Alkali: A Quintessential Leader Rebuilding North East Region

Those who have worked with Goni Muhammad Alkali, the managing director of the North East Development Commission (NEDC), understand that from an early age, he worked hard for greatness through enormous humility, a large heart, generosity, hard work, patriotism, goodwill, accommodation, justice, fairness, and an exemplary leadership style.

His exuberance and doggedness always indicated that Alkali had greatness thrust on him to occupy various public offices, including the managing director and chief executive of NEDC.
As the one beckoned to serve, wherever Alkali found himself, he did with humility. He always got solid results for humanity.

Alkali is always described as a Peace Ambassador, gifted with a rare character of tolerance, accommodation and uncommon humility; his faith and skill in dialogue, listening, negotiation, and peaceful resolution of disputes and disagreements are down to earth and second to none, his character attracted him to the entire people of the North East booth old and the new breed as a colossus leader who changed the narratives in the six states of the North East sub-region.

Today, Alkali is a personification and symbolised the dictum when former President Muhammadu Buhari first appointed him.

Alkali cut out his leadership with diligence, exhibiting essential qualities by outlining his priorities, targets and goals as NEDC managing director. These included good planning, hard work, transparency, inclusiveness to reposition the region and resulted in a groundbreaking and harvest of achievements in all sectors because the region recorded both human capital and infrastructural revolution, which made President Bola Ahmed Tinubu renew his tenure in 2023 on merit.

When he was first appointed in 2019, Alkali knew how to achieve NEDC’s mandate, which is to coordinate all humanitarian interventions by ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) based on the Northeast Stabilization and Strategising Masterplan.

The NEDC had said it required N31.05 trillion to implement its 10-year masterplan for the insurgency-ravaged region. This amount would enable the commission to execute its projects for the region in four phases. To achieve this, the commission engaged stakeholders and conducted studies in 121 local governments in the six states in the zone.

The masterplan contains over 700 programmes and schemes that would promote and facilitate the physical and socioeconomic development of the zone to be implemented in 10 years (2020-2030), the first phase of the plan is the recovery and stabilisation slated for 2020-2022; renewal, which is second, covers 2022-2024. The third and fourth phases are expansion (2024-2026) and sustainable growth (2026-2030).

The plan contains vital pillars: attaining a peaceful society, leadership in agriculture, healthy citizens, an educated populace, flourishing trade, productive entrepreneurs, purposeful infrastructure, and industrialisation.

Worth noting is that the commission has executed 224 developmental projects in 112 local government areas across the six North-East states under the Rapid Response Intervention as part of the comprehensive master plan to rebuild the region.

Previously, NEDC earmarked N6 billion to replenish the 10 percent annual grants on scholarships for students in the region. The funds were used for skills acquisition and provision of starter packs for 5,000 ICT persons, 5,000 women and youths on entrepreneurship, and 2,000 other vocational skills in each of the 1,028 wards in the North East. They also launched the Education Endowment Fund (EEF) NEDC-EEF to address youth restiveness in the region, which origin comes from a lack of quality education.

Not an armchair leader, Alkali visited the projects spread across the three senatorial districts of Adamawa State, such as the ongoing construction of 500 housing units, the ongoing construction of an accident and emergency unit in Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital (MAUTH), solar-powered boreholes at Federal College of Education (FCE), and the installation of street lights in parts of Yola, all in Adamawa State.

He inspected the three mega schools constructed in each of the senatorial zones of the state, 2.5km access road at the College of Education, Hong, 40 housing units at College of Education (COE), Hong, 32km Garkida Dabna Road in which 14km has been completed and Dilchim Bridge which is under construction, a collapsed bridge along Madagali-Waga Road for possible intervention, water project in Mubi Polytechnic, ongoing projects at the state university in Mubi.

With the exception of the Dilichim Bridge, which is under construction, the two bridges on the Mubi-Gwoza Road that were destroyed at the peak of the Boko Haram insurgency have been completed.
He also inspected the 700 projects that NEDC had either commenced, fully completed or ongoing. Such as many critical roads and bridges in all states of the region. These include the 54km Mutai-Ngalda Road in Yobe State, Alkaleri-Futuk Road, 53km Gombe Abba-Kirfi Road in Bauchi and Gombe. Also, 22.5km Zabarmari-Ngowom Road in Borno State, 32km Dabna-Garkida Road in Adamawa State, 2.5km road at Adamawa State College of Education, Hong, and the Jabbi Lamba-Belel Trans Border Road,
The Managing Director inspected the 22.5 km Mafa-Jere Road and bridges at Kudzum, Dilechim, and Wuro-Ngayandi in Adamawa State and the Mayo Ndaga Bridge in Taraba State, which was constructed.

These roads and bridges have been carefully selected to drive the region’s commitment to reclaiming its pride of place as a leader in agriculture, which is one of the pillars of its intervention.
He inspected the construction of over 3,000 houses for low-income earners in the region with homes springing up in Bauchi, Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, Gombe and Taraba States.

The NEDC boss also inspected the construction of many technical and vocational training schools/centres as well as eight strategically located mega primary schools across member states are well on track with 16 classrooms, six laboratories, and 480-capacity hostels in every location in the states of the region.
There is also the multi-million naira edifice constructed at the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) to be used as the Centre for the Study of Violence and Extremism (CSVE); he inspected the vocational training institute in Wuyo of Kwaya Kusar LGA of Borno State and many others dotting the entire region has been described as a game changer.
Such facilities and many others have been used to train and empower young people in ICT, power, digital vehicular inspection, and other vocational skills.

In Gombe, the MD inspected a fully equipped Molecular Laboratory for Corona Virus constructed by NEDC under the current stewardship of Alkali, initiated projects like the introduction of electric mobility to significantly reduce the cost of transportation within the region, decrease carbon emission and guarantee clean energy, which is an idea only perceived by the Alkali’s team armed with wisdom and technical acumen.

Alkali ensured that the region’s most vulnerable were not abandoned by balancing critical infrastructure and “stomach” infrastructure.

I want to appeal to all the other development commissions to emulate Alkali’s leadership style in executing laudable and people-oriented projects.

Alkali expressed satisfaction with most of the ongoing projects in the state.

In his words, “Most of the projects across the states are progressing; I have seen them. We want to make sure that those having challenges are looked into and that we provide solutions to those problems so that they can be completed.”

I reckon that the achievements recorded by the NEDC under Alkali have become the standard for regional interventions and other regions must pursue them with the vigour they deserve.

Magaji sent in this piece from Gombe, Gombe State