The futility of modelling Kano after Lagos

   The futility of modelling Kano after Lagos By Hassan S.Indabawa

A team of educationists went to Kano on April 13, 2006 to from Lagos to study the operational mode of Kano’s Education Management Information System (EMIS) which Kano State initiated, for possible duplication in Lagos State.

The Programme (EMIS) involves collection of data in decision making. Data collected helps in Planning, Monitoring of Projects and evaluating development activities. EMIS is simply an aggregate of ready-made data base which is very informative, available to managers and stakeholders at all levels in the education sector, so that they can make an informed decisions and ease the task of development.

Team Leader, Mrs. A.O. Adelaja, expressed astonishment with the exceptional resourcefulness of Kano State. “The Kano EMIS is very good; a lot of work has been done to set Kano State apart… We are returning to Lagos with an entirely new idea of what the Northern part of the country could do as exemplified by the Kano State. Your masterpiece, EMIS could soon put the state at the same pedestal with the South, Lagos State inclusive in terms of development…” she said.  The EMIS project was the baby of Kano State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB).

Evidently, it is not only Lagos State that is impressed with Kano’s ingenuity. Some international donor organizations and aid agencies like USAID, COMPASS, UNDP, ENHANCE and British council, Abuja, have all expressed deep interest. More significant, perhaps, is that the federal government of Nigeria has also adopted the EMIS programme and evolved it into what is now known as the Nigerian Education Management Information System (NEMIS).

Interestingly, even the mother organization that gave birth to the EMIS success story, Kano SUBEB, was in fact an initiative of Kano’s ingenuity. The Kano State government came up in 1987 with what was then known as the Kano State primary Schools Management Board (KPSMB). The idea was to accord the state’s basic education needs, all the necessary attention it deserves so as to fast-track the educational development of the state in that all important sector. The scheme proved successful and Lagos State was among the first Southern States that sought for collaboration with Kano State in assisting them to model their development needs along Kano.

Then Lagos State Commissioner for Education, Alhaji Mahmoud Balogun, an educationist par excellence, led a team of professionals and other Stakeholders to Kano to understudy the brilliant idea behind establishing the Primary Schools Management Board. The initiative also generated widespread interest that the Federal Government eventually adopted the Scheme and established a national body that goes by the name Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB) with all the various state governments having their own similar version at state level. Kano State, for emphasis sake, has again given nation another milestone, due to its well-known resourcefulness and ingenuity

Way back to the 1980’s, specifically during the second republic, the administration of Late Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi established the highly successful Agency for Mass Education, which won an International award, a UNESCO award for its excellent Mass Literacy programme. So many success stories abound about Kano’s ingenuity in policy formulation and execution. The reason is not farfetched. Kano State has some of the most highly educated and experienced professionals that Nigeria can boast of. The state is endowed with numerous world-class scholars and exceptional professionals of rare disciplines and callings.

But, in spite of these glorious past and most recent achievements that made Kano proud, the controversial newly ‘elected’ Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, was widely reported to have travelled to Lagos State “to under study the work that (Governor) Raji Fashola has done to transform the state”.

It is not only baffling but perplexing that Kwankwaso would ignore the professionals and technocrats that Kano is noted to have in abundance, when he ventured into a futile chase of a clue on how to govern Kano ala Lagos.

Any Kano citizen that takes pride in the rich record of Kano’s contribution to national development as enunciated by its numerous initiatives would construe Kwankwaso’s gaffe as an aberration. It may perhaps be true, from allegations that are making the rounds that his administration is confused, clueless and bereft of any idea on how to move Kano forward since he is widely perceived to harbour a mind-set full of vengeance and disdain for his predecessor as demonstrated by his policy reversals and draconian rule.

What the state needs at the moment is a level-headed leader with a clear mind, devoid of base sentiments. If something good has been done by its predecessors, common-sense requires that be sustained and built upon.

For instance, the administration of Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, Kwankwaso’s immediate predecessor, is known to have constructed the Tamburawa and Watari water projects, as well as the Abubakar Imam ultramodern urology centre, and the largest market in West Africa, the Kanawa International Market, among numerous others. …”there is no reason why the new (Kwankwaso) government should not acknowledge and continue it,” so observed the timely editorial of the Daily Trust of June 24, 2011.

Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola may have had the grasp of the situation of Lagos, when he suggested “the need for a retreat with government officials so that ideas would be exchanged”, no doubt surprised that there is no effort to tap from Kano State’s vast resources, human and material.

That is how governance is done. That is how Kano earned its distinction by tapping from within, relying on the vast potentials that the state was blessed with. Unless Kwankwaso is bent in transforming Kano in his own vision, which would perhaps come with some “painful adjustments” and, inevitably, distortions.

Indabawa wrote in from Valentine Street, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja.