Gov Bello Has Laid The Foundation For The New Kogi Scenario

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We all knew what governance was like in the sixteen years of the opposition leading up to 2016. We all were witnesses to the discordant, unjust and rag tag governance system unleashed on Kogites without any estimation for the future. There was the seemingly directionless path we were all drawn to.

Aren’t we all happy today, that though its not yet Uhuru, (and no body is saying otherwise) there is light at the end of the tunnel. There is hope, that Kogi has risen again. There is hope, that a new generation of leaders will once again, adorn this centrally located gate way state to the admiration of many. That hope, is the opportunities and prospects encapsulated in the New Kogi Scenario. Come, let’s embrace it; let’s give it life! GYB AGAIN!

The NEW Kogi SCENARIO is driven by the commerce, business and petty economic managers as an existential imperative defined by the Bello administration to educate, enlighten and trigger relevant futuristic and practicable development conversations about the future of the state and its people. It seeks to explore leadership to capture the impacts which the Fourth Industrial Revolution exerts on governance; and its possible consequences on the State.

The conversation will underline the connectedness between the dimensions of a buoyant economy, infrastructure or natural environment, hence the impact of infrastructure on the future growth, development and living in the confluence state.

The NEW Kogi SCENARIO, therefore, is suggesting that the impact of the 4th industrial revolution is very diverse and complex but profoundly useful and necessary for our grasp and adoption.

Will the deluge of governorship aspirants especially from the Eastern Senatorial Zone, provide this solution in a contest that must have just a candidate?

The NEW Kogi SCENARIO must provide the platform for fascinating and technical information, policy, public, private, multi and bilateral institutions, investments and investors as well as financing on the infrastructure types, status and its future in the north central and national development calculus. The South West states already has this in the DAWN Commission.

Luckily, Kogi was fingered by the DAWN crafters as a possible beneficiary. Can we think here? Kogi has capacity to provide “all” the life needs of the South and North by being just a sophisticated logistics hub taking advantage of its location and a bimodal transportation system. Somebody needs to seat and get the ground working to get started. The world is moving too fast and we may not catch up. That is why Lagos is pacing faster than the others.

Where is the leadership to put this in place? Can the Bello leadership deliver on this? What is the taste of the pudding after eating from 2016 to date?

For the distraught minded, agitations have continued to rally around the kind of leadership that would satisfactorily administer the state beyond now, that meets the hopes and aspirations of our founding fathers.

As is often held by most traditions, “the taste of the pudding is in the eating”. For those that have been in governance, the experiences are varied, as performance indicators for such people either encourages or discourages the electorates to become aware of their relevance or otherwise in the economy – development nexus. Such players should know without equivocation whether they could further be trusted in leadership. Their action or inaction becomes circumspect in the present scenario as conversations center around progressive and knowledge based centrifugal forces to adequately tailor actions on policy, institutions, programs as well as investment opportunities particularly as Nigeria leapfrogs to the Forth Industrial Revolution and its disruptive tendencies.

This conversation must be boring to many who do not understand today’s governance and political drifts. The NEW Kogi SCENARIO indeed, represents our collective and finest gravitation towards 21st century infrastructure, governance, etc. The incumbent administration is painting a scenario that showcases the celebration of the state’s new competitiveness index aligned to Industry 4.0 and sheds light on critical infrastructure as new set of drivers of productivity and long-term growth.

The administration is providing the much-needed compass for the new wave of policy-makers and other stakeholders to help shape economic strategies and monitor progress for our people, for our future.

This foundation has been laid by the Yahaya Bello administration in the New Direction agenda in 2016 and can only be consolidated if it returns. We must collectively, see that it is given the chance to provide the needed consolidation at the next level come November, 2019? That way, this conversation will continue to shape the leadership demand in an equitable, just and fair manner.

For this to receive the needed impetus, we must create the fronts to begin the aggregation of all aspiring brands, leaders, plans, programs for genuine alignment; this will create necessary and inclusive leads by the people to provide the futures’ parametric prism for leadership guidance;

There must be as a follow on, the convocation of a tolerant reconciliation and development strategy for a near consensus development and futures’ diagnostics aligned to pre and post 2019 events? The whole idea will be to win more friends and plans for leadership amelioration of “the state of Kogi State Infrastructure, 2019 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution”.

Beginning from 2015, various tantrums have erupted from diverse sources on the parlous state of Kogi’s development and political economy including the messianic conclusions in the vituperations that seemed to have given no chance of survival and performance to the Bello administration. Four years running now and amidst all negative projections, the administration has kept its head above water, meaning it had survived and likely to make the much needed second tenure in order to consolidate on some of its iconic achievements.

