Bala Mohammed: A Season Of Enlightenment In Bauchi

By Steve Osuji

The video clip presents a tear-evoking pathos. A wiry, crumpled old man being helped up from his decrepit bed in an equally shambolic little room.

The stark setting gains a haunting irony with the presence of rosy-cheeked public officials in bespoke attire, brandishing laptops and files. Then they pull a seven-figure cheque which evokes a flitting mirth from the bedraggled man. It must have been a very long time since the sick, old man smiled. Thanks to the footage shown by the True Vision Online Television. It is worth watching over and over again.

Today, as the video pans to his face, he smiles again, a wry effort that seems like a crack on his face. Then holding out the ‘fat’ cheque, strength almost failing him, he begins to pray: “May Allah bless our governor whom he has led to remember us today …. We were long forgotten. We had long forgotten that we once worked for the government. We had given up on pension, on ever getting any gratuity. We had indeed given up on life.

As you can see, I have been sick for a long while and here I am, waiting to go and join my ancestors. With this money, I may yet get another chance to return back to life…”

He said so much.

He has so much more to say, a longer prayer to make perhaps, for the Bauchi State governor, Mr Bala Mohammed who may have retrieved him from the departure lounge of life.

The ailing old man who had retired from service since 2012 without pension or gratuity and who had given up hope of getting any of these entitlements was discovered in his rural dwelling place in the Ningi Local Government Area of the state. He was not only given a lump sum gratuity of about two million naira, but he was also processed in situ, his biometrics captured in the data memory right there on his sick bed.

This episode is not a happenstance. It is one of the numerous farewell acts of Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State. Previous administrations before him had been remiss with pension administration in the state. Workers who served the state had been given the rough end of the stick after retirement. Most of them were practically abandoned to their fate. This, according to records, dates back to 2012, about seven years before Mohammed came to office in 2019. Sorting this muddle is an enormous process of work in itself. But the governor vowed to sort it all out even if it was the last thing he did in office.

But more moving is that Bala, as the governor is fondly known, has insisted that nobody must be left out no matter how infirm, no matter in which remote corner of the state the person may be, he must be captured. The sum of N10 billion has been set aside and a strong team has been empanelled. They are not just to verify and capture the ‘abandoned’ retirees, they are to be paid their gratuities immediately.

As Bala begins the gradual wind down from the very pinnacle of the State ‘s leadership, he seems in fine fettle to wear that large garb of statesmanship. His unmatched candour, suave urban spirit, uncommon experience in all facets of public service put him on a pedestal far above his contemporaries.

His cognate work trajectory across diverse spheres such as journalism, civil service, the legislature and the executive arms of the governance systems must have afforded him such a broad scope of a mindset which allows leadership to seem easy with him. This may explain why Bauchi may have become a model state under his watch.

A state that was hitherto dismal and forgotten has experienced a remarkable leap forward in the last seven years. Most notable among Bala’s imprints is his intentional work in the education sector. Obviously, he must have prioritised education knowing that it is at the core of human development.

Upon his assumption of office in 2019, Bauchi State had about 1,700,000 out of school pupils. Today, that number has been reduced to less than 200,000. How did he do it?

The governor introduced an active enrolment initiative using the State’s Universal Basic Education Board (BSUBEB). Out of school numbers dropped drastically by 85% under Bala’s tenure. According to reports, about 1.97 to 2.1 million learners were enrolled across public, private, nomadic and non-formal centres of learning.

Increased number of pupils come with the arduous challenge of infrastructure and staffing gaps. Bala’s administration delivered more than 1400 classroom blocks, constructed or rehabilitated across the 20 LGAs of the state. Over 1000 schools were upgraded while 300 basic and post basic schools were also upgraded or constructed yearly to meet the surge in enrolments. A model school each was built in the three Senatorial zones which have a cumulative intake of about 1500 students.

Altogether, over 2000 teachers were employed to support the drive to resolve the menace of out of school children.

Observers, especially, people living in Bauchi, attest that Bala easily earned his flowers as governor of the States over his two tenures.

Apart from his exploits in education, they list such areas as urban renewal, security, agriculture and his subtle art of inclusiveness which has meshed the diverse stakeholders of the state into one happy people.

Bauchi urban centre now wears a refreshingly clean and glitzy outlook: A twin flyover, solar street lights and a meshwork of roads including the dualized stretch of the Kano-Bauchi Road from the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Airport bear the unmistakable imprint of an administrator who is painstaking working the provisions of his My Bauchi Project roadmap. Similarly, none of the original six emirates has been left out in Bala Mohammed’s unprecedented urban renewal drive.

A couple of weeks ago, former president, Goodluck Jonathan commissioned 18 urban roads. Late last year, in the company of former Jonathan and incumbent vice president, Ibrahim Shettima, former President Olusegun Obasanjo unveiled one of Bala’s flagship projects, the Sir Ahmadu Bello International Conference Centre, probably the best of its type in the northeast of Nigeria.

It is not by coincidence that Bauchi State has experience hardly any large scale insurgency among the six northeastern states. No, the state remained comparatively quiet by virtue of carefully organised local mobilization, coordination of youths networks, vigilante groups and traditional leaders. The state government also collaborated closely with security agencies on intelligence sharing and early warning signals which has ensured the laudatory outcomes the state enjoys today.

With the State largely secured, Bala invested deeply in the vast arable land of Bauchi. He collaborated closely with international multilateral agencies like the World Bank, Africa Finance Corporation, Afreximbank, AU-NEPAD to afford his farmers all the advantages inherent in modern agricultural production.

With 40 brand new tractors for enhanced mechanisation, the state engaged in smart, round the year farming. Subsidised fertilizer, improved crops and certified seeds were deployed.

And the World Bank-supported project , the rural access, agric marketing projects (RAMP), as well as irrigation support in collaboration with the state Agric Development Programme (BSADP), have flourished.

Various poverty alleviation initiatives have removed Bauchi from the top ten poorest list in Nigeria during Bala’s time. This is a big feat considering that the State was domiciled on that odious list for a long time.

However, what may be considered to be Bala’s opus is his enlightened leadership and statesmanship. This entails inclusiveness, equity, basic freedoms and fairness to all. These have turned out to be Bala’s nimble foot steps that have kept the State happy, harmonious and progressive.

For instance, Governor Bala funded the construction of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) secretariat/headquarters in Bogoro Local Government Area of the state and also supported the Bauchi State CAN secretariat project located in Bauchi LGA. For emphasis, this is a predominantly Muslim environment.

In the manner of great leaders, he was sensitive to the diverse nature of his domain so he remained equitably in the appointment of aides and his cabinet.

But most remarkably, in his perspicacious deployment of power, is the creation of the Sayawa Chiefdom, a singular act that settled what is regarded as a century of bloody feuding in an area comprising Dass, Bogoro and Tafawa Balewa LGAs. By this, a fresh wind of peace and warmheartedness has been blowing across Bauchi State through the Bala years. Christians and non-Muslims never had it so good, as many testify.

With his era considered as a season of enlightenment, Bala may well be regarded as the father of modern Bauchi State.