YAHAYA BELLO : Giant Foot-Prints Of The ‘White Lion’
By Aliyu Mohammed Lawal (Core News)
By the time Governor Yahaya Bello assumed the mantle of leadership in Kogi state on the 27th January, 2016, the state had already been pushed into the obtrusive spotlight.
Daily reports of inter-communal clashes, kidnapping, armed robbery and other violent crimes in the state adorned the pages of national dailies.
Armed with the understanding of the nuances of development, Governor Yahaya Bello did not only mobilize the internal security in curbing these crimes in the state, his administration also enhanced the socioeconomic disposition of the people of the state.
From education to health, the environment, poverty alleviation, agriculture, potable water supply, electricity, roads, public transport among others, the Bello-led administration has made life more meaningful to the citizenry.
Bello understood the place of poverty, and the urgent need to reverse the trend. He immediately set machinery in motion to mitigate the hydra-headed monster by using education and other critical sectors to put it under control.
Governor Yahaya Bello believes that the success of the state in future will largely depend on the availability of quality human resources to support the diverse areas of socioeconomic development.
He therefore made education his top priority by introducing far-reaching measures to reverse the ugly trend.
Prior to his assumption of office, schools in the state were in pathetic conditions, due to the dilapidated state of classroom blocks, the learning environment, teachers remuneration and capacity building.
Bello inherited a defaulted educational structure, with the quality of basic education degenerating, leading to unacceptably low academic performance.
The governor immediately embarked on the rehabilitation of classroom blocks to replace the decrepit ones, provided funds for the prompt development of the sector, and the procurement of necessarily instructional learning materials and recruitment of qualified teaching personnel for the revatalization and repositioning of the sector.
Bello believes that the best investment any administration can bequeath to generations of citizens is qualitative education.
He provided free textbooks, uniforms and exercise books to pupils in the public schools. All these he did to alleviate the hardship created by past administrations in the state, and also provide children in the state the opportunity to go to school to become useful and very responsible citizens.
Governor Bello in conjunction with local government authorities in the state also established the GYB Model Primary School in Lokoja, the state capital, and other senatorial districts of the state. This is to add value to the quality of learning in the state.
His predilection for excellence and passion to see his subjects grow out of the doldrums is top-notch.
Furthermore, Bello initiated and constructed world class educational facilities in all parts of the state to revolutionize the sector. Well equipped and furnished blocks of classrooms and staff offices.
Prior to his assumption of office in 2016, the Prince Abubakar Audu University, Anyigba was faced with the challenge of inadequate academic staff, in terms of quality and quantity. The infrastructural decay was palpable.
Yet, in the face of paucity of fund and other daring encumbrances, Governor Yahaya Bello took pragmatic steps to change the narratives.
Other tertiary institutions in the state are also drawing the required support both in funds and support to meet their mandate such as teaching, research and academic works.
To all intents and purposes, the governor has strengthened the operational capacity of the state institutions and boosted effective teaching and learning. Many have lauded the governor for his well-informed wisdom.
Many also described the governor as one who understands how to close the infrastructure gap speedily and ignite economic growth.
His interventions have had the immediate impact of changing the narratives in the education sector, and potentially capable of unlocking the potential and fast tracking of development in the long run.
While undertaking project execution in the basic education sector, the governor was not unaware of the need to also improve both the secondary and tertiary institutions across the state.
Huge sums of money were committed to ensuring that these institutions are not only citadels of learning, but of academic excellence.
The ‘White Lion’ in addition to subsidizing tuition fees also granted scholarships to students of the state origin.
His Excellency also established a specialised university in the State to
accelerate access to higher education, support the transformation of the teeming population into assets, and take it to an enviable position as a world-class institution.
To ensure effective performance of the institution, Gov. Bello has committed huge sums of money to provide functional buildings and related infrastructure to cater for students in the Sciences for the advancement of technological breakthroughs in the global economy.
Governor Bello’s commitment goes beyond the allocation of funds to the University, he has also initiated and executed other projects tailored towards meeting the objective of setting up the University.
Through a robust transparent recruitment and selection process, the administration employed the services of world-class academic staff to drive the programmes of the institution.
These robust achievements are gradually yielding the desired results as the state has started recording profound measures of success in national competitions and gaining admissions into universities of repute.
Recently, a student in one of the secondary schools in the state scored the highest marks in the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board JAMB examination.
Graduates from the state-owned university have made inroads into national relevance with outstanding performance and spirited accomplishments.
Recall that in his address at the occasion of his second inauguration on January 27th, 2020, Governor Yahaya Bello said, “I see my mandate as divine and an opportunity to turn around individuals and the fortune of our people for good”.
There’s no gainsaying therefore that Governor Yahaya Bello, the ‘White Lion’ has justified the mandate graciously and overwhelmingly offered by the people of the state to provide good governance through ensuring probity, accountability and transparency.
