Robert Mugabe was and is still right with regards to the above mémes allegedly shared by him with us. Sadly many of us are yet to grasp the kernel of this revelation. We are still largely blind to this truth. Blindness in itself and as a concept is not about the EYES alone, it is also of the MIND as well.as the BRAIN. Whatever the eye sees, it transmits to the brain for the mind to.act or direct on the next line of action.

In Kaduna State recently, an event of truly epic proportions took place last week when the President of the Federation visited the State for the purpose of commissioning projects executed with OUR OWN MONIES as well as huge foreign loans by the State government.




The irony about the entirety of the visit would be that the impression has been created that the government in building the few roads and bridges/flyovers did the hapless population of Kaduna State a favour.

No.

It is not a favour but a duty. A sensible observer must ask, if a government does not perform such responsibilities to the people, what then were they voted into the various offices to do?




In a sense therefore, the President let himself be DUPED by his host and with a blanket of wool thrown over the president’s head, for there is not much that he can see.



I suspect that as the visit was being planned, the President must have been handed a choreographed script which he was to be helped to act during the visit.





The content of the script included the time of arrival, much like a thief in the dead of night. Surely, he could not have had any control over where to visit as a guest since asking to see other NAKED parts of Kaduna would have opened up a can of worms.





I have to mention this aspect because I recall what used to happen during our days in the Boarding Houses when on Inspection days the inspectors will go from one hostel to the other whilst we as students stood by our usually well laid out beds. Some of the inspectors see what we expected them to see and others would go to hidden areas and corners not easy to access. This is the area where points are lost.



With regard to the president’s visit to Kaduna, there are many such dark and hidden areas which the governor will not even contemplate taking a visitor to. I know too that like grasshoppers, some people have COMPOUND EYES that do not see. The areas that must not be visited include but are not limited to the many squalid slums dotting the precincts of the State capital as there is nothing there except the many low lives making up the population. I am wondering too if the president bothered to inquire as to the costs of the projects he came to commission.




When I talk about cost, this is not in monetary terms alone but also on how the constructions affected businesses and the lives of the operators. In a general sense, where the eyes cannot see, no messages can be transmitted to the brain, therefore the mind will be limited in directing on what is right.





Had the president factored in some of the observations above, I think that he would not have been so blunt in the praises he showered on the host. It is true that the government of Kaduna State has built some roads particularly in the State capital in pursuing the so-called Urban Renewal programme, but the fact remains that the State is not only about the urban areas.



Kaduna State is much more about the rural areas crying out for development, no matter how little. Put in another way, the governor has failed to carry the people of Kaduna along in his development agenda therefore, when the time comes to open the books as sure it will, you can bet that the governor will fail to stand up to public scrutiny. His ideas are just too elitist.




The governor will soon be history but our people will for many years to come be toiling to repay the huge debts he has plunged the State into. If governance is about the people, then they ought to be consulted so they can be a part of the decision making.



It is very cheap to assume that we are in a democracy but the truth remains that democracy in Kaduna is all about one individual, “the governor”. The entire State House of Assembly is only a rubber stamp and therefore lacks the capacity to check the governor’s excesses and recklessness.



This is the quandary in which we as citizens of Kaduna State are languishing.


Col. Dauda Albehu Gora (rtd) writes from Kaduna, North West Nigeria.