By Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
Ahead of the March 11 governorship elections across the country, Engineer Ahmed Yusuf has described Senator Emmanuel Bwacha as the only truly qualified and deserving governor Taraba State needs at this time to recover from the abysmal mismanagement of government and governance in the state in the last few years.
Ahmed Yusuf is a Federal Commissioner of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation, and Fiscal Commission representing Taraba State and a Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress APC in Taraba State.
Yusuf who disclosed this in Jalingo while interacting with journalists said that the state needs an experienced administrator who is knowledgeable of governance and the composition of the state as who has the political will to take firm decisions to correct the deliberate mistakes of the last few years that have taken the state backwards by several decades.
He noted that with his experience as a grassroot politician who started as a local government chairman and rose to be a commission, member of the State House of Assembly, House of Representative and now a serving Senator, Bwacha has the best qualifications to lead the State back on track.
“Let me be very categorical that Bwacha is contesting and wants to be the next governor of Taraba State, only to the extent that it will give him the opportunity to serve the people better. This is not about him. It is about the state. It is about Taraba. This is a man who is not looking for money to buy a car or build a house. He is not looking for money to marry a new wife or train his children. All of these have been taken care of.
“But at this point, if you are a Bwacha, then you can’t help but want to effect a positive change for the good of the state. Look at where we are today. Taraba State has been taken backwards by several decades, no thanks to the last few very wasteful years. No serious development to hold unto. The state is literally mortgaged and sold out.
“And so it will be a very big disservice if Bwacha does not emerge as the governor. Look at all the people contesting. Who among them will you compare with Bwacha, in all honesty. None. One of the major reasons we are where we are today is because they imposed a stranger on us who does not know anything about Taraba. And so he has ended up wasting Right years studying the State without adding any value to it.
“We simply can not afford to make such a mistake again. It will be too costly to everyone. Go to Southern Senatorial district and ask them. They are the luckiest in Taraba in terms of representation at the Senate. His landmark achievements as a legislator are more pronounced than the state government, even though the state governor is from the same zone”.
Yusuf said that Bwacha has presented a blueprint that will be fully implemented to boost the state’s IGR by exploring the numerous potentials in Agriculture, tourism, human capital and others to create jobs, cause industrialization, tackle insecurity and crime, and generally improve the standard if living of the people.
He maintained that the troubling debt profile of the state must be quickly and decisively dealt with while the wellbeing of workers and Pensioners especially local government workers and teachers will be prioritized to boost productivity and a sense of fulfilment by the productive force in the state.
