A speech By Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu, Sarkin Yakin Keffi, the Executive Governor of Nasarawa State, at the swearing in of the reconstituted cabinet, Ibrahim Abacha Youth Center, Lafia, Wednesday, September 12, 2001.

A few minutes ago, you took your oath of office as members of the executive branch of the Nasarawa State government. I am pleased to welcome you as members of the executive family dedicated to the progress and well being of our beloved state. We are now the rejuvenated dream team.

We thank the former commissioners and the former secretary to the state government for their invaluable contributions to the formulation and the execution of the social and economic programmes of the government in the past two years. As men and women who are committed to the progress and the development of our dear state, we have no doubt that they will continue to serve the state and its people in their private capacities.

The dissolution of our first cabinet was not intended to show who is the boss in this administration. It was a calculated course of action designed to achieve a grand purpose in keeping with our philosophy of purposeful governance. This administration believes in the concept of rebirth. Routine is the enemy of progress. After two years in office, we needed to inject new blood into the administration. We needed, if you like, to recharge our batteries. We needed to refocus our vision. We needed to pause to regain steam.

The careful composition of the new team is aimed at achieving these objectives. We have a good mix of the old and the new. In football parlance, we have brought the Eagles and the Eaglets together. The melange of experience and youth makes us a formidable team that cannot be shaken by detractors or diverted from its set purpose of leading our people to the Promised Land.

But to play to win, we must play as a team. There is ample room for individual resourcefulness but there is no room, as I have always emphasised, for the lone ranger in this administration. None of us has the wisdom and the strength to go it alone. Our collective wisdom and strength are the sure fire formula for the modest achievements this administration has made in the past two years. We must not abandon the winning formula. Whatever successes we have achieved so far are but a few steps on the long road to the Promised Land. There are greater challenges before us. We are in this team, I believe, because we accept to take up these challenges in the true and committed spirit of dedicated service. Our primary responsibility is to help our people take their rightful place in the comity of developed societies.

This administration set out to make and has made, in the short space of a little over two years of its existence, a world of difference in the social and economic development of the state and the comprehensive empowerment of our people. Our foundation is firm and sound. Our sense of modesty persuades us not to blow our own trumpet. Others are blowing it for us. You would be glad to know that journalists on their current nation-wide media tour to assess the dividends of democracy have rated ours as the administration to beat in the current dispensation throughout the country. We expect the rejuvenated dream team to beat that record.

None of us has a private or personal agenda in this administration. Or, to put it another way, none of us should have a private or personal agenda, whatever might be our individual political ambition. All of us must subscribe to the same agenda of this administration. In your assigned portfolios, your duty is to execute the agenda of the government of Nasarawa State. These agenda have been articulated in the socio-economic development programmes of the administration. Despite our exalted positions as commissioners and special advisers, we remain the servants of the people of Nasarawa State. Let us resolve here and now to serve them with honesty and dedication.

It also bears repeating to say that we are not in government as representatives of our people or our religious persuasion. We are the representatives of the entire people of Nasarawa State. Our mandate is to serve them to the best of our abilities; to help to uplift them from the shackles of under-development; to rekindle in them the light of hope in the darkness of their ignorance and illiteracy and to be the beacon in their struggle for economic empowerment and the right to meaningful living. Our people must no longer merely exist. They must live. Your duty is to make it happen.

This administration expects you to be loyal to it. Loyalty is not a twenty per loyalty thing or a fifty per cent thing or even a ninety-nine per cent thing. It is a hundred per cent thing. We are not asking you to be sycophants. God knows we can do without sycophancy. The loyalty I ask for does not suggest that I want you to tell me what you believe I want to hear. Indeed, there is no greater disloyalty than to deceive or mislead the government. We must be told the truth at all times, no matter how bitter it may be. Do not be yes-men and yes-women. You must be men and women of integrity. You must at all times provide honest and purposeful leadership in your various ministries. Do not equate integrity with a stubborn adherence to a course of action when collective wisdom dictates otherwise. Your judgement cannot be superior to our collective decision.

Loyalty means that you must give all you have to this administration in the execution of its programmes. It means you must be faithful to your oath of office; honest in your dealings with the public and transparent in the discharge of your duties to the government and people of Nasarawa State.

No human society can progress in an atmosphere of mutual hostility. We came into office waving the olive branch in all communities across the state where mutual hostility had held progress and development hostage. We preached peace and took steps to ensure the return of peace to such communities. On July 3 last year, the Bassa people who were displaced from their ancestral land as a result of ethnic crisis between them and the Egbira people in Toto local government area early in 1998, returned home. The federal government and a good number of foreign governments commended this unique achievement by the administration. We believed then that all the ethnic groups in the state must have learnt some valuable lessons from that crisis and therefore be prepared to embrace dialogue as the only civilised means of resolving misunderstanding.

Unfortunately, some evil forces in our midst betrayed our hope. An unprecedented orgy of violence erupted in parts of the southern Senatorial District of the state in June this year. A series of inter-ethnic misunderstanding turned into a gruesome theatre of war. Once again, in the face of mindless violence and destruction, peace took flight. Innocent people, including babies, were killed. Valuable property was lost. Farming, the main activity in that part of the state, was and remains severely affected.

