From ESV Saliu Abdullahi Osuko, Giza

The democratically elected and blunt royal blood, whose state unfortunately languished as one of the less developed states in the federation as a result of past administrators starving the state of its huge resources, recently has been embroiled in negative publicity gambit owing to recent communal crisis traceable to the state’s political gladiators who have made him an enemy. But he did and even more.

I want to believe that these ignorant praise singers have no idea of how government is run, and even if they are paid to do a hatchet job, some common sense should at least be employed. Dr Almakura however cannot be a disappointment to his people.

His projects might not be seen on conspicuous giant billboards displayed across the state, but they know that he is on a redemption mission to salvage the people of Nasarawa State from the long years of bad governance. The Senator is unperturbed by the opposition disparaging his administration.

Those negative remarks and poor rating and deliberate peddling of falsehood don’t bother him at all. As a matter of fact, you would agree with him that it has become a part of our political culture to drag other people down, especially when they seem to have upper hands.” It is obvious that the good people of Nasarawa State know better and have proven cynics wrong.

Going through the analysis on Senator Umar Tanko Almakura's performance, one which impressed these said media organizations, I could not but ponder at the impaired and contradictory rating of ‘Underperformer’ especially when juxtaposed with their statement on his focus in the state, it smacks of bad and distasteful judgement by the judges who came up with this conflicting scorecard.

The main focus of Senator Umar Tanko Almakura's administration in Nasarawa State is that man or woman in the village, in the ghetto, the vulnerable, the people who don’t have the opportunity to get contracts or big jobs or drop names that open doors.To this end, his administration brought more than 35 heavy equipment and machines that took on rural feeder-roads, providing three kilometers of roads in every local government, building bridges to

help the people that are in the hinterland.

How ridiculous can a statement like this draw such a rating? Do these judges not understand their own claim of ‘‘these are, however, in addition to the ongoing construction of an airport to complement other development initiatives in the state? Governance is known to be about both human and infrastructural developments, and if this is not lost on the judges who unambiguously claimed in their analysis that there have been ‘‘development initiatives’’ in Nasarawa State by Almakura's administration in the last one year, why then this misconceived rating?

Or don’t they understand that a positive report should yield an equally positive rating? It would be nice to know the criteria and other indices used in arriving at the jaundiced and ill-informed rating.These are facts which critics cannot controvert as Nasarawa indigenes are attesting to the changing fortune of their state. Senator Umar Tanko Almakura has no reason not to perform given the grace he enjoy as the choice of the people of Nasarawa State. Two years, the rural people now see street lights on their roads. They hear the noise of bulldozers on footpaths that would make them urban. Their status is changing; they are drinking pipe -borne water. The catchphrase on the lips of every citizen of Nasarawa in the last one year has been, ‘‘Almakura is working, Nasarawa is Changing’’.