By Muh’d Shafi’u Saleh
As the cost of living Nationwide protest enters its 4th day, governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri of Adamawa State, has described the situation as very peaceful and he commended the protesters in the State.
Fintiri who is addressing the people of the state on Sunday in respect of the nationwide protest embarked upon by the #EndBadGovernance protesters, Said that “we can safely say our people have harken to our calls for calm and the situation is peaceful; where there are pockets of protests, the protesters are a minority, who are conducting themselves in the most respectable civil manner while pressing home their demands for good governance and better life for the citizens of Nigeria.
“Even though, the protest might be unpopular especially with the way and manner it is carried out in some states across the country, the message is clear and the demands are genuine. None of us can deny the fact that there is hunger and general poverty in the land; this has been made worse by the harsh economic realities, a deficient policy direction and the insensitivity of the national government to engage the citizens civilly.
“As leaders of the people, we must at all times not only listen but act. The lesson we must derive from the protest is the constant reminder that it is not enough to tell the citizens, “We have heard”, we must be seen as doing the needful in providing solutions to citizens’ concerns.
“For the past four days of the protest regime, I have gone round, especially the state capital, and can see the level of trust we have mutually developed. It is that trust that gave me the confidence to come out, move freely and officially inspect ongoing projects in the state. I must thank you all for the show of support which has rekindle my resolve to do more and continue to serve you. I have seen love; I have equally seen genuine affection that knows no bounds at a time when the situation is rancorous in other climes” Fintiri said.
Speaking about the plight of the people, the governor said “We can feel your pain; we can relate with what you are passing through; but we also assure you that as your leaders, the best payback you deserve from us is an advocacy to any level and a leadership that can work round the clock to not only reverse the situation of your ugly realities but restore the collective hopes of our livelihood. Good governance is your right and that is what we have all sworn to give you. That is what is our trademark in Adamawa state. As a government, we don’t really need a protest to remind us of this sacred responsibility.
“We are doing our best to cushion the effect of your hardship. We are particularly conscious of the disturbing youth budge with a growing unemployment rate that is alarming. We saw this coming. At the inception of this government, we did a study on this and our revelation was that no government can take all the army of the youths into its employment.
“Even if it can, in this age of enterprise, creativity and entrepreneurship, it is the dumbest decision to take. We therefore created the Ministry of Entrepreneurship to build the capacity of our youths to innovate, own and manage investments successfully.
“We have trained and are training many youths who are willing to be off the street and creating enabling environment for SMEs to thrive. Through the Fintiri Business Wallet, we have so far, empowered more than 30,000 beneficiaries and have concluded the process of capturing another 10,000 beneficiaries. Payment will commence in this August. Through our ICT-for-Empowerment corridor, we are training over 100,000 youths with the necessary skills for survival. With the discourse on the new minimum wage settled, we intend to recruit more applicants into the service of the state.
To cushion the effect of transport hardship on the citizens, we have test-ran the intra and intercity mass transit system with our deployment of 10 luxurious busses and found it impactful. We are therefore scaling this up by deployment over 30 more busses to ply our roads. We are also going to allocate a substantial number of the busses to our schools to fix the harsh transportation void for our students” he emphasized.
The governor also explained the ways to end the suffering of Nigerians by saying that “only solution to hunger is to take agriculture more seriously. In this direction, we have been very proactive by constituting a food security committee with the mandate to aggressively drive a youth-to-farm campaign. The committee is working round the clock to ensure every local government has a demonstration farm of a minimum of 300 hectares where our youths would be trained on modern agriculture practice with inputs freely provided. So far, we have received 35 trucks, out of the 65 trucks of fertilizers allocated to us by the Federal Government.
These fertilizers were procured by the CBN under Emefele. The state government has equally procured 69 more trucks. We have procured 123,381 kg of rice seed, 5000 cartons of assorted herbicides and other inputs. Very soon, we shall flag-off the sales of this fertilizer and the other inputs at a subsidized rate of 50% to intending farmers. The selling point is going to be at the ward level under a high-powered committee, to ensure the last mile is reached.
Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri praised the measures taken by the traditional rulers, religious scholars and stakeholders to achieve understanding and peace during the protests, saying
“I must thank our traditional institution represented by our royal fathers for their support, counsel and sensitization of the citizens on the prized value of peace. I thank our religious leaders, especially the leadership of our churches and mosques for the ecclesiastical call to civil and peaceful coexistence.
“I thank our youths for using their exuberance productively; I must also thank the Labour Unions, trade unions, students’ unions and the civil society for their support in seeing reasons as to why violent protest is the wrong antidote to our present situation. I must thank the parents, guardians and caregivers in the state, for training their children to resist the temptation of being used by merchants of violence to cause mayhem as found in some states across the country.
“I must thank our greatest partners in the peace enterprise – the security agencies – the army, the police, the DSS, the NCSDC, and all other agencies who have not only played by the rules and civil enough to manage the protesters where they exist, but gave us – the larger majority, the assurance of security and peace to continue with our daily businesses” said governor Fintiri.
