POLITICS TODAY

By Shuaibu Gimi

Two persons who are characteristically opposed to each other—the one who turns a forest into a city and the other one who turns a city into a forest, both in figurative terms—are not forgotten at all; obviously the first for the good reasons and the second for the bad ones. Each of the two acts can be carried out by only a person in whose hands are enormous powers which are utilized for the accomplishment of any kind of mission, noble or evil.
Kaduna is not, in anyway, a forest—it has, in fact, never been—which means that no effort made towards its development could have looked exactly like the work of a person whose goal is to turn around a forest. As an administrative capital since the pre-independence period, it has always been a place where development in the various sectors–infrastructure, superstructure, education, security, agriculture, health, commerce, etc—has been quite noticeable. It has not yet been, certainly not to the extent being speculated by some self-appointed development assessors, dwarfed by any of the new or newer or even newest cities in the North, excluding only the Federal Capital Territory-Abuja.
Yet, Kaduna as a city and a state is an environment or space that is, on account of continuous rapid demographic growth and the clear pressing demands of the modern times, consistently in dire need of more development. The more projects and services provided at any point in the past, the stronger the desire for a lot more of them and therefore the bigger the obligation on the successive governments of the state to do the needful.
The current Governor of Kaduna State, Senator Uba Sani, is a politician whose understanding of the trend of modern development across the world is vast enough to allow for and even facilitate the necessary comprehension of the vital needs of the people. At almost every point during the electioneering, he surpassed all the other candidates for the governorship of the state in both the expression of intention and the demonstration of capacity for the design and implementation of strategies for development.
In just a few weeks after he assumed duties, Governor Sani has already begun to competently address issues that are truly critical to the development of the state. The resolve to ensure adequate coordination of the services of security and law-enforcement agencies, which he expressed during his first meeting with the members of the State Security Council, was a strong indication of a determination to make the state a lot more conducive for the conduct of all lawful activities.
Having taken the first major step towards the effective maximization of security, he has now set out to look for more investors who can inject more life into the economy of the state. The realization that, even with all the huge investments that have already been made during the last administration, there are still abundant opportunities for international investors was what made him to facilitate the on-going discussions and also initiate new ones on the possibility of quick deployment of huge financial resources to the state by such investors.
Perhaps, no other activity of the governor explains better his determination to make Kaduna State a place over which there should be stiff competition for a space among key local and foreign investors than the clear manner in which he has commenced consultation with them. His recent visit to the embassy of Qatar in Abuja during which a deal on a mass housing programme and the construction of the proposed Kaduna Economic City was perfected and some other similar initiatives are a strong strategy that can guarantee the flow of enormous foreign capital into Kaduna State.
All those initial measures are bold statements on his total readiness for the effective execution of all the development plans of the new government. His styles are such that will surely strengthen and expand the channels through which all the needed investments can be safely driven home.