20-10-2024.

By next year May 29th, you will be exactly two years in office as the Governor of Katsina state, and by the end of the year, the focus would be on your reelection (campaign) for a second and final term as the Chief Executive Officer of the state. It may therefore be out of the question to expect you to do anything that may hurt your chances for the second term.

Still, as a citizen of the state and someone who would not mind you having another four years added to you after your first term, it is my duty to point out to you how the state is missing internally generated revenue by allowing the pavements of many big towns, particularly the capital, to be used as shops by traders, including owners of regular shops whose found their shops close to the pedestrian walkways.

If you would gather the political will to do so, tell all those using the pavements in the state to find or create conventional shops to vend their wares,

so as to allow the leg walkers to put it to serve the purpose for which it was made.

We are in time when more money would not hurt the kitty of any state. If anything, the states need to increasingly look inwards to generate more revenue for the execution of many needed projects. You have started many laudable road projects, which you would love to finish before you bow out as the number one citizen of your state.

As a matter of fact, there is a great need for more money in the copper of your state, Katsina, which used to be the shining star and trail blazer in both Islamic and Western forms of education in the northern part of the country. Katsina state is also noted as a potential home of agricultural development and production.

All these demands and more have made it doubly imperative to generate more income from within, as the Federal Government and the wealthy individuals in Katsina state cannot provide the funds needed to turn back the educational rote in, and realise the agricultural potential of, the state. While population growth has reversed the hands of the clock in the sector of education, banditry has rendered the agricultural potential of the state unrealisable, as many farmers, big and small, are forced to abandon their farms by the bandits.

Therefore, the need for additional money to pay the salary of more teachers and that of the state government founded and funded security outfit, Katsina Security Watch, cannot be overemphasised today. But with enough political will and, above all, the love for the state, it is, to barrow a phrase popularised by your immediate predecessor, doable. It is possible, if your second term ambition is not factored in the calculation.

Of course, being the thoroughbred and calculating politician you are known to be, it maybe way out of the question to expect that you would allow anything to stand between you and the chances of securing a second term in the office of the Katsina state governor. And you may want to go up from there, where only the almighty God Can say. You may also be tempted to see my unsolicited advice as politically incorrect, given the economic severity the country is in now. 

If I am not far away from the truth, then my suggestion would be unpopular with you, and the many sellers of various items who have converted the pavements in the state as their shops. The unfortunate development has forced those with whom in mind they were made, to use the roads with the designated users. And the motorists, motorcyclists and bicyclists often show their displeasure at having to share the road with pedestrians.

It is really a great opportunity if politics does not stand in the way, but a lost one, if it does. It is my take, though.

May God Continue to provide lasting solution to our problems all the time. We are indeed in need of His quick intervention in the affairs of our dear country, Nigeria.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.