From Salisu Zakari Maradun, Gusau
As insecurity continued to threaten the lives, property and economy of the people of Zamfara state, hundreds of people are on a daily basis are leaving the state for other places where the atmosphere is more conducive, investigation by The Authority had shown.
Those fleeing the state according to the investigation, are mostly business class, particularly, non-indigene who became sceptical to continue to stay in the state where peace has become history for over a decade now.
According to the investigation, the insecurity problem, which is believed to have crippled the economy of the state had also led to the closure of a number of business centres owned by the indigenes coupled with the carelessness of the government of the state to do something about it as it earlier promised to do.
The investigation further revealed that non inclusion of the people of the state in some government activities such as award of contract, had also contributed in no small measure in the destruction of their economy.
Any contract, continued the investigation, exceeding ten million naira is beyond the reach of anyone in the state but to the people from other states who are either governor’s friends and cronies.
Some of the aggrieved people who spoke to our correspondent in that respect expressed their concern over the action of the governor, describing it as ruthless.
“We are just like slaves in this our state,” stated Alhaji Umar Bungudawa, a resident of Barakallah area in Gusau town, the capital of the state while reacting to the governor’s action.
He explained that the governor had abandoned the entire people of the state who suffered to make him what he is today without collecting a single kobo from him.
According to him, since the PDP-led government came on board about 17 months now, no indigene has been awarded with contract to the tune of twenty million Naira. “Only strangers are awarded with lucrative one at the expense of indigenes this is the gospel truth of the matter, he added.
Speaking further, Bungudawa, stated that currently, there is a contract for the expansion of the state specialist hospital Gusau and that contract was given to somebody from Kano and the most disheartening thing in addition, is that all the labourers working in the project are from the same Kano, thereby rendering our teeming jobless youths useless who were supposed to have been employed in it which would improve their economy.
Also contributing in what many of them described as “burning issue, Mallam Iliyasu Sahabi, a plumber by profession explained that for the past five months he did not get any work to do, as everywhere was taken over by the strangers from either katsina, kano, kaduna or Niger states, the places where the present contractors hail from. “Nothing is done with us here as bonafide members of this state,” said Malam Isah Sanusi; a 42 year old man in Gusau whose job is carpentry and a father of 6 adding that the entire youth are regretting having Dauda as their governor who during his campaigns told the entire people of Zamfara that his mission was to rescue the state.”
