Shame to Nigeria Governors’ Forum

What is the strategic reason for Nigerian Governors to have a retreat all the way in Rwanda?

The governors were in Kigali, Rwanda from August 24–26, 2023 to visit tourist destinations and listen to speakers, present development cases which many of these so-called excellences may not understand.

Some of the State Governors that went to the jamboree trip, presides over states larger in landmass and population than Rwanda – yet they are so confused that, they needed to waste tax-payers resources just to take lesson notes that they can never interpret, talk less implement.

Even Prof Charles Soludo with all his parroted training as world acclaimed economist tagged along with his brother governors.

Now that they have gone and returned, let us hope they were able to learn the greatest lesson in Rwanda – their anti-corruption success story.

President Paul Kagame has done tremendous work on building institutions that are designed to be above class of any citizen.

This lesson will be a good value for the estacodes  their excellences have collected from their states’ coffers.

Honestly, only a fraction of them, if any, will enjoy the session on how to stamp out corruption from their administration. They will not because, for majority of them, corruption is the nectar of their interest in political leadership.

The number one problem bedeviling Nigeria is corruption of different shapes and sizes. Any lesson learnt and at whatever cost, anywhere in the world, is worth it. The big question is, will they ever change?

A corruption free regime holds immense value for the advancement of these Nigerian states.

Rwandan being one of the fastest growing African economies isn’t a bad place for these politicians to acquire some training

On their return, I hope they will also find time to visit Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, to enable them change their leadership mentality of ‘tokenism’ to tangible long-term development projects.

Rwanda did not announce themselves to the world as a tourism destination, until some of the enablers (public transportation, security, good roads, sanitation, airport and manpower were put in place.

With the support of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Rwanda has put behind them memories of a bitter civil war that culminated in one of the worst genocidal war which claimed over 800,000 Rwandans (Hutus and Tutsis).

In less than 30 years, Rwanda has put in place, some of the important economic and structural reforms and sustained steady economic growth rates for over a decade now.

Presently, Rwanda is aspiring to become a ‘Middle Income Country’ status by 2035 and ‘High-Income Country’ status by 2050.

It plans also, to achieve this through a series of seven-year National Strategies for Transformation (NST1), underpinned by sectorial strategies focused on meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Their excellences has seen for themselves that roads in Kigali, the capital city are decently paved to attract tourists.

Their excellences may have seen that, the Rwandan government do not wait for roads to fail before routine maintenance is carried out.

Their excellences may also not have read on the pages of newspaper, where their counterparts are praised for doing the work they were elected to do.

Obviously, these excellences should have seen that streets were free of litters and sand-dews.

They must also have been told that it is abnormal to construct one road for over 6 calendar years.

Put lightly, it is hoped that their excellences will reduce the number of SUVs in their convoy when they return to their respective states – especially with petrol selling for N600 per litre.