Mohammed Babangida Musa Bello, the rarest gem in the ministerial list. If you talk about integrity, competence, humility, honesty and austere life style, you will definitely not find this man wanting. He is not perfect, as only God is perfect.
We went with my elder brother now HRH JJ Fwa in 1992 to Bajabure industrial complex where mattresses called Nimaform were being manufactured. He went to place order for the supply of mattresses for his yet to be established Concordia College. That was first and last time of meeting this rare gentleman.He was the MD of the company. They spoke for few minutes and my elder brother asked how his father was fairing and about running the complex. He left me with the impression of an astute,austere, humble, straight forward Person. On our way bank, my elder brother who hardly commends people for being good, except they are exceptional good, was full of praises for him. He said his father Musa Bello was lucky to have such competent son and wished he had one like him. He emphasized that since he took over the company after leaving the bank, he overhauled it with new machineries, new marketing strategies which made his products a house hold name even in the South East as he showed us lorries, fully loaded with mattresses for onward delivery to South East.
My brother went further to say that since he took over the management of the company, it has never for once been closed and it was posting impressive profits.
I made another fellow who attested on his honesty, Mohammad Garba Muhammad Garba Laweso, my neighbour and good friend. He worked with him for several years during the Hajj operations when Mohammed Musa Bello was the Chairman. According him, the man was too honest and a workaholic. He said year in year out, the man has been returning excess money to the treasury after each operation and most importantly, during his tenure, the pilgrims were well taken of and all operations, executed with precision and high degree of honesty.
It’s the same story at FCT. In fact he felt apart with his friends and associates for refusing to bend the rules to give them lands and fat contracts. I had interacted with some of his associates who poured invectives on . When you ask them his faults, it’s the usual expression. “ Ya hana ruwa gudu.”
There is no doubt the man is true reflection of the change mantra we were expecting, but mixing such people with Akpabio, Sylvia and lai Mohammed is liking cooking gari and rice in the same pot.
If he will be posted back to federal capital territory, he has to do something about these.
1 street lightening and traffic lights that were functioning and separates Abuja with other cities are virtually grounded. He needs to do something about them fast.
2 concentrating major government Ministries and departments in central districts has not only congested the city, but placed them at security wise. Any attack launch by terror group or during war situation, Aso Rock, NASS and the judiciary can be destroyed in few minutes. It’s not therefore not a bad idea to relocate the 3 arms government far from each other. For instance you could take the judiciary to Kuje, Nass to Gwagwalada. In South Africa, the legislature is located at Cape town, more than 1454km from Pretoria the location of the Executive Branch and capital of South Africa and the judiciary is located at Bloemfontein, a town of 260,000 people and 466km from Pretoria. Just recently Custom Headquarters building was completed at Maitama. This is bizarre, this building ought to have been located at Airport road just like immigration. I wonder how we think.
Finally we need more of Mohammed Musa Bello, the Custom Boss, Hammed Ibrahim Ali, the JAMB Boss Ishaq Oloyede, ( I wonder why he was not appointed minister) and Boss Mustapha, SGF to able to get us out of the woods.
Fenny Fwah
Former Perm sec
Writes from Yola
Adamawa state
