Idris Shehu Kazaure
Few weeks to the hand-over day of 29th May, as a retired civil servant who had served in different capacities in both state and federal government, I find it very vital to use this medium to reach out to Jigawa state governor-elect. Mine is not political but patriotic and advisory.
It is on record that His Excellency the Governor of jigawa state, Alhaji Badaru Abubakar came into power in May 2015 after his 1″ lost in 2011, under the then AC party. His brief has shown that he was a hardworking, energetic, and prudent person in his life, he was a civil servant, a worker and later as a business entrepreneur as well as a business tycoon.
However, during his campaign in 2015 Governor Badaru made some promises to the Jigawa civil servants and the public, such promises include:-
a) Payment of salaries, and allowances including, leave allowance annually and promptly.
b) Appointment without sectioning to make appointment based on performance, capability, experience and competence.
c) Manage the state resources prudently to develop the state to the best of his ability.
Moreover, despite being rejected by a group of grudging politician from an opposition party especially in his Babura hometown that usually organizes people against him, Allah in his infinite mercy has made him the governor of Jigawa state.
Immediately he was sworn in, he started to prove and put into action some of the promises made to the civil service sector, I personally have scored him at 60% performance in his 1″ term.
Similarly, after his 2nd tenure successful election in 2019, it was unfortunate that the governor began to drift away from all those promises he earlier made by making appointments based on preference and favours most of them ‘sheep in a goat skin’. Unfortunately, they mislead Him in corrupting the civil service through unethical practices to demerit the system.
They succeeded in relegating the office of the Head of Service to the lowest ebb and powerless by eroding the powers and capabilities of the office of head of services. There by creating an untouchable civil servant disloyal and disobedient civil service system in the state.
Knowingly or unknown to the governor, he was advised to prematurely retire some senior civil servants and deploy teaching staff into civil service instead of social science graduates to fill in the gaps. It is apparent that this singular move has left most of the schools lacking experienced teachers as well as creating unqualified and inexperienced principal offices in both administrations and other cadres of the services; at same time leaving the experienced staff stagnant with no promotions..
I am writing as a concerned citizen of Jigawa state, to let the outgoing governor know that he had derailed from what he had promised the civil servants of Jigawa state. I want to also state here that by this misguidance your Excellency you have thrown away your hard earn prudency and sadly you have chosen to put away comprehensive fraud reports submitted to you by several validation/investigation committees you established on several occasions.
For record purpose, I would like to list some of the committees here, they are- a) Committee report on the state Ministry of education (b) Committee report on the state Ministry for local government and local education (c) Committee report on the state Ministry of land housing, housing funds loots among others.
I would also urge governor Badaru to as a matter of urgency finalize and take actions on these reports before handing over the mantle to the incoming government. Where it is not possible due to time constraint, these reports should be part of your handing over documents to allow the incoming administration to pursue and take action
To the incoming governor, I advise that such lapses should not be allowed to happen again and also I wish to urge the incoming administration in Jigawa state to take the issue of the state civil service seriously for a better Jigawa state for all of us in particular and for the nation in general.
BEST REGARDS
IDRIS SHEHU KAZAURE
JIGAWA STATE CITIZEN (RTD CIVIL SERVANT).
