Dickson’s politics and Bayelsa’s development (2)

‘‘There is enough in the world for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.’’ —-Mohandas Gandhi

CONTINUED FROM YESTERADY
SINCE becoming governor over three years ago, Dickson has tried to resolve this paradox, making strides in critical developmental matrices but also actively and respectfully cultivating the state’s political stakeholders for their buy-in. This may be why his administration has awarded many contracts to indigenous firms owned by local elites and political actors, appointed over 500 Bayelsans into government positions, and engaged over four thousand youths as Bayelsa Volunteers to complement the police in securing the littoral state.

One particular developmental gesture of the governor that betrays his political magnanimity is the Ogbia- Nembe road, which is to be commissioned in December. Chief Timipre Sylva, his predecessor and detractor, hails from Nembe but had neglected the project. Dickson’s decisive intervention on the project ensures that Sylva will now enjoy a smooth drive to his homestead! Before now, Nembe was only accessible through water.

The governor’s political gestures are powerful symbolic illustrations of how enlightened political outreach can coexist with and be structured around transformational infrastructural intervention. But there is a limit to symbolic political gestures, no matter how enlightened and generous they may be.

Ultimately, any governing institution and the leader who superintends it have to reckon with the fact that, in our section of the world, development is meaningful only in its physicality, its tangibility, and its ability to positively impact the lives of the governed.

In this domain of social infrastructure, Dickson’s accomplishments are not just staggering; in many instances they acquire additional gloss by being firsts either in the whole country or in Bayelsa. This principle of “firstness” applies to Yenagoa’s first ever flyover, the Ecumenical Center, the Sports/Football Academy, the Catering/Tourism School, Multi- Door Court, the Traditional Rulers Secretariat, the drug mart, teachers training institute, the commercial cassava starch plant, a diagnostic center built to first world standard, and a host of others.

Staying with the theme of Governor Dickson’s “firstness,” he has created a social welfare/ security scheme for the aged, ensuring that Bayelsa citizens who toiled in their youth to give their best to their offspring and their state will live out their old age in dignity and sufficiency instead of in shame and want. His opponents may fault this social intervention as feel-good populism, but the satisfied beneficiaries are better positioned to evaluate the programme.

In addition to these firsts, the governor’s scorecard is packed with the kind of impactful developmental interventions that improve lives in the present and constitute a down payment on the future. The governor’s administration has renovated and in some cases, rebuilt entire complexes of public buildings. It has built 450 kilometers of roads in the last three years in spite of the difficult terrain and credit crunch, the crowning glory of which is the Isaac Adaka Boro Expressway, which was completely rebuilt into a six-lane highway. Furthermore, the Dickson administration has constructed 18 bridges across the state in addition to the conversion of 18 existing roads to dual lane roads. Work on the three senatorial roads, which was abandoned by his successor, has reached advanced stage.

The governor’s investment in the future of Bayelsa follows a two-pronged approach: educational projects as well as measures designed to position the state to survive and even thrive in a post-oil future. In this respect, the governor’s investments in education deserve special mention. His administration has built 400 primary schools across the state, 24 model boarding secondary schools in the state’s 24 constituencies, and rebuilt many secondary and tertiary schools, including the previously moribund Bayelsa State College of Arts and Science.
A programme of free primary and secondary education is complemented by a robust tertiary education scholarship scheme that now funds bachelors, masters and doctoral studies in Nigerian and foreign universities for thousands of Ijaw speaking people.

To further support this educational revolution, the state government under Dickson’s leadership pays the NECO, WAEC, and UME fees of all students in the state in addition to supplying them with schoolbags, uniforms, sandals, textbooks, and writing paraphernalia. As of this moment, the free education programme of government has gulped N24 billion while the scholarship scheme has so far gulped N7billion.

The second arc of Governor Dickson’s diversification of the state’s economy beyond the false fiscal security of finite oil resources has involved massive investments in cutting edge agricultural production techniques and in the tourism and entertainment sector. So ambitious is the governor’s investment in the agricultural sector that the state is now dotted by large-scale agricultural plantations that produce rice, cassava, plantain, vegetables, and palm produce in industrial quantities.

What’s more, the state has achieved perfect forward integration with the establishment of the Ebedebiri Commercial Cassava Starch Processing Plant, which is about to be commissioned. The plant has a high value chain that can generate over 30 thousand jobs for Bayelsans. Fisheries have also witnessed a renaissance under Governor Dickson, with several aquaculture projects already completed.

The Dickson administration has made Bayelsa the go-to state for a wide variety of cultural, entertainment, and tourism events, including many award shows and flagship beauty pageants. The state’s tourism sector is buzzing with new energy with the on-going construction of an 18-hole international Golf Course, a Polo ground, an ambitious network of resorts and hotels, an amphitheater, a casino, a wellness center, and state-of-the-art conference facilities.

The overarching logic in these investments is the imperative of giving Bayelsa, which the governor calls the Jerusalem of the Ijaw nation, an economic future outside the volatile matrix of oil. Governor Dickson is clearly gambling on the belief that catalytic interventions by government, no matter how capital-intensive in the present, pays off in the future and establishes a durable baseline for value creation and prosperity. The governor may be legitimately criticised for taking a gamble and for being an impatient practitioner of the science and art of development, but the vision that undergirds that gamble is rooted in sound economic logic and in the best standards of public service.

A man who shuns the vainglorious showiness of Nigerian high public office, Dickson is an unfamiliar throwback to a time when governance was a partnership between the leader and the led, hence his stubborn refusal to privilege the desires of the elites over those of common folk. The highlight of this selfless stubbornness, for which he is criticised, is his cultivation of citizen opinion in governance, a consultative and deliberative approach to governance whose capstone is the monthly transparency and accountability town hall meeting, where he renders accounts of his stewardship, lays bare the accruals to the state, and where citizens’ inputs are collected and the governor’s plans tested and debated.
Under the governor’s predecessor, Bayelsa acquired an unfortunate reputation as a graveyard of campaign promises and rampant assassinations.

It remains to be seen if Dickson’s relentless developmental focus has completely erased that perception. Nonetheless, one thing appears clear: the people of Bayelsa will, as they should, construct and debate multiple narratives on the leadership of Dickson, but these storylines will be foregrounded by a single premise, which is that it is no longer a question of whether the governor has fulfilled his promises but the degree to which he has surpassed them. Moreover, with the massive investment on security, the Dickson government is superintending one of the safest states in Nigeria, a state where citizens now go about their legitimate business without molestation and where residents now sleep with two eyes closed.

Like all mortals, the Countryman Governor has his human failings. But in this race of governance, he has a head start and is a distant runner. He is, in addition, a politician of integrity who clearly stands far above the maddening crowd of serial governorship aspirants who desperately crave power in order to put the glory of all lands in reverse gear.

This writer does not intent to posit that the Dickson administration has solved all the problems of the state; indeed Bayelsa is still a work in progress. But Dickson has restored much of the lost glory of the Ijaw nation and is poised to continue this mission of reclamation as his legacy unfolds into a second tenure that he has clearly earned.

So, on December 5 this year, Bayelsans are expected to renew their social contract with Dickson when they go to the polls to elect a governor.
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• Agbo, a journalist and public affairs analyst, lives in Yenagoa and wrote via francisagbo38@gmail.com