Gombe and the coming Local Government polls
Local Government Area is regarded as the third tier Government that is closer to the rural people in the states and also provides rural amenities such as maternities, clinics, job opportunities, construction of rural roads and other sundry activities.
The majority of the people live in the Local Government Areas and in order to fast track the implementation of projects/programmes that touch the lives of these people, the Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo has promised that state and the Local Government Areas should jointly identified and implemented joint projects using joint funding mechanisms and he planned to decentralise the projects/programmes identification and implementation strategy to the ward levels. In a Democracy, the race for the occupation of the seat of chairmanship is always hot and challenging among various political parties.
Within the local parley, the administration of the state always strives to ensure that all the elected chairmen of all the local Government councils in the state are occupied by their party men hence both logically and illogically means are employed by the Government in power to grab all the available seats at the local levels while Gombe State is not an exception in this political abracadabra.
The ruling party in the stare, the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) has fixed the election of the Local Government Councils within the 25th – 26th February of this year and candidates from various political platforms willing to contest various positions ranging from councillorship, vice-chairmanship and chairmanship positions have been rushing to the newly renovated Board of Internal Revenue, Gombe, to pay their mandatory tax clearance fees of N50,000 for councillorship, N150,000 for chairmanship according to my findings from the Revenue Board.
The Staffs of the Board of Internal Revenue under the dynamic chairmanship of Alhaji Adamu Mohammed Damji were at hand on Saturday 7th January, 2017 when the reporter visit the Board seriously receiving receipts of payment from the candidates particularly from the alleged members of Peoples Democratic Party who were billed to screen their candidates for the forthcoming local Government Councils ‘election by the State PDP Screening Committee at Custodian Hotel at the same date , preparatory for the D-Day.
Recently, the Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo in his usual characteristics during Budget presentation had promised that ‘this administration is able to provide the needed Governance/stewardship to the people of the state by ensuring equity, fairness and contributing to improved quality of lives of the people of the state through deliberate Government actions of formulating policies and executing projects and programmes.’.
Some political watchers in the state were optimistic that the ruling Government would provide an enabling environment and a political playing ground for all the political actors in the forthcoming local Government councils elections rather than using securities agencies at their disposal to intimidate and rig elections as was allegedly witnessed in the previous local Government elections in Gombe state while others believed that Governor Dankwambo would respect the sanctity of his words to ensure that peace and harmony that have existed were not tramped upon because of the forthcoming elections in the state
