Daji Sani in Yola
Wife of the President, Aisha Buhari, has expressed plan to establish a private university to be known as Muhammadu Buhari University.
She disclosed this yesterday during a town hall meeting in Yola organized by her in collaboration with concern indigenes of Adamawa.
Mrs Buhari, who did reveal when or where the university would be sited, explained that the university would be established in collaboration with partners from Sudan and Qatar.
She also advocated for the formation of a trust fund to curb widespread poverty and other development challenges in her state of birth, Adamawa.
She lamented the challenges facing education and various sectors in the state and called for active support of the state indigenes in complementing government efforts.
“I cannot conclude without suggesting how we can complement the efforts of government in achieving some of its developmental goals.
“I would like to advocate for the establishment of Adamawa Development Trust Fund through which prioritized developmental projects can be financed and implemented,” she said.
She urged the incoming government to form a cabinet of capable people who could come from any political party as long as such people possess the capacity to contribute meaningfully to the development of the state.
Justifying the event and the need for other concerted efforts, she said, “With the rampant security challenges, interethnic conflicts, poor educational enrolment of children in schools, poorly functioning health system, annual flood being experienced, and continued influx of displaced people, our hope and solution as a people lies in our ability to join hands and form a coalition towards uplifting the state from its present predicament.”
The town-hall meeting was a mix of cultural entertainment and speeches from notable individuals, including the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Dr Umar Bindir, who first spoke of the state as one in which most residents live under acute poverty.
In his passion to demonstrate how Adamawa people were so poor that they ate the most pitiable of food and drank water that fails all safety qualities, he shot the government which he serves in the foot, as one of the speakers that followed would indicate.
A former military governor of Lagos State, Gen Buba Marwa, who is noted for being a critic of Governor Mohammed Bindow despite being in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) together, said with the SSG’s account, nobody needed to look further for why Bindow failed re-election.
“Adamawa State is in a mess. The SSG said it. We all now know why APC lost the state,” Marwa said.
However, the state Deputy Governor, Hon Martins Babale, who represented Governor Bindow at the event, said the government had in the last four years done its best to improve the human and institutional profiles of the state.
