A gubernatorial hopeful under the auspices of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa State, Umar Mustapha aka Otumba of Ekiti has disclosed that in the last four years, Adamawa State did not get one naira investment from the outside world.
Mustapha who made the disclosure during a chat with newsmen on Saturday in Yola, noted that the situation has stymied development in the state.
He noted that lack of purporseful leadership is mainly responsible for the backwardness of the state as it has both the human and material resources to thrive and be in the league of most developed states in Nigeria.
Mustapha noted that unscrupulous politicians always take advantage of our religious and ethnic fault lines to hoist a reign of anarchy and deprive the good people of getting the dividends of democracy.
“We have to encourage investors. Adamawa has not received a dime from investors in the last four years. How can we survive? It becomes a religious obligation for leadership to change the psyche of investors and make them realize that Adamawa is safe, willing to accept and cooperate with them and Adamawa is a place to invest.
“If people from the west can go to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Libya to invest despite their turbulent situations, it will not be hard to tell them to invest in Adamawa State,” he said.
The gubernatorial hopeful noted that another drawback to Adamawa’s leap to greatness has to do with the mindset of some elites who think you must worship them to succeed.
“It is unfortunate that brothers and sisters of ours either in government or outside the government, in politics or outside politics have always stood against our development. Some of them don’t want the development to take place because they will feel if we are able to do what they couldn’t do then it is a slap on their face.
“Some people felt why should you be the one to bring development not them. If they couldn’t you shouldn’t. While a few of them always wanted things to be done their own way. They feel you must bribe them to be able to bring in investors, you must bribe them to be able to succeed. You need to roll on their carpet for them to bless you before you can make anything out of life. I have refused to be anybody’s house boy,” he noted.
On what he intends to do differently to succeed, Mustapha said he has two ideas upon which he intended to launch the state into the committee of developed states.
“I want to say I have two things at the back of my mind which no one has done. First, every governor will wait till the end of the month to go to Abuja and picked his cheque called statutory allocation.
“My pragmatic ideas are too big for such cheques because it is usually within the range of N4bn to N4.5bn. If you pull out salary and overheads practically you have nothing left. And with the little available resources, it is very difficult to embark on any physical development,” he said.
He noted that for the state to get out of the sneer of underdevelopment, leadership has to be prudent, pragmatic, discipline and accept scientific and modern ways of doing things.
“The way out is we have to do what the world is doing. The world is developing because people think of good ideas and ensure their implementation. Such ideas are if I don’t have resources I will find a way to get the resources in our own case we don’t have resources and we will fold our arms.
“My first 100 days will be a jamboree of looking for funds in the form of subvention, Intervention, grants and soft long term loans. I have had relationship with investors over the last 25 years and I have convinced them to come and invest,” he said.
