Nigeria: 'Why We Employed Ex-U.S. Envoy'
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This Day (Lagos)
9 October 2008
Posted to the web 9 October 2008
Lagos
Bauchi State Government has said it employed America's former Ambassador to Nigeria , Mr Howard Jetter, to move the state out of socio-economic abyss and attract foreign investments.
Director of Press Affairs and Public Relations to the state Governor, Isa Yuguda, Mr Maigari Mohammed Khanna, in a press statement, said that in a bid to restore the state's lost glory, there was the need to partner with development agencies both within and outside the country, making use of people with wide contacts such as Jetter.
"As at the time Yuguda's administration came into being on May 29, 2007, social infrastructure ranging from schools, hospitals, offices, roads and industries were completely dilapidated, owing to neglect by previous administrations."
"Teacher-pupil ratio in public schools was as bad as one to 200. The same goes for the health sector, which had no modern theatre and live-saving equipment like dialysis machines, x-ray machines and functional laboratory equipment, while patients were in most of the general hospitals sleeping on bare floor", he said.
He said, "this situation forced the present administration to order closure of some of the general hospitals to pave way for their immediate reconstruction or renovation," he said, adding that the state government was the only big employer of labour and could only employ 25,000 people, out of a population of five million.
Faced with the task of having to start everything from the scratch, the state government, he said, had to think fast on moving Bauchi forward, by seeking ways of making contact with development agencies.
"That is how the name of Howard Jetter came in, because even as American ambassador, he did not hide his interest in bringing development to the state, because he was responsible for the establishment of Iya Abubakar Community Resource Centre, the largest Information and Communication Centre in the North-east region," he said.
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