Opinions
When Kashim Shettima speaks for Gwoza, Chibok in Southern Borno
When Kashim Shettima speaks for Gwoza, Chibok in Southern Borno
By: James Bwala
Often, he used to say that he is not only a representative of the eight local government council that made up the central senatorial district in Borno state neither is he the representative of the people of Borno state but a representative of the Nigerian people, who deserved the best from a government they elected into office to served them and not to be served. Former Borno state governor, and Senator representing Borno Central at the red chamber in Nigeria’s highest law making body, Kashim Shettima is known for his stand with the people.
No wonder, his kind of lifestyle and attitude to governance is being replicated in Zulum, the current executive governor of Borno state. This attitude of standing for the people especially the less privileged has endeared the people of Borno state to him. Today he remained an Icon and Champion of the people by a deliberate act to serve humanity in any way that can lift a weakening spirit.
Recently, Kashim Shettima is again the topic of discussion amongst other people of southern Borno owing to a deliberate move to lend his voice when he decried the lack of federal government presence in Chibok, Gwoza and other communities particularly in Borno State.
Kashim Shettima spoke during a public hearing by the House of Representatives Committee on Health Institutions on 10 bills geared towards establishing new tertiary health institutions in various parts of the country. He was able to quickly remind them that the two federal constituencies of Damboa/Gwoza/Chibok and Askira-Uba/Hawul do not have any federal presence.
The former Borno governor spoke in support of two of the bills to establish a Federal College of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Science in Chibok and to establish a Federal Medical Centre in Gwoza, both in Borno State.
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According to him, “To the people of Gwoza, Damboa, Chibok, poverty is not a subject of philosophical dispute but the reality of everyday life. The people are conditioned in the furnace of poverty and destitution. There is an incestuous relationship between the economy and ecology that gave rise to the insecurity that has ravaged the northeastern part of Nigeria. Gwoza and Chibok are by-words for disaster. Chibok is about the most famous community in Borno State.
“We have the moral obligation to make the people have a sense of belonging. There is a need for a federal presence in these two communities of Gwoza and Chibok. They are in the heart of what is called the Sambisa Forest. They do not have any medical facilities. For these communities, there is some sort of time capsule, trapped by insecurity, destitution and hopelessness. So we have a moral obligation to give hope to the people.
“The beauty of establishing such facilities is that the multiplier effect is unquantifiable. Apart from creating employment opportunities for the local people, the infusion of N2 billion to N3 billion every quarter into the local economy would have a quantum leap in the purchase of the people. New cottage industries would flourish. Before you know it, the depressed economy of those localities would start prospering.”
Words like these can only come from a large heart. It means that those words spoken by Kashim Shettima were not manufactured at the table during the public hearing. It means that the former Borno state governor has the state at heart and not only his constituency. It means that he often think of a way out for his successor, who is also carrying the burden of freeing Borno state from the shakes of poverty, destitution and institutionalized disaster informed by retarded religious minds.
For me, Kashim Shettima has been nursing those words and praying for an opportunity to break the silence and free himself from the burden he has been carrying on behalf of the people and government of Borno state. I listened to every southern Borno person who commented on the prayers of Kashim Shettima during the public hearing. To many, Kashim Shettima is a blessing for a people in search of freedom from the catastrophic events that portray Borno state in the light of today’s reality.
Kashim Shettima statement must have hit the committee chairman, Hon Pascal Obi at the centre of the committee’s proposal when he (Pascal Obi) reveals that the hearing was to get inputs that would help to guide operations in tertiary health institutions in the country.
His words: “This public hearing is about granting the opportunity to all members of the public, especially all stakeholders that matter in the health sector and otherwise to create opportunity for them to come and make inputs so, at the end of the day, we would have bills that would help to guide operations in our tertiary health institutions in the country, thereby improving lives and wellbeing of Nigerians.
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“The primary responsibility of parliamentarians is the making of laws and in the process of making such laws, if we restrict it to only inputs from parliamentarians, by the time you bring it for public consumption, it may be lacking in so many aspects and that is the essence of the public hearing so that everyone that matters would come and make inputs and that is why we are here today in line with our legislative agenda in the 9th assembly, which we christened, ‘Nation-building: A Joint Task’. so we are building the nation and it requires a joint effort not just for parliamentarians alone.
“We have about 10 bills, most of them geared towards establishing new tertiary health institutions in several places. Some are universities of medicine and some teaching hospitals and some federal medical centres.”
I do not know the number of people that may have spoken on behalf of Borno state. I do not know whether they did or not but words are spirit and stronger words are determined by their weight. For Kashim Shettima has spoken and when he spoke again, it was not for his constituency but for Borno state. This is another lesson about leadership and we need other representatives to learn from here as we support the move to make Borno state great again.
When Kashim Shettima speaks for Gwoza, Chibok in Southern Borno