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By Hon. Yahya Sani
Governance is the complex process of providing for the needs of the people. And these needs do not occur in succession but are simultaneous in existence, in a manner that the satisfaction of one, does not necessarily lead to the satisfaction of the other. This fact is crucial to the decision of leaders, as to what their priorities are at every given period.
In Sokoto State, the focus of government is defined. The nine points agenda of the present administration of Governor Ahmed Aliyu clearly spells his priorities . These include: Healthcare, Education, Agriculture, Water Supply, Religious Affairs, Security, Youth Development, Economic Growth and Local Government Autonomy.
Barely halfway into his first tenure, Ahmed Aliyu has set out to deliver on these commitments, by embarking on projects that seek to address pressing needs of the electorate, especially those that provide lasting solutions to challenges hitherto faced by the people. This concerns the provision and rehabilitation of critical infrastructure within the State Capital, the lack of which had for a very long period constituted a major crisis to residents and visitors alike.
This transformational drive has so far reached several neighbourhoods in the Sokoto Metropolis. The network of streets in Gawon Nama area has eased vehicular movement within the residential sprawl, which hosts the commercial beehive of the Gawon Nama mini-mart. So shall another road network at Gidan Hillani new residential area at Arkilla, a structurally developed metropolis, lacking only in the means of easy movement.
Similar initiative has led to the reconstruction of previously neglected urban roads of critical value to the economic life of the state. These include the stretch from Birnin Kebbi Road, running along the edge of the commercially vouyant Jay Allen area, which hosts the major mechanics enclave of the city and connecting with the Western Bypass that links the Giginya Hotel and State Government Secretariat to the Central Motorpark and Central Market.
In the same area, is the ongoing reconstruction of the access road to Gidan Hillani area through to Arkilla, passing by Blue Crescent School. It is a street that will afford thoroughfare for the dense populations of Arkilla, Kalambaina and Wamakko town to the city’s economic zone and ease traffic on the Western Bypass, thus greatly facilitating the movement of workers, students and the business community between two major socioeconomic centres.
This morphological transformation is ongoing in other parts of the state capital, such as the popular Sahara Area, the major spare parts market in Sokoto. It is a three square kilometres sprawl of automobile parts shops that has existed for about 50 years, in the heart of the metropolis that the administration of Ahmed Aliyu has connected with streets, thus greatly easing commercial exchange in the area and the state in general.
The opening up of the urban residential sprawls of Tudun Wada and Unguwar Rogo with road networks is a project that is transforming the inner city areas for the first time in their over half a century of existence. It is also a development that will ease access to these densely populated areas for the provision of services, as well as improve drainage and sanitation.
The dilapidated Sokoto roundabouts were a major long existing concern for residents of the city and visiting motorists alike, causing frequent vehicular mishaps and constituting an eyesore in the city’s general morphology. Ahmed Aliyu’s rehabilitation of these street links has both eased traffic through different parts of the state capital and given the city befitting beautification.
Rehabilitated structures include the FGC Roundabout at the entrance to Sokoto from Zamfara State, Ahmadu Bello Way Roundabout that links the most commercially active street with the Central Market and the Old Market Roundabout, which connects the Sultan’s Palace in the Old City to the commercial nerve of Aliyu Jedo Road and the Central Market. These are in addition to a number of such structures rehabilitated in the GRAs and other areas within the city.
An initiative to ease traffic at roundabouts and junctions in Sokoto is the expansion work, through the construction of multi-directional spillways that will, when commissioned, eliminate jams and holdups. This is being carried out among other locations, at the Gidan Man Ada Roundabout, the main entrance into the city from Kebbi State, FGC and Sokoto Guest Inn Roundabouts.
A major feature of the present Sokoto State Governments’ provision of transport infrastructure is the completion of the flyover at Diplomat Area. The superstructure links the commercial nuclei of Rijiyar Dorowa to the administrative and educational stretch of Sultan Abubakar Road, leading to the Sultan’s Palace.
The active pursuit of the transformation of Sokoto by the Ahmed Aliyu administration is a drive that will change the fortunes of the historic city by connecting its various socioeconomic parts. It will also afford the city its befitting status as the two centuries old Seat of the Caliphate.
As part of efforts to strengthen that enviable historical position of Sokoto, the administration is making strides in Religious Affairs. Developments in this sector include the reconstruction and renovation of daily prayers and Jumu’at mosques within and outside the state capital, in addition to the re-establishment of the State Hisbah Committee, which had been hitherto moribund.
The dual pursuit of infrastructural development and focus on religious affairs is fitting for the peculiarity of Sokoto State, as a modern society with origins rooted in spiritual antecedents. In this ongoing process, resources are being committed to continuously increasing list of projects that promise to transform Sokoto into a truly modern state that is in tune with the contemporary times.
All this is a part of the present government’s drive for the advancement of all parts of Sokoto State as a whole, in fulfilment of Ahmed Aliyu’s mandate as its elected Governor.
Hon. Sani sent in the article from Arkilla, Sokoto
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