AN APPRAISAL OF THE DICKSON ADMINISTRATION’S INFRASTRUCTURAL DRIVE [PART I] By: Dennis Alemu When on February 14, 2012 they stepped foot on Creek Haven, Governor Henry Seriake Dickson and his team met a state that was in a great hurry to develop. However, as a team that is well versed in the basic development requirements of Bayelsa State, they wasted no time to discover that the best approach to adopt, in order to bridge the huge infrastructural deficit, was to embark on a massive infrastructural drive. In fact, this was elaborately captured in the restoration blueprint, and of course, the electrifying inaugural address of Governor Dickson. Now three eventful years in the making, the Dickson Administration has meritoriously built for itself a towering reputation for the delivery of public infrastructure in Bayelsa State. The whole gamut of projects ranges from roads, bridges, public buildings to modern educational facilities. In fact, the infrastructural cartography and dynamics of the state have been tremendously transformed under the present administration’s rigorous Restoration Agenda. This is now common knowledge as the echoes of the Restoration Agenda continue to reverberate far beyond the shores of the state. Nonetheless, it is pertinent to note that much as the Dickson Administration has done creditably well in the delivery of capital projects across the length and breadth of the state, there are also now some growing misconceptions around the state about the policy thrust of government, because it focuses more on capital projects than it does for recurrent expenditure. Some critics of the administration have faulted its policies, maintaining that in so far as the government has not done enough in the domain of “stomach infrastructure”, it has failed the people. An apparently huge disconnect seems to exist between what the Dickson Administration has achieved for the state in practical terms on the one hand, and this negative perception being held by some Bayelsans about the administration and the Restoration Agenda, on the other. It is often said that in politics and governance, perception is everything. If some ‘right-thinking’ individuals who live in Bayelsa State in the last three years are making public statements that the Dickson Administration has done very little or nothing for the people of the state, despite the legion of projects that litter everywhere, it is either that such people are deliberately germinating the notion to feed their selfish political interests or perhaps, their minds have simply been colonized by enemies of development in the state. Whichever is the case, it is obvious that there is a real communication challenge before the government’s image-makers. Such challenge, under the rubric here, rightly borders on contextualizing the infrastructural accomplishments of the administration against the backdrop of destructive, unfair criticisms that it has not lived up to the expectations of Bayelsans. The appraisal must necessarily start with making a distinctive juxtaposition of the human empowerment strides (read “stomach infrastructure”) and the physical capital projects recorded so far.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 05:41:31 +0000
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