entity to mobilize and allocate resources by processing policy inputs into implementable outputs. Political Development helps to solve societal problems, adapt to environmental changes, develop realistic goals and work towards achieving them. One of the main purposes of political development is to help shape institutional attitudes and values that enhance political power systems in a manner that serves the greatest good for the greatest number of people. For us in Adamawa State our biggest challenge is how to harness the immense political potential provided by the election and appointment of our sons into positions of political authority for the greater good for our people. With benefit of experience over the years, one of the biggest political set-backs we suffer had been the existence of a divide between our political leaders domiciled in Yola and those in Abuja. There is no gain saying the fact that as a State we lost much due to this gulf between our political leadership at the State level and those at the center of National power in Abuja. Suffice it to say that the wind of such worthless battle of Supremacy has blown no good to our state. We need to change that narrative. We should take note of the fact that despite the open and dramatic confrontation between the current Minister of FCT and the Governor of Rivers States, both Camps have issued statements insisting that where the interest of Rivers State or their people are concerned, they will combine forces to promote them regardless of their differences. I wish to posit that no matter our political difference at home, when it comes to benefits that should accrue to our people we must be united regardless of our partisan political affiliations. That is the only way politics and political power in the hands of our Sons and daughters will serve our collective interests. This is the challenge before those to be honoured today.
Recommendations
Flowing from the above conversation I will like to make the following recommendation with the hope of adding value to our discussion today and our commitment to the progress and development of our dear state of Adamawa.
The political and Bureaucratic elites must come together in unity so as to develop a common purpose and adopt shared values. Weather one operates in Abuja, Yola or anywhere else, once the interest of Adamawa state or the people of Adamawa is at stake, we must learn to speak with one voice and purposively act in the direction of success. Any division along Yola based or Abuja based groups should be totally abolished if we truly want to promote positive development in Adamawa State.
Elite consensus is a key ingredient of progress of societies anywhere in the world. We have a duty to develop our own elite consensus as a people. Adamawa Community Association in Abuja is an example of such development. Let us build on it and achieve a greater Adamawa elite consensus and understanding.
We need to promote equity, fairness, Justice and inclusion in our State. Every part of Adamawa State should attract development projects in an even and fair manner and every individual deserves equal treatment particularly in the provision of self-actualization opportunities.
Genuine unity and understanding can only exist in an atmosphere of shared prosperity. And for me, our starting point is to provide a Degree Awarding Tertiary Institution and a Tertiary Health facility in the southern Senatorial District of Adamawa state.
For me a Federal University of Education in Numan and a branch of the Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital in Ganye will be ideal starting points. Let us forge a common front to achieve those two goals as part of our commitment to building a good foundation for our elite consensus.
We need to benchmark our leaders at take-off and design some key performance indicators KPI for assessing leadership delivery in Adamawa State. Presently we are losing a lot of capacity in leadership performance by letting our leaders focus on wrong priorities not in any way connected to the needs of our communities or people. Sometimes our leaders and even agencies of the Federal Government provide software where there is no hardware. Examples are providing books and writing materials to schools that have no classrooms or medical outreach to communities without hospitals or health centers. We need facilities that provide lifetime services rather than brief reliefs that end abruptly. We also need our leaders to consult each other when proposing development plans for our state. There is nothing wrong in coordination and collaboration for the purpose of making the right impact and maximizing benefits for our state and people.
Finally, we equally need to commit ourselves as individuals and leverage on the God given advantages we enjoy as members of the elite class by giving back to our communities, our society and even our families especially in these hard times. We can easily intervene in the schools we attended, the schools in our neighborhood or support the brilliant indigent child within our communities who may need our personal support. We can rehabilitate our community boreholes. We can rehabilitate our primary health care centers, provide Transformers, or do anything that will improve standards of living. Help our youth get employed not just in government but even the private sector where our presence is very little. Do it not because you need to be praised, do it because it is the best way to promote the development of Adamawa State. Many of us here have been doing it. But we still need to do more. Every privilege comes with some responsibility. Let us redouble our sense of responsibility. It is a duty.
My last word
The choice to come from Adamawa State may not have been made with our inputs, but the choice to promote the progress and development of Adamawa State can only be made with our understanding and commitment. Our goal in building an elite consensus should be to make Adamawa state a better place for all of the people domiciled within the state. It is a choice we have to make. Let us do it, and let it be done now. Thank you and God bless.
Delivered at Abuja on the 11th Day of November, 2023