By ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi –
The Vice President, Kashim Shettima, on Saturday commissioned the remodelled Government House Complex, Bauchi.
Speaking while commissioning the magnificent edifice, Shettima, commended Governor Bala Mohammed, for his giant strides since he assumed duty in Bauchi State.
He commended Governors in the North-East subregion for being united in their drive towards improving the conditions of life of people of the region.
Shettima said: “I want to take this time to personally commend His Excellency, the Bauchi State Governor, for devoting his time, life and energy towards repositioning the state. This edifice (new Government House) will, inshallah, stand the test of time and Your Excellency, posterity will judge you kindly for devoting your time, energy and resources towards the development of Bauchi State.
“We thank you most sincerely for your leadership, inclusivity and capacity to reach out and build bridges. Governance is about inclusivity, governance is about reaching out and building bridges and the current crop of governors, I must admit, are far superior previous crop of governors.
“And in the North-East, I want to use this opportunity to commend all our governors for their comradeship, sense of purpose and commitment. All our governors are united in the common cause in repositioning the subregion.
“We have no business fighting each other, we are all united by our common heritage of poverty, destitution and insecurity.
“More than ever before, this is the time for us to coallize into a single unit to face the monumental challenges of underdevelopment facing our subregion.”
The Vice President described Governor Bala Mohammed as “Kauran Bauchi, the King or projects, the caterpillar of projects.”
Speaking earlier, Governor Mohammed recalled that at the inception of his first term in office in 2019, we had enunciated a clear policy thrust, under the his ‘my Bauchi Project agenda,’ aimed at improving the welfare of the people, orchestrating a robust and diversified economy and upscaling both the social sector and infrastructure in all ramifications.
He said: “The remodeling of the dilapidated, badly run down and inadequate Government House fell under our infrastructure remediation programme, even as we also identified it as a strategic cornerstone of our ambitious urban renewal agenda.”
The Governor said that without equivocation that even before he contemplated running for the office of Governor, he had always “considered the previous Government House as an affront to the state, a disservice to the men and women who, due to the tedium of governmental administration, were compelled to spend long hours in the hardly conducive environment. And what about our visitors, those guests, our development partners who have been privileged to interact with other nations and sub-national entities?”
“My tenancy of the Government House, from 2019, provided instant and compelling justification for my earlier feeling and indeed brought to the fore the urgency of holistically resetting the architectural and psychological milieu of the Bauchi Government House.
“Characterized by inadequate office space for the critical staff of the Government House, lack of meeting rooms, vulnerability to security breaches, an unconducive residential environment and the ever present risk of de-branding the state, I needed no further conviction that the question of re-modelling the Government House had been overtaken by whether it should be done. The pertinent question had become: when, indeed, how soon?
“That I kept it on hold was borne out of the dictum that what concerns us comes last, that as the pilot of our dream reconstruction effort, I and my family could afford to suffer personal inconvenience if that was what was needed to achieve the ambitious vision espoused in the My Bauchi Project document.
“But it was a delicate balancing act between, on the one hand self-denial and on the hand, operational efficiency, minimum convenience, the image of the state and the security of both the Governor and all those working in the Government House, due to rampant incidents of security breaches. We decided to act. What you see today is the outcome of that ACTION!”
Continuing, he said: “Standing on this hallowed turf of our Government House, where generations of patriots, living and dead, diligently served the state, Your Excellency, I feel a sense of fulfilment, not just because we dared but that we dared in a big way.”
NATIONAL ACCORD reports that the occasion had in attendance, the six North-East Governors of Bauchi, Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba and Gombe. Also in attendance are two former military administrators in Bauchi State, Col. Chris Abutu and Col. Theophilus Bamigboye.
Also in attendance were former Governors Ahmed Adamu Muazu and Mohammed Abubakar; Bauchi Central Senator, Abdul Ningi; among others.
