The Sun News On-line/politics

The rumour is that most of the beggars from the north are from Sokoto or so they claim. The government of the state today is not happy about such stain. It is like a bad tag on the image of the Seat of the Caliphate. This problem must be tackled and solved. Saturday Sun while in Sokoto last week found out that that is what the government of Governor Aliyu Wamakko has decided to do. “It is a fight against indignity, and he is resolved to tackling it”, so said the Permanent Secretary in the Governor’s Office, Alhaji Abubakar Dan Shehu.

Wamakko, according to his media team, “decided to toe this line because it is the people that brought him into power. There is no overstatement about this, and it is beyond politics because everybody in Nigeria saw what happened in Sokoto governorship election, its annulment by the court and the repeat election.

But for the people that voted Wamakko into power, the re-run election would have been a good opportunity for the electorate to go for the person they prefer. To really demonstrate that they voted Wamakko, they repeated what they had done earlier since he had established his person earlier among the people as deputy governor. It is like the re-run election made him more sober than before on how the people of Sokoto State love him. His programmes are now mainly for the people and the masses ”.

Turning them around
Immediately Wamakko came to power, he started a project of rehabilitating beggars and helpless persons in the state “to make sure they are off the streets and likely find means of livelihood of their own. He started this project by taking a census of all beggars and disabled persons in the state. Now he has a database containing 6507 eligible beggars that are qualified for the rehabilitation project he handles, and each of these is to receive N6,500 per month. That implies that Wamakko will run a budget of N42,295,500 per month for rehabilitation of the underprivileged. In a year, he drops from the government purse at least N507,546,000 for the beggar to get a lifting in life.

The above is basically for their upkeep
But there is an additional package where the government will expend another huge budget to train and equip the beggars so as to acquire some skills that will empower them with time to be self-reliant, thereby dropping begging and dependence finally. With such projects, the Wamakko administration also intends to support the trained artisans with materials to make them practise the trade. “It will also involve the financing of mini businesses for these persons, all in a sincere bid to rid the state of this indignity”, Dan Shehu said.

Sundry projects
The Sokoto government is fighting the poverty eradication war from many fronts. As the beggars get rehabilitated, the working group who constitute the lower economic class has not been left in the outer cold. On Thursday last week, the governor inside the Government House distributed 20 Nissan 18-seater buses for the state mass transit programme. The buses will be finally distributed to the urban councils with Sokoto getting a larger number.

Moreover, what a visitor to Sokoto notices quickly is that the old city has no taxis. You either take motorbike (okada) or walk to wherever you are going. But Wamakko had decided against this uncomely tradition by rolling out 75 Peugeot cars to serve as taxis in the city. Some of them will also go to the other urban centres of the state. Another set of 150 Nissan already parked in the Government House buses will also be later distributed to private beneficiaries, as 150 tricyles (Keke) are already in the possession of people who bought them from the government on hire purchase at a subsidized rate of 60 per cent of the market value.

Non-discriminatory education
Some years ago, Sokoto made the reputation of charging strangers resident in the state school fees in primary and post- primary levels while natives enjoyed free education. But the news now is that “the governor said no. His reason is that all citizens of Nigeria are Nigerians and as such, anybody resident in the state should be considered a free born of the state. Their children should have equal opportunities to education. Therefore, Governor Wamakko has extended free primary and secondary education to all children in the state not minding the state of origin of the parents”, he said.

Still on educational empowerment, the Director of Press to the governor, Alhaji Abubakar Muhammad revealed: “There are 23 boarding schools coming up in all the 23 councils of the state. There are to serve as model schools with boarding facilities for children. Yet, the boarder students will receive increased feeding stipend, at 100 per cent increase from the former rate. The decision for the project was concluded just last week”.

Tertiary education is also getting Wamakko’s attention with the upgrading of the Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto to a state university. Likewise, the college will be moved to another location according to a bill to this effect passed by the state House some two weeks ago. A board set up by the state is to carry out evaluation on the departments of the college for enhancement, scrapping of not-too-valuable ones and creation or new needful departments. The body will also oversee the compensation of communities for lands that would be taken and also furnish government with details of the costs of providing everything needed to run the school at modern standard.

Traders also smile
As we are discussing, traders, especially those that were affected by the fire at the central market sometime ago are picking their non-interest loans from Oceanic Bank. The government raised N2 billion for the scheme and it is facilitated by Oceanic Bank. The government had undertaken to pay the accruable interests. It is a means of assisting these traders not to depend on government, but to rather contribute towards governance through a robust economy”, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media, Alhaji Sani Umar informed Saturday Sun.

“With this government, there is no tampering with the allocation of the councils by the state government because the 23 LGAs get their allocations direct from Abuja. These are signs that the government means well.

“There are signs also that Wamakko has not and cannot forget the people he holds power in their behalf - the electorate that gave him the power. We know without doubt that he has more pleasant surprises for the future. All he wants is the cooperation of the masses for a smooth and peaceful government and Sokoto State,” Dan Shehu said.