You would recall that one of the victims was Alhaji Musa Ibrahim, Sarkin Azara and a member of the executive team as a special adviser. He was a loyal and dedicated member of the dream team. We pay a special tribute to him. We will sorely miss his advice, which was always made richer by his dual role as a traditional ruler and a political leader. We pray the almighty Allah to grant his soul and the souls of all those cut down in the orgy of violence eternal rest. May our state and its people never again witness such senseless killing and destruction.

We are still contending with the problem of resettling the people driven away from their homes. The crisis has set us back. Those who have lost homes, farms and other valuable property are forced to begin life again. The state is forced to spend time and resources in quelling the crisis and caring for the injured and the homeless. It is a truly painful development. Nevertheless, it is a challenge for this administration in its avowed determination to build a united and peaceful Nasarawa State. This is part of your challenge as members of the executive team. The guns are now silent. The process of reconciliation and confidence building is in progress. And it is the most critical period. Frayed nerves must be soothed. People need to be re-assured that their neighbours are their friends again. We must be prepared to give this process all that it takes to bring peace back to the communities where the crisis occurred.

We sincerely thank our traditional rulers, local government chairmen, the security agencies and community leaders for their support and co-operation with the government in this unfortunate crisis. We urge them not to rest on their oars until every displaced person returns home and until all hostilities cease and peace reigns again in the affected communities.

You have come on board at a critical period in the life of this administration. As a government of the people elected by the people for the people, accountability is a critical element in our contract with the people. We must be prepared to discharge this critical aspect of our duty to our people now because we are in the last lap, as it were, of our four year term of office. We must consistently keep our own part of the contract with the people. We must neither abuse the trust reposed in us nor serve our individual interests at the expense of our people. We must continue to build on the foundation we laid in the first half of the term.

The period we are entering will witness intense political activities throughout Nigeria as we approach re-election at all levels of government. Re-election fever is abroad already in every part of the country. None of us will be isolated from these political activities. After all, we are all politicians running a political government. However, our primary duty in this administration is what we make of the mandate given to us by the people. We must refuse to be distracted by the diversionary tactics of other politicians, especially those of them seeking power. We must be deaf to the noise of politics calculated to divert our attention from discharging our responsibilities. Let our achievements be our testimony before the people.

As leaders of our people in our individual rights, we will be increasingly drawn into all kinds of political activities. We may even be at the centre of some of them. Politics in Nigeria very often degenerates into ethnic and religious contest. We advise you to resist the temptation, no matter how strong, to become ethnic or religious champions in the name of politicking. You must always strive to be champions of Nasarawa State by doing those things that unite our people. You should avoid, like the plague, those things that divide us. If our state were not at peace with itself, if our people do not learn to jaw-jaw instead of war-war and if an easy resort to violence becomes an article of faith among our people, then we would labour in vain. Our sweat would count for nothing. And that would be both a pity and a tragedy.

As political appointees, you must not be isolated from your people. You must keep in contact with them and lead them along the path of truth and honesty. Your contact with them will enhance communication between them and the government. Effective communication prevents misunderstanding and suspicion and helps to build trust and confidence. Our people need to be constantly informed and educated about the direction of the government and what we are doing for them. This task must be left to the state ministry of information alone.

We make a special appeal to our politicians. Our constitution guarantees every eligible Nigerian the right to seek an elective office of his choice. And we welcome all those who would want to seek such offices in the state. However, in their quest for power, they must not resort to negative or destructive politics. We will gain nothing from divisive politics in this state. This administration will do nothing knowingly or unknowingly to prevent anyone from exercising his constitutional rights to the fullest. We guarantee everyone a level playing field. For us, politics is not a do or die affair. We sought the mandate of the people to be given an opportunity to serve them, no more, no less. We will not use our position to prevent anyone from fully and legitimately exercising his political and constitutional rights. But the government has a responsibility to ensure peace and harmony in the state. It will not, therefore, in the name of democracy, permit anyone or a group of persons to set the state on fire. Anarchy is anathema to democracy. There is no room for anarchy in the state. Divisive politics is destructive to our common weal. We will curb it. As indigenes of the state, we have a collective responsibility to help water and nurture the young tree of democracy in our state in particular and in our country in general. Democratic rights can be fully exercised only where democracy thrives. We must make it thrive.

The creation of more local governments in response to the yearnings of our people is high on our political agenda. We duly set in motion the administrative process in accordance with the constitutional provision for the creation of new local governments. The state house of assembly would have completed the necessary legal framework for the referendum by now but unfortunately, the crisis in the Southern Senatorial District disrupted it. We lost the moment. We have now put the process back on track. We are proceeding with the administrative process. In the next one month or two, the state independent electoral commission will announce the date for the referendum. We urge everyone to ensure the success of this important exercise.

We are also looking into the issue of creation of new chiefdoms and the review of the status of existing ones. Our people will be kept duly informed of this process.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we, the rejuvenated dream team, have a big task ahead of us. We cannot accomplish it without the full co-operation and the support of the people. The crisis has cost us dearly in time and resources. We must now get back on track to complete on-going projects throughout the state. I appeal to all our people not to allow anything to divert the attention of government at this critical time. We must move ahead and we must do so as one people with a common destiny, the differences in tongues, religion or political association notwithstanding.

Let us join hands together, put our back to the plough and make Nasarawa State the envy of other states in the federation. We have what it takes to make the miracle happen. Let us go forth now as the soldiers of peace, as dedicated servants of the people and as catalysts in the vanguard of progress and development. This is our chance to show who we are and to prove what we can do as a rejuvenated, recharged and refocused Dream Team. May the good Lord be our guide.

Thank you.

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