Chairman of Sardauna Local Government Area of Taraba State, GABRIEL DANIEL, is not happy over the attitude of some past Nigerian leaders who acquired lands in Mambila Plateau region of the council without putting them to economic use. He discusses this and measures the council will take against the absentee landlords, with Assistant Editor (North), CHUKS EHIRIM
Low level of development in Sardauna
Gabriel DanielThis local government was created in 1976, when the country was having 12 states. After that, Gongola State was created. Now we are in Taraba State.
On its low level of development, that has been one of our problems and we have been looking at it, thinking that it was because of the distance from the then North-Eastern State, with Borno as capital. Even when we came to Gongola State, we still happened to be the farthest local government from the state capital. Even here in Taraba, we are still the farthest local government from the capital.
That is the way I am looking at it. Part of the problem, I think, is because we don’t have influential people who can help influence government to develop this place. One of the factors responsible for poor level of development in this local government is bad roads. The road leading to this place is not good enough. It was constructed when Olusegun Obasanjo was military head of state.
Since then, nothing was done on the road till recently. While coming here, you must have seen the very narrow road that was constructed during that time, with some narrow bridges. As you can see, the road leading to this place is not good and the distance contributes to lack of development of this place.
Sardauna before the First Republic
It was not in the Camerounian territory; it was under the German territory. Then, because the Germans had a very narrow land space which was occupied between the French-colonised territory in Cameroun and the British-colonised territory in Nigeria, a plebiscite was later conducted for the people within the German territory to decide where they wanted to go.
Decision to be in Nigeria
During the plebiscite, this area decided to be in Nigeria. And when they were conducting election to ascertain whether they were going to be in Cameroun or Nigeria, the ballot box became an issue. There was debate on whether our people would vote for Sardauna of Sokoto or one other person from the Cameroun. Our people voted for Sardauna of Sokoto. That is the reason the local government is bearing Sardauna.
Neglected residents’ fate
Actually, the area has been neglected, and much of this negligence happened during the military era. But since Nigeria embraced democracy, especially during Danbaba (Suntai) administration and current Acting Governor, Garba Umar, there has been interest in the council because any visitor to Taraba from the federal government or non-governmental organisations (NGOs), or from outside this country, would always want to visit this place.
The road they are constructing is a federal road. But the state government decided to do it and later recoup the money from the federal government, just to open up the area.
People are always visiting here. Each time journalists gather in Taraba, they make sure they are here. People coming to Taraba from outside this country, always ensure that they are here.
That is the reason they are making efforts to build five star hotels. They have gone into negotiation with some business people who can come and build hotels. They are also making efforts to see that an airport is built here. All these things are the efforts of the present Taraba State Government to open up this place.
The federal government has also made its own contribution. On World Tourism Day, President Goodluck Jonathan made it compulsory that we should be having World Tourism Day annually. For those of us in Taraba, it will always be celebrated. The Minister for Tourism has always been coming here to celebrate the World Tourism Day with us.
FG’s efforts in developing Gembu
What the President has done is to tell the minister to come here with his entourage on World Tourism Day, at least to see things for themselves, especially the road construction which the state government has taken over. The federal government has accepted, in concrete terms, to construct and rehabilitate this road. The state government, on its own part, has made it to be a reality.
Commencement of construction and distance from Jalingo
They started it around November last year and it has been moving very fast. I think it is about 600 plus kilometres.
Former leaders having homes in Gembu
We have so many absentee land owners in this place. That is why sometimes we have pressure from our people, especially with the issues of farm lands and grazing areas. A larger chunk of the land has gone to the people who are not living here. We have made efforts to see how we could approach some of these big shots who have acquired large parts of our lands; they are not here and are not actually developing the land. When they came, they said, “the place is good, we want to have lands here”. We believed that they would bring development. We thought they would come and establish industries, hotels and many other things. That would have been of advantage to us because we needed those things, so that our people could be gainfully employed in those industries. There are other things that could be done to help our people, like establishment of dairy industry. Unfortunately, some of them just took the lands, and are not developing them. They are not using them for anything. At the end of the day, they would lease the lands to our people at higher costs for grazing and farming purposes.
These are some of the problems and we have tabled them before the state government. We as local government are thinking of revoking all land certificates that were given either by the local government or the state government, so that we can see how we can redistribute the lands on equitable basis, for the use of the people of this place and those who are ready to contribute to the development of this place.
Engaging former leaders on the revocation plan
Since I came into office, I have been planning to pay all of them visit, but it is only one of them that I have been able to talk with. If you go to where Obasanjo and Atiku have houses, they own big lands there. One of them is very well-known in this country and I was able to talk to him. Immediately he accepted, he came and cut down the trees, and gave it to us. We have discussed with him, and he is yet to come. That was the last discussion we had. I don’t want to mention names.