By Sunday Sunday
It is certainly not in doubt that the Governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum is one of the rare gems in Nigeria’s governors’ class (former or serving) in the Fourth Republic. He stands out as a scholar with solid academic background quite early in life and impressive public service employment records prior to his venturing into politics.
Born on 25 August 1969, in Mafa Local Government Area of Borno State, Zulum attended Mafa Primary School from 1975 to 1980 and had his secondary education in Government Secondary School, Monguno from 1980 to 1985, following which he was admitted at the University of Maiduguri, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture Engineering after which he served as a youth corps member with Katsina State Polytechnic. He proceeded to the University of Ibadan from 1997 to 1998, where he obtained a Master’s degree in Agriculture Engineering. In 2005, he enrolled for a PhD in Soil and Water Engineering with the University of Maiduguri which he completed in 2009.
His first appointment was in 1989 with Borno State Civil Service as an Assistant Technical Officer in the State’s Ministry of Agriculture. In 1990, Zulum moved into Borno State Unified Local Government Service as Senior Field Overseer and later Principal Water Engineer. In 2000, he took up an appointment with the University of Maiduguri as an assistant Lecturer where he rose to the rank of Professor. He was Deputy Dean and Acting Dean, Faculty of Engineering in 2010 and 2011 respectively. In 2011, Babagana Umara Zulum was appointed the Rector of the state-owned Ramat Polytechnic in Maiduguri. Meanwhile, he retained his teaching position in the University of Maiduguri.
In 2015, Governor Kashim Shetima of Borno State appointed him Commissioner of the newly established Ministry of Reconstruction. This obviously was his first political appointment that paved his way into mainstream politics. Three years later, precisely on 1st October 2018, he won the gubernatorial primaries of the All Progressives Congress for Borno State. He was elected to the office of the governor of Borno State in the 2019 Borno gubernatorial election held on 9 March 2019, with 1,175,440 votes.
Since he became Governor of Borno, a State which prior to his election in 2019 had been severely ravaged by Boko Haram terrorist elements, Zulum has left no one in doubt as to his determination to bring back the State’s lost glory in many spheres. Undeterred by the lingering insurgency and several attempts at his life, Zulum has shown the spirit of commitment in him. While his counterparts in some other states are overtly and covertly engaged in primitive accumulation at the expense of the states, Zulum has visibly shown evidence of his people-centred governance system in almost all spheres.
Within his first four years in office as governor of the state and second year in his second term, the Professor of Agriculture Engineering has performed excellently well in managing the resources of Borno State, meeting the needs of the populace in various ways that have earned him recognition and awards from several quarters. While some under-performing governors would devise ways and means to ‘buy’ awards from any quarters, Zulum’s achievements loudly speak for him as the awards come to him unsolicited.
In his first term as the executive Governor of Borno State, he was the winner of the Vanguard newspaper’s 2019/2020 Personality of the Year due to his concern for the people of Borno State by providing life-supporting interventions and also providing the required leadership qualities in the state that leave no stone unturned; a quality that Nigeria needs at the national level. Borno, Nigeria’s second-largest state by landmass (70,898 square km) has been battered by Boko Haram insurgency since 2009. According to the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, GCPEA, the Boko Haram jihadists were responsible for the destruction of 900 schools and many health facilities. They created a humanitarian crisis that threw over two million people into internally displaced persons,( IDP’s) and abducted thousands of people, especially women and girls, including the famous Chibok schoolgirls. In addition to this enormous challenge, the coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, that swept the world further compromised the people’s welfare.
This has therefore left the state government with no option other than to spend its mega resources on rehabilitating, reconstructing, and resettlement of the affected citizens while restarting and stimulating the economy through financial disbursements, grants, and awards. One of the programs was Borno Cares (BO-Cares), a domestication of the Federal Government’s NG-Cares aimed at minimizing COVID-19’s impact on the poor and vulnerable. N814 million was distributed to 9,154 beneficiaries in the micro, small, and medium enterprises scheme. Governor Zulum had explained that the scheme was meant to reduce youth restiveness and encourage people to work in cooperative groups for collective wealth creation and sharing. A total of 4,024 tricycle operators, 3,130 mobile phone repairers, and 2,000 tailors were among the fund’s recipients.
Within a few years in office, his government has spent N4.2 billion in economic stimuli on various groups such as providing succor to the families of members of the Civilian Joint Task Force, (CJTF), who lost their lives in protecting the people from Boko Haram attacks. Zulum increased the N20,000 monthly stipend hitherto paid for the welfare of the 300 orphans to N30,000, while N300 million was released to cater for their education. The amount was approved for their scholarship from primary to university level over a period of five years.
Governor Umara Zulum has continued his commitment towards transforming the state in the first year of his second tenure of office. He consolidated on democratic gains by delivering 238 additional projects in the first year of his second tenure, from May 29, 2023, to May 29, 2024. In five years, his administration has cumulatively accomplished no less than 1,195 developmental projects and capital-intensive programmes and out of these, over 900 projects, programmes and policies were delivered during Zulum’s First Tenure from May 29, 2019, to May 29, 2023. A total of 238 projects delivered in the first 365 days of Zulum’s second tenure comprised 220 capital projects and 18 capital-intensive programmes and policies, most of which were completed. The achievements included 54 projects on education across 23 local government areas, including 36 new mega and regular senior/junior secondary and primary schools, high Islamic college and integrated tsangaya schools, including admin blocks, teachers’ quarters, laboratories, sporting facilities, solar systems, new ICT laboratories and 88 science laboratories in 22 schools, 58 vehicles for monitoring and evaluation of schools, 6,529 furniture sets for schools and education offices, among others. These spectacular achievements in the field of education prompted the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) to honour Governor Zulum with “Good Governance Award 2024 on education.”
To show that he remains deserving of the NUJ award, on January 1, 2025 in his New Year message to people of born State, Governor Zulum announced the approval of N8billion for the payment of backlog of retirement benefits owned retired primary school teachers and other civil servants in the state.
For his exemplary leadership as a governor, he has continued to win unsolicited awards from different groups across the federation and would surely continue to attract attention from discerning minds across the states of federation as a unique administrator of men and resources with absolute determination to serve selflessly in a state where the fear of attack from Boko Haram elements who are highly opposed to western education is very much on the horizon. Zulum’s transformational tendencies are undoubtedly unique and quite exemplary for others to emulate.
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