Governor Aliyu Magatakardan Wamakko of Sokoto state came under the hammer of opposition political parties for allegedly absconding from the state shortly after he began his second term last March.
The parties accused the governor of hardly staying in Sokoto for one week at a stretch ever since his administration was inaugurated into second term, thus abandoning the people that voted him into power.
According to the Publicity Secretary of the All Nigeria Peoples Party in the state, Hon. Sa’idu Mohammed Gumburawa, the governor is always away because he has nothing to offer to the people.
“Wamakko’s administration lacks direction and focus for the development of the state,” he said.
Gumburawa, a former member of the House of Representatives, representing Kware/Wamakko Federal Constituency, alleged that the Wamakko administration has in the fast five years of stewardship failed to deliver the dividends of democracy the people have been yearning.
Speaking to our correspondent in Sokoto, he said: “He cannot complete most of the projects that he started despite the huge amount of money he collected. Look at the rehabilitation of Sokoto-Illela road which he awarded a month after taking over in 2007; look at the Independent Power Project awarded since 2008; look at the College of Agric, Wurno; look at the thirty housing units in each local government meant for the local government staff.
“Most of these projects were awarded since 2008/2009 but with nothing to write home about.”
The publicity secretary also observed that the governor was always travelling to Abuja or overseas, which culminated into his inability to execute meaningful projects that will better the lot of the people.
He added that since the beginning of his administration, Wamakko paid several trips abroad ”in the name of inviting foreign investors but till this moment no single investor has indicated interest.”
Gumburawa added: “Wamakko has failed the people of Sokoto state. He has nothing to offer. What is the focus of his administration? Look at the shoddy or phantom youth empowerment programme in which his government claimed to have sunk billions of naira on the training of over 45,000 youth. What has been the result? Even the governor cannot show you 1,000 out of the figures they claimed to have trained.”
Another opposition party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), also accused Wammako of abandoning the people that voted him into power for “fruitless trips” out of the state.
The party’s state exco-officio, Alhaji Abbas Babi, who made the observation in a chat with Blueprint, also said the governor is always engaged in one trip or the other, spending tax payers’ money on his shuttles between Kaduna, Abuja or Europe, while ignoring the enormous problems facing the state.
He said Sokoto was ranked as the most backward state in the country courtesy of Wammako’s “bad and unfocused” leadership.
“His administration has brought untold hardship and wreaked a lot of havoc and dwindled the fortune of the state,” said Babi.
Contacted for comment on these allegations, the Senior Special Adviser on Media Affairs to the Sokoto state governor, Alhaji Mohammed Sani Umar, dismissed them as baseless and the rantings of failed politicians who lost relevance even in their immediate constituencies.
Umar said the Wamakko administration remains the best thing that ever happened to the people of the state since its creation in 1976.
He said the governor embarks on foreign trips with a view to invite foreign investors to the state to explore the huge mineral deposits it is endowed with.
According to him, Wamakko’s vision is to develop a strong entrepreneurial class that shall spearhead the development of a private sector-led economy and put in place a mechanism that will ginger and explore the robust economic potentialities of the state.
The government, he said, has spread the dividends of democracy across the state ”and there is no ward among the 244 wards in the state that did not benefit from one project or the other. So the duo of Gumburawa and Abbas are mere noise-makers who want to be heard on the air or on the pages of newspapers”.
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