The ongoing violence following the #EndSARS protest in many states across Nigeria is a sad situation that further expose the leadership and followership of this great country to pity. It also put to question our intellectual capabilities to test and in this test, many states have failed. It means that, many Nigerians do not understand the value of peace and the sanctity of human blood. The carnage also depicts the jungle like behaviour many Nigerians have been carrying in their head either knowingly or unknowingly. What happened in the last few days both sad and shame for Nigeria and Nigerians.
In all that had happened, I would have been more disappointed if Borno did not come clean in this. I watched videos of violence and the subsequent running over of ware houses, which store the Covid-19 palliative meant for the distribution to poor Nigerians who can not afford meals due to harsh economic situation following the pandemic and I wonder why this palliatives remains in many ware houses while in Borno it has been going to those it was meant for. My conclusion is that, it is time for leadership to take lessons from Borno state governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum on public management.
Long before now, the Borno state governor has been distributing palliatives to thousands of residents in an orderly manner and even distributing cash with people patiently waiting for their turns. Recently, concerned by the plight of his people, the Borno state Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum shared N65m in cash 8,000 households widow Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) who are in critical need of humanitarian assistance in Rann, headquarters of Kala-Balge, Nigeria’s remotest local government area, located in Central part of Borno State without any report of violence or act of barbarism.
There is no banking services in Kala-Balge and it is impossible to convey food items, hence Governor visit to bring succor to the displaced people of the area.The visit was Zulum’s fifth of similar humanitarian trip to Kala-Balge since he assumed office in May 2019. It could be recalled that Rann, headquarters of Kala-Balge can only be accessed by road through the Republic of Cameroon due to flood, which took over the road from a dam discharge in Central Africa and trapped Nigerians in Rann, cutting them from the rest of the state.
Zulum, during the Saturday’s trip, supervised the N65m cash distribution to families of 8,000 widows and some vulnerable residents in Rann to enable them buy food and other basic needs from the Cameroonian border village.
Each household in the community was given between N10,000 and N5,000 cash because there is no banking service in Rann.
During the governor’s visit 5,000 Male householders received N10,000 each, while 3,000 of their female counterparts received N5,000 and a 10kg bag of rice each. In all five different visits to the area, the Governor supervised the distribution of food and non-food aid to residents, many of them in critical humanitarian needs. However, there was no single report of violence in the camps of people that such is expected because of their situation.
The ran experience is just one in many areas governor Zulum has been proving to Nigerians that, leadership can be about the people. His leadership style indeed has change the way the way the govern view leadership in Borno and I believe he is becoming an icon of hope for Nigeria and a lesson for the Nigerian leaders.
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