CONTINUITY Delivered, Prosperity Assured."  That is the theme of this year's Democracy Day celebration in Kwara State where democratic harvests are in full display. The theme summarizes the narrative of Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed's  administration in the past two years.

Maigida, as the governor is fondly called  by Kwarans, has delivered on his campaign promises to sustain the legacy of his worthy predecessor, Senator Abubakar Saraki(CON) and inject a new sustainable development agenda to grow and spread prosperity in Kwara.

In the spirit of continuity, the Ahmed administration has  sustained and, indeed, created value chain for the Shonga farms project (aka Zimbabwean farmers initiative which  put Kwara on the world map as the pioneer of destination for commercial farming in Nigeria), completed the ultra-modern Kwara Diagnostic Centre (ADC), commissioned by Vice President Namadi Sambo last December and reputed to be the best of its kind in West Africa; the International College of Aviation, Ilorin, where students have started flying), and several inherited road, water and health projects.

Continuity in Kwara is a work-in-progress which has not undermined Governor Ahmed's own development agenda. He knows what he wants to do, ''with an end in mind", he likes to say. He plans, prioritizes and makes fund available for what he wants to do. More importantly, he evaluates the impact of what he has done and is doing. No one tells the story of the last two years in Kwara better than the governor himself. And I think of no better narrative by him than the insight he provided when the chieftains of the Nigerian Guild of Editors(NGE), led by their President , Mr Femi Adesina ( who, by the way, after the NGE's inspection of KDC and the new general hospital, Ilorin, proclaimed kwara as the destination for medical tourism in Nigeria,) visited him in  Government House, Ilorin, recently.

It's vintage Maigida:
We recognize that development requires planning and planning has to be articulated in line with what resources you have available. We have put this together. When we were coming in  2011' our slogan was “the legacies continue."  And the reason for that was very basic, because we wanted people to have value for money.

“In the past, it's been tradition in Nigeria that when one government comes in, it starts all over again. That is why we have not moved from where we are today. For instance, the amount of resources that went into the idea of moving from military to civilian administration during Ibrahim Babangida's regime was huge. Whether we like it or not, those resources had gone down the drains. Who's paying for them? The masses are paying because they are suffering in terms of infrastructural support that ordinarily should have been supported with those funds. But be it as it may, we must begin to see government business beyond politicking but as a process where all hands have to be on deck.

 I am happy that you have seen a few projects on ground. I will let you know that when we came in 2011 one of the projects that had not been fully completed was the Aviation College. We completed it, We ensured that it swung into action as students are already flying. The Diagnostic Centre, we completed. We got the Vice President to commission it. What is going on right now is training and retraining of those who would run that place because the equipments, as you have been told, are almost like first of its kind in this part of the country. Most importantly, it is going to serve as a platform for supporting the health delivery sector.

This is also supporting water supply. We don't want anybody to move more than 500 metres to access potable water. We've carried out a statistical analysis of this and of course our policy on education is clear. Free education up to secondary school level is free. At the basic level it is not only free, it is compulsory. We are strengthening the tertiary institutions by creating platforms where there is an interface with government so that government will continue to show its areas of gaps and needs. This is what will inform how the schools will turn out those who will support the system. Otherwise we end up producing graduates whose levels of knowledge acquisition would not be relevant to the system. That informed why we set up the International Vocational Centre.

 Today in Kwara, we have created models of ten farmers in each of the 16 local governments. They've been compartmentalized into farm sizes, crops and location. These farmers are going to be our chain agents. We are training them and we have set up what we call an agric hub where farm inputs would be displayed and individual farmers can go there, access inputs, including funding. However, they would have been structured  in such a way that the farmer can see where he is going to buy his fertilizer from, where he's going to buy his seeds and chemicals and who he is going to sell to when he harvests. So to that extent, the chain is already clearly spelt out and the farmer is confident that he won't suffer post harvest wastage that we used to have.

“Importantly, the banker that is going to fund knows where his money is going to come out from because the off taker is not going to pay the farmer directly. He will pay into the bank that is funding the farmer. It is a simple mechanism we have put in place. Once we get it right, the ten farmers per local government will become change agents. They now become nuclei that will be supported by other out-growing farmers in their various locations so each farmer will now train 10 farmers each and we begin to grow organically as such. Our farmers will then begin to enjoy commercial farming under an agric transformation. The Federal Ministry of Agriculture is trying to do something similar but we are ahead because we have done commercial farming.

In a nutshell, we've marshalled out everything we need to do in the State for the next four years which is encapsulated into what we call the Medium Term Sector Strategy Framework, defining what is to be achieved under three key headings: Human Capital Development, Economic Development and Infrastructural Development. Everything put into this and we will drive as such. This will be the basis for moving governance from 2011 to 2012 to 2013 and so on. The most important thing is that we have broken them into modules. Modules are achievable within some defined timeframes which tells you that you are able to take it from point A to point D; somebody takes it from D to G; somebody takes it from G he moves it until you eventually get to Z. With this kind of platform, we begin to see value for money and people will understand the concept of governance and governance will not become an all comers game again. It will be the game of those who have strategic thinking and those who optimally utilize resources for the benefit of the people who want the resources. And that is the level of which we want to move governance to.

 We have quite a few things happening in the road sector. I think in the last two years, we have done over 800 kilometres of road. In the last two years, we have renovated, general hospitals across the three senatorial districts- at least you have seen the new general hospital in Ilorin and of course, the tertiary hospitals have also been supported in terms of infrastructure and human support. For instance, in Sobi (Specialist Hospital) we've started training our house officers who will become consultants. We've also supported water supply system. We've completed renovation of over 15 water works across the 16 local government areas. We are working on the issue of schools now. In the next 2 to 3weeks we are going to renovate another round of classrooms. We've done over 600 classrooms, largely supported by the State government and funding from the UBEC – Universal Basic Education Commission.''

Is anyone still wondering why the opposition's cocktail of misinformation, vicious campaign and outright abuses against the leadership in Kwara is bad meal in the state?

Raheem Adedoyin is the Special Adviser Communication and Strategy to the Kwara State Governor