Zulum: Garlands to Champion Governor of the Year @ 53

THOMAS IMONIKHE

 

The humble beginning of Borno State Governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum, who clocks 53 Thursday (August 25) must have influenced his embracing the virtues of hard work, honesty, excellence and the fear of his creator early in life as well as attaining the pinnacle of his chosen educational career and rendering selfless service to father land.

 

Unlike most of his contemporaries also, he didn’t in all honesty had the benefit of any tutelage by political godfather in his ascendancy to the seat of power, a feat achieved after a rigorous and meritorious performance in the classroom. This was prior to his appointment as a commissioner in the administration of former Governor and the vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in next year’s general elections, Senator Kashim Shettima, where he similarly excelled.

 

Therefore, his passion for good governance and adherence to the golden rule of doing good to all irrespective of tribe and creed further portrays the Champion Newspapers’ 2021 Governor of the Year as a great scholar who must have learnt some lessons from the exemplary leadership of the late Sardauna of Sokoto and first premier of the old Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, whose greatest legacy, according to historians, ‘is the unification and modernization of the diverse nationalities of that part of the country’.

 

Besides, as a firm believer in the dignity of labour, Zulum since assuming office as governor on May 29, 2019, had his eyes on the ball-implementing the people-oriented policies and programmes of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, adopting an unusual approach to governance including regular surprise visits to hospitals at midnights, schools early in the morning, and public establishments, any time, to get first-hand information to keep the staff on their toes and delivering democracy dividends to the electorate despite daunting security challenges confronting the state due to deadly attacks by Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, ISWAP terrorists.

 

Consequently, in the last three years and three months, he has carved a niche for himself as a courageous and brave servant-leader committed to giving his best to the electorate at all times even in the face of open threats to personal safety by criminal elements. Till date, the professor remains the only governor among his colleagues to have survived at least three deadly ambushes on his convoy by insurgents bent on making the state ungovernable.

 

This perhaps provided the basis for his steely resolve and passion to adopt multifaceted approaches in tackling the challenges posed by Boko Haram insurgency, which started in the state after the extra-judicial killing of leader of the Islamic sect, Mohammed Yusuf, on July 30, 2009 by the Police and the attendant humanitarian crisis.

 

Specifically, the Governor had prioritized among others, the welfare and security of citizens (the primary responsibility of any government),  reconstruction, rehabilitation programme and resettlement of Internally-Displaced Persons, IDPs, in their ancestral homes for which he has won the hearts of Borno citizens and earned plaudits from local and international bodies including the United Nations, UN.

 

His administration went the extra hug to allocate hundreds of vehicles and provided logistics to the Nigerian Armed Forces, the Police, increased monthly allowances of volunteers like the Civilian JTF, and recruited thousands of hunters and vigilantes as part of comprehensive measures to fight insecurity as no development thrives in the midst of anarchy.

As a further step, he has transformed into Borno’s chief humanitarian officer, regularly touring communities in the hinterlands to supervise the doling out of livelihood support to those in need in order to discourage the possibility of terrorists recruiting their victims in the face of hopelessness.

 

The incumbent administration,  according to records, has also executed no fewer than 53 capital projects under its reconstruction rehabilitation and resettlement scheme, involving estates totalling over 6,000 resettlement houses for IDPs and refugees in 18 towns, delivered 28 capital projects on jobs creation, youth empowerment and humanitarian support which include a comprehensive vocational training centre with 14 fully-equipped workshops for capacity development of 1,500 persons per annum.

 

Little wonder that his zeal to respect human values, cater for their needs, interests, abilities, dignity and freedom has earned Zulum a crown of committed patriot, incorruptible leader, humanist as well as perfect manager of men and resources.

 

This has even been attested to by many including President Muhammadu Buhari and the Secretary- General of the United Nations, UN, Antonio Guterres, who was in Maiduguri on May 3 this year to assess the humanitarian situation in the state.