While the state of infrastructure and growth were generally poor going down the memory lane in the state, historical notice should be made for all the administrations that have governed the state between 1991 and 2016. In all, the Audu administration has so far, stood tall in the attempt to cause development and bridge the infrastructure gap of the state. This fact is acknowledged by the incumbent administration in its usual tribute to Audu and his legacies. Audu it was that laid the foundation for the infrastructural development of the state in the short, medium and long term. This plan has always been jettisoned by the previous governments except the incumbent who has tried consolidating on the plans and also introduced new ones.

Infrastructure is critical to the sustainable development of a society. The European economies we know survive only on the strength on its infrastructure built along time ago and has continuously been upgraded to meet emerging trend and populations.

Infrastructure can be soft and hard. That was why infrastructure and utilities were made strong pillars to be procured with private sector intervention in the administration development Blue Print inaugurated in 2016.

To the crafters of the Blueprint, infrastructure meant a fundamental structure, a fundamental building, or fundamentals, that is “the antecedents and the prerequisite of the creation, existence and development of a thing”.

More importantly, for a state craving development at its highest level, the administration reckoned that getting the challenge of infrastructure resolved in a state like Kogi will resolve great economics for overall development informed by the knowledge of the fact that “some classify all factors related to human activity and functioning but arable land under the definition of infrastructure, while another approach regards the entire environment of micro-economic processes, including nature, as a part of infrastructure.

As a term with technical content, the Bello administration sees infrastructure as ‘a basic requirement of economic activities, services, the life and development of countries, regions and settlements. Therefore, infrastructure has a decisive role in socio-economic development‘; which imperatively, must provide fueling for the industrial, manufacturing and logistics development tripod envisioned by the administration in the New Kogi Scenario.

The return of the Bello administration for its second leg will obviously starting The NEW Kogi SCENARIO superstructure from the top floor haven taken off in 2016. The Education and infrastructure pillars will arrive the next level runway with huge economic impacts – new and adequate infrastructure, as well as adequate schooling, as pre-requisite to harnessing the economic potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The GYB team bear the credentials for the envisioned scenario.

In the above construct, The NEW Kogi SCENARIO will be underscored by the nature of its political leadership along the dimensions of economy, infrastructure and (natural) environment with the aim to provoke inclusive thoughts, ensure the youth and elite contemplates it and unfold a progressive beneficial debate. Sustaining the incumbent will provide the guide for power and leadership change in hitherto adversarial contestations at every election. This is possible!

The NEW Kogi SCENARIO sought by the incumbent seeks to maintain that the citizens must develop the perception that the right leadership will deliver the Infrastructure that will remain a popular feature of economic development programming across the state and a vital tool for industrialization if Kogi State must become the essential hub of sorts and gateway to the north and south of Nigeria.

The NEW Kogi SCENARIO to the incumbent administration, must be about Kogi’s triangular equilibrium first propounded during Late Abubakar Audu’s administration when the likes of HE. Chief Clarennce Olafemi were his chief protagonists.

To Yahaya Bello and his Siamese, Edward Onoja, it must be about both popular and unknown infrastructure, using the power of politics and exposure to capture the attention of the electorate and to induce them to appreciate the role of leadership in bringing about development and its import in their day to day living. The incumbent has demonstrated this capacity with the administration legacy 32 years Infrastructure Master plan commissioned and been put together using the PPP platform. So far hardly any Infrastructure plan has been produced for the state.

The NEW Kogi SCENARIO will BENEFIT from this already started effort thereby, filling this significant void and serve the increasingly discerning Kogi electorate who are becoming more and more attuned to international infrastructure and the good life-related services.

The incumbent Bello-led administration speaks to the NEW Kogi SCENARIO conversation that resonate plans for massive development, planning, financing and delivery experts provide the electorate with practical definitions of the development aspects of sustainable infrastructure across the sectors.  

With the huge administration plans to fix the New Kogi Scenario, let the conversation on the future of Kogi set the agenda for the November 2019 election. Bringing this subject to the political discourse and the high-value voters other than the usual blanket mouthing of no development, no infrastructure, no this and no that will enable many see the many components of sustainable growth that have been set forth by the Bello administration.

If there is work to done on the existing foundation, GYB is it. He must complete The NEW Kogi SCENARIO superstructure, already began. Let’s make it GYB Again, there is work to do!

– Dr. Isaac Etteh writes from Enugu.


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