BIG MESS
Modu Sheriff hasn’t added value to governance in Borno
–Senator Abba Aji
From: TAIWO AMODU, ABUJA
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Jonathan
More Stories on This Section

Special Adviser to President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Abba Aji has described the All Nigerian Peoples Party,[ANPP] led government of Senator Modu Sheriff in Borno State  as a colossal failure.
Speaking with Daily Sun, the politician from Borno appraised the Borno State governor and gave a damning verdict.
Excerpts:

Can  the Peoples Democratic Party, ever win in Borno, because it is perpetually divided against itself in the State ?
Let me tell you the truth. PDP, I admit has its own internal crisis, there is no doubt about it. But Borno is there to be grabbed by any party, other than ANPP, since we are going to have free and fair election.

For the following reasons. One, take the field of education. Borno State is the only state in Nigeria, where in so many years the governor has failed to add one school by any name, even  one wasn’t added by any local government under Modu Sheriff administration, not alone secondary school.

Our own tertiary institutions have been on strike for the last three years, up till now they are on strike. The Ramat  Polytechnic and college of education and he doesn’t care. It was after I talked to BBC and Voice of America that I asked them to go and verify and they went to Universal Basic Education and they went to the state.

I said to them, I am not talking about the redesign of an existing school or the renovation of an existing school but I am talking about bringing to existence for the first time, a new school by any name, even primary, even nursery and they went round and they couldn’t find any  and they reported.
Recently, if you remember the Universal Basic Education, [UBE] did an award given ceremony and Adamawa was number one, Borno was the last!
It is terrible. It was when I started this complain on BBC and VOA that he woke up from his slumber.

Do you know what he is now doing? Sheriff is building boarding primary schools!. Sheriff is building six of them. Tell me, in this age of kidnapping and ritual killing, who will take his six year old and go and throw away in a boarding primary school?
Another thing that will discourage parents from taking their kids to boarding primary schools is feeding. Secondary schools in Borno today ,  go and check their current budget. It provides for N20 per child per day for feeding. Boarding secondary schools ! Today, the Federal Ministry of Interior provides for prisoners in federal prisons in Maiduguri, N200 per day per prisoner for feeding. You can go and verify.

So, how can a child feed on N20 per day?
So, prisoners in Borno get a better deal than students ?
Exactly, he doesn’t care about education. That’s one. Secondly, there is no single person that has completed university or polytechnic education that has gone to federal civil service commission , attended an interview and was employed by Borno state government in the last seven years. No.
If you go and check the list of all those employed by Borno State, you find very few people on grade level 7, or 9, because these are people that have been there before Ali Sheriff and they have been promoted.

It is a very top heavy civil service and there are no new entrants.
So, the lower position in the state civil service is empty. They haven’t employed anybody. They only employ political thugs. In fact, on allegation of sympathy to PDP, they have fired about 8,000 civil servants. Many of them are in court now. Borno state is the only state, where you pay leave grant and you list it as a government achievement. Payment of leave grant! Go to the health care centers.  The general hospital in Maiduguri was built by the British in 1947.

Now, it has been closed down, continuously for the last three years. Why? He said he was renovating it. Is that how to renovate a hospital?
The only state government hospital in Maiduguri has also been closed down for renovation. Both hospitals closed down. The only hospital is the one he built near the airport; that’s even not an hospital, because it doesn’t have a radiology department. It can not do X- ray, it has no laboratory department, it has no mortuary.
All the doctors that we trained have left the state service, because he refused to pay them the agreed salary and allowance. They moved to Gombe, some moved to Katsina, some to National Hospital here in Abuja and these were all trained with Borno state money. They moved to where the authorities are paying the agreed salary and allowances.

So, today Borno state has only 35 doctors in its employment, half of which are NYSC. Don’t believe me,  just go and check this. Go to Kirawa today, the person that they call the doctor in the hospital did physical health education and they call him in that village the doctor. Then move over to Lasa, you find that the only doctor there is a female NYSC.  That’s all.

But your party that could take advantage of the rot you just painted is divided against itself.
But we are still optimistic. You know why?  Even the 2007 election, Ali Sheriff knew that he didn’t win it. We have 27 local government, out of which only result in respect of 12 had come in, when somebody here in Abuja, not the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Maiduguri, but one commissioner here in Abuja  announced Ali Sheriff  as having won the election!

Here in Abuja. When I called the REC, I said to him, `how come,`? and he said, `I don’t know where Abuja got their result from. As far as we are concerned we are still waiting for result from fifteen local government .`
You see, Ali Sheriff knows that it isn’t people that elected him. The people who put him there was INEC, the police, and the military at that time, because Obasanjo actually wanted him to have a second term and he didn’t hide it, although he was the leader of our party, but he made it clear to us that Ali Sheriff was his own and come rain, or shine, Sheriff must have a second term.

If you ask any leader of PDP in Borno they will tell you this, because Obasanjo didn’t make any secret of this fact. So, he made INEC to announce Sheriff here in Abuja. This is something that is known to everybody and I don’t think Obasanjo would deny this, if you ask him.
He was courageous enough to tell us Borno state stakeholders, when we met him. He said Sheriff deserved a second term.
But there is speculation that being master of the game, he is already romancing Jonathan; that once he backed Jonathan- for- president project, Borno is ANPP for keep. You admitted that he sent delegates to the recent Northern Political Summit in Kaduna.

No, President Jonathan is different from Obasanjo. Jonathan is a party man, a real grass root politician. Obasanjo was brought from the top.
You know it. So, he did what he wanted in our state. There was no state that had been victimized by Obasanjo such as Borno and we know it. Even the national headquarter of PDP knows it.

President Goodluck Jonathan is a grassroot politician, he wouldn’t allow it. He knows Ali Sheriff inside out. He knows his duty to the nation and that’s why he is committed to free and fair election.
Let me tell you, the Goodluck Jonathan that I know will congratulate anybody who defeats him in the presidential election of 2011. There is no doubt about it, let alone helping somebody to undermine the laws.

I almost shed tears when I read this. UNBELIEVABLE!