 

“I have discovered that here in Borno, thanks to the Governor, you have understood and put in place the right approach to fight terrorism; of course, when we fight terrorists, we need to shoot at them; we need to have armies, but that would not solve the problem if we did not address the root cause. What I have seen here in Borno was a Governor determined to address those root causes”, declared the elated visitor.

 

His remarks came after  visiting an IDP camp along Gubio road and also a UN-supported Bulumkutu Interim Care Centre (ICC), which serves the purpose of Disarmament, Deradicalization, and Reintegration (DDR) facility for repentant insurgents, provides interim services to children and women in need of care and protection and others affected by conflict in the Northeast.

 

But Zulum’s meteoric rise to power wasn’t attained on a platter of gold but an outcome of titanic struggle in life. His grass to grace life journey as captured in his official profile indicates that Babagana Umara Zulum was born on Monday, August 25, 1969, to a hardworking agrarian family in Loskuri village of Mafa Local Government Area in the central part of Borno State who at a tender age, trekked seven kilometres daily from home to join his late father in the farm to till the ground at the community.

 

In other words, he combined child-farming with primary education in Mafa from 1975 to 1980, before proceeding to Government Secondary School, Monguno, from 1980 to 1985, completed it at the age of 16 and took up the full responsibility of catering for his education while supporting his younger siblings.

 

He gained admission into Ramat Polytechnic in Maiduguri in 1986 to undertake a National Diploma in Irrigation Engineering. As  a student, he trekked eight kilometres from Kofa Biyu ward in Maiduguri, where he stayed with relations to and from school, because he could not afford transportation fares at the time.

 

But after obtaining a National Diploma from the Polytechnic in 1988, he  joined the Borno State Civil Service in 1989 as an Assistant Technical Officer at the Ministry of Agriculture and in 1990, began his Bachelors Degree in Agricultural Engineering at the University of Maiduguri where he graduated in 1994.

 

Furthermore, it is note worthy that as a student both in the polytechnic, university and thereafter, Zulum eke out a living as a commercial taxi driver, intermittently driving buses, moving later to a commercial pickup to ferry firewood. In these challenging years also, he learnt how to fix all the vehicles he drove and he combined driving with operating a commercial grinding machine while spending weekends in Mafa.

 

His quest for more knowledge took him to the University of Ibadan in 1997 where he graduated in 1998 with a M.Sc. in Agricultural Engineering and joined the University of Maiduguri as an Assistant Lecturer same year. In 2005, he began his PhD programme in Soil and Water Engineering in the university and graduated in 2009.

 

Significantly, he grew in rank in the Ivory Tower where at some point, he served as the Deputy Dean, and Acting Dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering at the University of Maiduguri until 2011, when former Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, who had discreetly identified and admired the leadership potential in the academic, appointed him as the Rector of Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri.

 

As Rector, he preferred to retain his salary as lecturer at the University of Maiduguri which meant working  for free as Rector, a wise and selfless decision that enabled him to continue lecturing at the institution while overseeing the Polytechnic. He is also an alumnus of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, NIPSS, Kuru, Plateau State.

 

During his four-year stint, Zulum brought revolutionary changes to the Ramat Polytechnic so much that in 2015, Governor Kashim Shettima, apparently impressed by his rare incorruptibility and competence, appointed him as Borno State’s pioneer Commissioner for the Ministry of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Resettlement.

 

He capped his political career in October 2018, when he emerged the gubernatorial candidate of the APC and won the 2019 governorship election with more than one million votes considered a rare feat in the political history of the state.

 

And as a reward for his selfless stewardship to the people therefore, the Governor won a re-election ticket to fly the APC’s flag in next year’s general elections, which many analysts have predicted would be a walk-over contest over his opponents considering the  administration’s transformational social, economic and educational strides so far.

Happy birthday to Champion Newspapers’ 2021 Governor of the Year.

 

Imonikhe, is general manager publications, Champion Newspapers.

 

 

For a better society