By Barnabas Agashua
Praise is ordinarily earned. But when the same team keeps returning to the same state to manufacture applause around projects that struggle to justify the celebration, citizens are entitled to ask whether praise itself has become a commodity.
We have observed with growing concern the increasingly curious frequency with which the Presidential Media Team led by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, visits Benue State ostensibly to “inspect” and “showcase” projects of the Federal and Benue State Governments.
The latest visit a few days ago is the second such project inspection tour of Benue State by the Presidential Media Team in barely seven months. Only last month, Governor Hyacinth Alia was also hosted at the Presidential Villa to brief the same presidential media establishment on what were presented as the achievements of his administration.
This extraordinary attention raises legitimate questions.
Why has Benue State suddenly become the preferred destination of the Presidential Media Team for repeated project inspection tours? How many other states have received this frequency of presidential media inspection and publicity? Is it now the responsibility of presidential media aides to repeatedly tour and promote projects executed by state governments?
These questions become even more pertinent when the projects being celebrated are subjected to scrutiny.
We have no quarrel whatsoever with the Federal Government executing projects in Benue State. Projects such as the Buruku-Logo Bridge, the Wurukum Overhead Bridge, the Makurdi-Gboko federal highway and other genuine federal interventions are welcome. Benue people deserve their fair share of federal infrastructure and should indeed demand even more.
What we find curious is the attempt to bundle Federal Government projects together with projects of the Alia administration in order to create an exaggerated impression of infrastructural transformation in Benue State.
Federal projects must be credited to the Federal Government. Governor Alia must be assessed on the projects funded and executed by the Benue State Government under his watch.
Once that distinction is made, the publicity begins to look considerably less impressive.
WHERE ARE THE COMPLETED STATE PROJECTS?
Governor Alia has been in office for more than three years. During this period, Benue State has enjoyed substantially higher federal allocations following the removal of fuel subsidy and changes in national revenues.
Yet, when the First Lady of Nigeria recently visited Benue State and projects were presented for commissioning, the completed roads showcased reportedly amounted to only about 11.5 kilometres of urban streets in Makurdi.
That is the uncomfortable reality no number of media tours can obscure.
A government that has spent more than three years in office should not require repeated visits by presidential media officials to convince citizens that development is taking place. Roads, hospitals, schools, water projects, industries and other infrastructure speak for themselves.
Underpasses Are Not A Substitute For Statewide Development
The Alia administration repeatedly showcases the High-Level interchange in Makurdi and the Gboko underpass/interchange as symbols of its infrastructure record.
But Benue is made up of 23 local government areas, not two roundabouts.
The relevant questions are straightforward: What proportion of Benue communities have benefited from completed state-funded roads under the Alia administration? How many kilometres of new state roads have actually been completed and opened to traffic? How many rural roads have been constructed to enable farmers to evacuate their produce? What is the condition of township roads outside Makurdi? Where are the signature projects in education, healthcare, water supply, agriculture and industrial development commensurate with the resources available to the government?
These are the indices by which an administration should be judged, not by the number of media cameras assembled around a handful of construction sites.
Even more importantly, an interchange should solve an identifiable traffic problem and provide economic value commensurate with its cost. Infrastructure is not built merely to produce impressive aerial photographs and campaign videos.
Another disturbing feature of the latest publicity exercise is the tendency to present ongoing construction as though it were already a completed achievement.
Government must be allowed to complete its projects, but citizens must also be allowed to distinguish between a contract award, an ongoing construction site and a completed project delivering measurable benefits.
You cannot commission promises.
You cannot drive on percentages of completion.
And you cannot ask citizens to applaud infrastructure that exists principally in government press statements while construction is still ongoing.
WHAT EXACTLY IS BEING “INDEPENDENTLY ASSESSED”?
The statement announcing the latest visit says the tour involving more than 40 editors and journalists was designed to “independently assess, document and showcase” projects.
The word “independently” deserves interrogation.
An assessment cannot earn credibility merely because journalists participate in a government-organized tour. Genuine assessment should examine not only what government officials choose to showcase but also project costs, completion rates, procurement, geographical spread, value for money and the opportunity cost of the projects.
An independent assessment of the Alia administration should therefore go beyond carefully selected construction sites.
The team should travel beyond the showcase locations. It should inspect neglected roads and communities. It should ask how much the state has received since May 2023 and what measurable infrastructure those revenues have produced. It should ask why communities still complain about basic infrastructure despite the extraordinary improvement in government revenues.
That would be an assessment.
Anything less risks becoming a guided publicity tour.
* Agashua is a public affairs analyst