OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR ABDUL'AZIZ ABUBAKAR YARI: A REMINDER TO SERIES OF UNFULFILLED PROMISES FOR THE PEOPLE OF BIRNIN ZAUMA

                                                 
                                                   Your Excellency sir,

ANCIENT WALL OF ZAUMA
(GANUWA)

Let me start by humbly drawing your attention to the brief historical background of Birnin Zauma. The populated settlement in Bukkuyum Local Government Area of Zamfara state which you have visited more than once during your campaign tours. As you may be aware, the settlement is a reputable place with historical background amplified by the famous Shaykh Usmanu bin Fodiyo's visit to Zauma in 1791 CE, 13 years before the Battle of Kwato in 1804 as mentioned in Tazyin Al-Waraqaat. Shehu met a populated settlement of devoted Muslims in Zauma and built a large mosque there. This points to the fact that Shehu could not have built such a large mosque if the settlement was new and had only few houses. Thus, Birnin Zauma was a populated and well established settlement at the time of Shaykh Usman Danfodiyo that it could had been founded some 200 years before the historical revivalist tour. This puts Birnin Zauma at a point of over 400 years old today.

However, this place of historical treasure has been in prolong developmental stagnation. The word deplorable isn't enough to describe the condition of the road from Bukkuyum to Birnin Zauma. Amazing as it may sound, it was smoothly motorable during the military era because the regime then took upon itself the task of its routine rehabilitation via the popular Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) in 1986 during Ibrahim Badamasi's military regime. I could vividly remember how as a young boy I used to come out together with other children to watch how bulldozers, caterpillars, tippers and rollers worked indefatigably before the first drizzle of every rainy season. It is a sheer paradox that the advent of democracy and it's widely proclaimed dividend is not felt by the people of the populated settlement where a piece of my navel was buried.

The politicians from the time of the first democratic governor (Ahmad Sani Yariman Bakura), Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi to the incumbent governor of Zamfara State Abdul'Aziz Abubakar Yari, have been playing politics with the lives of my people. So many sweet promises to put the 3.7 miles (5 KM) road in shape in shape were made on the campaign pulpits but dumped after successful ascendancy to the gubernatorial throne. Bukkuyum to Birnin Zauma road has never been asphalted, so it is muddy and sticky in the rainy season posing a great threat to the lives of people who have to travel through eroded, muddy potholed road to Bukkuyum for medical care, because the one block clinic in this populated settlement is without medical personnels and facilities to cater for our health needs. What then does Shehi want us to do?

I remember how Birnin Zauma electorates revolted en-masse against the former Governor, Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi on account of his failure to reconstruct the road and then you came and promised in the first pre-tenure campaign that it would be rehabilitated but you did not. Yet, our people still expressed optimism that you would do it because you have constructed roads in other places, and they supported you with their votes for the second tenure. Alas! You still fail to look at the people of Zauma with eyes of sympathy.

The very Primary School where I was weaned is now devoid of any furniture for the pupils to sit on and you boast of 6.9 billion Naira 2016 budget allocation for education. This was not the situation even in the military rule. The breeze of dividends of democracy have never been felt us as your tenure is fast running out and the opportunity to fulfill your accountable responsibilities and promises is fading with each passing day. I call it accountable responsibility because it is not a favour for a leader to serve his people, it is a responsibility you would be questioned for before Allah (SWT) in the Day of Recompense.