Barely three weeks after the incumbent Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, emerged victorious at the polls, the state Commissioner for Information and Communication, Hon. Yakubu Dati, has described the re-election of his principal as a victory against a gang up of elites.
Speaking in an interview with journalists in Jos, the state capital, he stated that the elites had, in the past, been living big on the state’s resources, not bothering if workers were paid salaries or not.
Dati said, “Yes, there was that gang up against Lalong in the election; the gang up was made up of some elites who felt he did well to deny them access to public funds, as it used to be in previous PDP administrations.
“You know in the past, these elites lived big on state resources and they don’t care if civil servants are paid salaries or not.
“Such elites never cared if there are provisions of social infrastructure for the benefit of the entire populace”, he maintained.
Speaking on what endeared the governor to the citizenry and why he was re-elected, the Commissioner said, “In the first place, Governor Lalong is humane, humble and he is a God-fearing man. His kind of humility is unparalleled, his nature is such that does not want to hurt a fly, not to talk of a human being.
“He came with a mindset to be fair to all residents of the state, irrespective of political leaning, ethnic or religious background.
“He is at home with everyone and that personal attributes reflected positively in his style of administration in the last four years.
“The administration that ruled the state before him was the type that did a lot to elevate one tribe above others in their policies and programmes and such ethnic politics caused major divisions among the multi-ethnic population of the state,” he explained.
“But, when Lalong took over, he made it a deliberate policy to eradicate ethnic divisions and tried to bring the people together as equals. He made everyone equal stakeholder in the state and that alone endeared him to the people.
“Secondly, Governor Lalong has kept his electioneering promises to the people. As soon as he took over the mantle of leadership in 2015, he made wide consultations with the people to find out their areas of priorities and at the end he came up with what we called the ‘5-Pillar Policy’ of the administration.
“It is a kind of developmental blueprint that guides the government in addition to the promises he made to the people. That was why, if you take the issue of welfare of the people, for example, Lalong is second to none.
“He did not only make salary payments regular, he also made sure that he cleared backlog of salary arrears. In fact, he came into office when workers were on strike and he promptly promised that he was going to pay the backlog and he has not disappointed them.”
According to Dati, “The payment of salaries alone made the entire state happy, because even those that are not civil servants were happy because those who collect salaries patronise them and money is always in circulation.
“You can imagine a government that releases at least N2.5 billion into the state every month through salary payments. Definitely, it will impact on the economy of the state and petty traders, artisans, farmers usually feel the impact of the money in circulation.
“If you realise the economic impact of one month salary no government can afford to delay salary payments because that salary touches on every aspects of the economy. The local economy has picked up and everybody is pleased with the government.
“Thirdly, Governor Lalong recalled all civil servants that were sacked by the previous administration and those placed on indefinite suspension. He reinstated them and they were paid their arrears.
“The unemployed youths also like Governor Lalong, because they have also benefited from the administration through entrepreneurship training.
“As I speak to you, more than 100,000 Plateau youths benefited from the entrepreneurship programme organised by the Plateau State Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (PLASMEDA), an agency created by the governor himself.
“The beneficiaries of this entrepreneurship programme cut across all the 17 local governments,” he stressed.
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