In Praise of Mohammed Monguno

It is a steady transformational drive for the people of Monguno, Marte and Nganzai as federal lawmaker representing the area who is also the Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Barrister Mohammed Tahir Monguno continues to explore avenues to pave way for acceleration of sustainable development and food security for his constituency and the nation as a whole.

The recent publication of bills tally of the House of Representatives by OrderPaper apparently showed the untiring commitment and resilience of Mohammed Monguno in raising the bar and delivering exceptional nationalistic and historical impetus in the legislative chamber with 43 bills within two years period of the ninth National Assembly.

The federal lawmaker pioneered many innovative ideas both locally and nationally that have direct bearings on the livelihood of the citizenry. Monguno spearheaded tremendous developmental initiatives including the renowned Petroleum Industry Bill that saw the light of the day, a historic milestone and a key economic turning point for Nigeria.

He is the driving force behind huge projects such as the ongoing state- of- the- art N560million Monguno Water Project which was conceived to tackle growing water needs occasioned by the decade-long Boko Haram insurgency and influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the area and at the same time complimenting government recovery and resettlement drive.

Monguno’s strategic giant strides in meeting contemporary needs of his constituents holistically fine-tuned an all-encompassing empowerment programme from the agricultural sector, education, small scale business development and skills acquisition programmes which are gradually fading away the traumatic experiences of the Boko Haram insurgency.

In the area of education, Monguno has issued scholarship to students and so far distributed over one thousand laptop computers to students of higher institutions of learning in their quest for attainment of excellence.

Taking into consideration the agrarian nature of Borno especially his constituency Monguno, Marte and Nganzai, the lawmaker committed time, energy and resources to the sector to ensure a turn-around in the area of knowledge and skills.

The vocational skills development and empowerment covers areas such as tailoring, enterprise promotion, and boosting irrigation among other activities to enhance the livelihood of the people, mostly IDPs and the living standards of returnees to once devastated communities is yielding positive fallouts across all strata of human endeavors. This is by way of supplementing and ensuring sustainability of the means of living of mostly women and youth to support their immediate families and communities. In this parlance, hundreds of youths were trained and empowered with start-up capitals, start-up packs in addition to collaborative psychosocial reorientation on modern trends in attaining development by Mohammed Monguno.

He has continued to train and retrain peasant farmers on up-to-date agro-allied know-how to sharpen and enhance their expertise towards harnessing production to increase yield, imbibe modern procedures for storage and export in addition to distribution of improved variety of seedlings and agricultural equipment. These items include rain boots, industrial safety equipment, chemical sprayer, hand gloves, among others in addition to distribution of millions of naira to the farmers.

In the area of internal security, Monguno introduced peace and security reengineering programme in conjunction with Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution purposely to orient the mindset of young people, women and Civilian Joint Task Force on modern best practices to ensure security of lives and properties as well as supporting the visionary leadership of Professor Babagana Umara Zulum- led administration.

The lawmaker continues to stand firm at the lower chamber of the National Assembly projecting the concerns, immediate and future needs of his constituents. Monguno is no doubt a lawmaker with a difference through his unwavering visionary commitment to transforming not only the landscape of his constituency but directly touching the lives of the people.

Umaru Yakubu Kirawa, Maiduguri.