Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has identified people’s resistance to change as one of the biggest challenges he is facing.
Sule made this known when he hosted a team from the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) at the Government House, Lafia the state capital.
Citing social psychologist Douglas McGregor’s Theory, the governor said most people in the state do not want any type of responsibility and are resistant to change.
According to him, working for several international and national companies prepared him and was a motivation for him to seek public office with a view to giving back to the society.
His words, “Working with these global corporations and organizations and the preparations I received are some of the reasons why I decided that I wanted to go into governance of a young state like ours, to see if what I had learned I will be able to give them back into the society.”
Governor Sule said on coming onboard as the Governor, he has been trying as much as possible to instill due process which was the norm in most of the places that he worked.
“The big companies that I worked have a structure, they have a process, they have way of doing things. They have due process. Most importantly, they have transparency. Those are the things that I brought into Nasarawa State,” he added.
He disclosed that on arrival, his administration passed the TSA to consolidate all revenue accruing to the state towards ensuring transparency.
“Then we introduced it through the House of Assembly; we came out with a law that established the Bureau for Public Procurement. Everything goes through the bureau to ensure it’s in line with the due process, in line with the law before it is brought back to me to sign.”
The Governor, however, expressed worry that people don’t appreciate change even if it is for the better.
“I have heard these statements from some of my directors, permanent secretaries and some of my people who work closer to me. ‘Sir, this is the way we used to do it’. I have heard this many times. I have had that resistance to change. That is one of the greatest challenges that you would come across. Because I came with a different concept, different way of doing things. Especially someone like me that never worked in government before. I just came in from my private sector, a JJC in government you know you would have problems,” he stated.
Governor Sule also identified lack of resources as of the biggest challenges, especially that Nasarawa is always second or third to the last when it comes to federation allocation.
“Nasarawa State has lean resources. It’s always like second or third to the last when it comes to the federation account allocation. With all the ideas we have, we have inadequate resources to be able to support them.
“I also came with my own big problem. Not wanting to go and borrow. Because I hate to borrowing money from high interest paying banks to come and invest it into a non revenue service. You will take it and put it where there is no revenue to pay back. They just criticize because they just want to criticize. I think you have plenty of them in this state and I don’t know whether majority of them were sent from other states to Nasarawa State. And a lot of them are from my local government also,” he said.
He pointed out that though there were several other challenges, Nasarawa State continue to enjoy relative peace because God Almighty God guided his administration with the ideas of ensuring that everybody was invited through inclusive governance and at the end of the day security has been stable.
Governor Sule explained that his vision is to see Nasarawa amongst the three most competitive states in the country.
On the advice he would give to young persons coming into politics, the governor lamented that it was disheartening that most people in the country see politics as a business and as a way of making money.
“The moment you have that kind of mindset that politics is business of making then your own success would be different from what I am talking about. You will make the money but you would be in trouble making the money.”
“You can be in trouble even without making the money but you would be in bigger trouble when you come in with the purpose of just making money.
“I would advise them to go into politics with the intention to serve, with the intention to impact your skills or what you have learned into politics and you are likely to make impact. You are not going to make everybody happy. No matter what you do, so many people would not be happy in politics. Do things that at least, you know your conscience is at rest,” he concluded.