Dear Governor,
In the spirit of the just concluded Democracy Day and One Year Anniversary celebrations, we the entire members of Youth Wing of Christians Association of Nigeria (YOWICAN), Akko Local Government, wish to felicitate with Your Excellency for the milestone recorded. We deeply commend your outstanding performance and untiring efforts to move the state forward in spite of the downturn in global economic activities that was exacerbated by the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Your excellency, we particularly appreciate your dogged efforts despite lean resources in curtailing the spread of COVID 19 in the state. In our part as partners in progress and to complement the efforts of government we embarked on Covid-19 sensitization program and on distribution of face masks across the Local Government.
Your Excellency, we also want to commend your efforts in offsetting a bulk of the inherited backlog of unpaid gratuity and benefit owed pensioners. We thank you for putting a smile on their faces. We also commend and appreciate the many completed/ongoing developmental projects across the state.
Sir, we earnestly pray for more wisdom even as you continue to do greater things for the betterment of the good people of Gombe state.
Going forward, we wish to specially appreciate Your Excellency for the regards you have for the good people of Akko Local Government which you demonstrated by the appointment of several sons and daughters of our dear Local government to serve in various capacities in your government. These individuals include:
- Hon. Muhammed Magaji Gettado, Commissioner for Agriculture and Animal Husbandry;
- Hon. Danladi Adamu Commissioner for Lands and survey;
- Hon. Hussaina Muhammed Goje, Commissioner for Environment;
- Alh. Yakubu Ibrahim, Special Adviser Protocol;
- Alh. Abubakar Abdullahi, Permanent Member, SUBEB;
- Alh. Muhammed Samaila (City), Perrmanent Member, SIEC
- Mal. Auwal Abdullahi Gafaka, Special Adviser on Religious Matters; and
- Alh. Dahiru M. Kalla, Special Adviser on Health Matters.
Sir, we thank you most profoundly for these appointments and in same vain convey our felicitations to these appointees, believing in their abilities to contribute their quota towards the progress of the state.
But while we sincerely appreciate your magnanimity in appointing these sons and daughters of Akko Local Government into various positions of responsibility in your government, we are however deeply worried over the evident lopsided appointments, which has no single Christian representative.
Your Excellency, Sir, this worrying development has continued to agitate our minds and has prompted us to ask the following questions:
- Are there no Christians in Akko LGA with the credibility and potential to serve in any capacity in the current administration in the state?
2, Did Christian APC party faithful not contributed and played important roles in the many electoral victories record by the party during the last General Election?
- Is this non representation of Akko Local Government Christian community an act of omission or a deliberate act of commission with intent to marginalise?
Your Excellency, Sir, while these questions agitate our minds, we wish to most humbly remind you of your solemn promise (during campaigns and in the event of your swearing-in) to carry out the mandate of your office devoid of any religious or ethnic considerations. And in your Speech to Commemorate your First Year in Office and celebrate Nigeria’s Democracy Day, you equally repeated that solemn promise to carry everyone along irrespective of religious or tribal affiliation.
In consideration of the religious make up of appointees from Akko Local Government in particular, Your Excellency, Sir, we regret to say that your actions, inactions and perhaps your body language stands in violation of your solemn oath and promise to be fair and just to all. We are tempted to say that your administration has overtly side-lined and neglected the Christian community in Akko Local Government.
At the state level, the Christian community seems to also suffer similar fate. Besides the lop-sidedness in appointment of principal officers of your administration, the case of Justice Beatrice stands as a valid reference to a plot to favour a section of the demographic composition of the state. To all discerning minds the ongoing attempt to usurp Justice Beatrice’s rights to become the substantive Chief Judge of the state smacks of religious and ethnic bias.
Your Excellency, while we have taken the pains to detail our grouses and displeasure about the unfortunate development, we however assure you that we do same in good faith and in consideration of the fact that you deserve the support of everyone to succeed. But when certain actions bear the imprint of bias and bigotry, they become a cog in wheel of our collective progress.
Finally, your Excellency, Sir, we wish to most humbly remind you that there are very credible
and capable Christians in Akko LGA who have remained and will continue to remain loyal to and serve the interest of APC and as well as the government of Gombe state. Your Excellency, we are therefore hopeful that you will rise to occasion and correcting the obvious imbalance in appointment and evident marginalisation of Christians in your subsequent appointment. Your Excellency, doing so will not only restore our confidence in the government of the day but also give us a sense of belonging as equal stakeholders in the affairs of the state.
Your Excellency, as we patiently await, we plead that you find the uncommon courage to treat your subjects fairly irrespective of their religious background.
God bless Gombe State
God bless Akko L.G.A
God bless YOWICAN
Sincerely,
Bilyaminu Obidah Timadi
Chairman YOWICAN Akko L.G.A
