On the killings of Vigilantes in Bakori and what he will do differently in tackling insecurity
I think what has happened in Bakori is a very unfortunate situation. Not more than 10 days ago, we were in those places campaigning for our party in our run-down to the election. Honestly, from the information I get, it’s like an insider thing. I think the government is doing everything possible to investigate the conflicts, which has masterminded this.
The most unfortunate thing about the incident was that there are vigilante volunteers. Those who are very strong, who don’t allow these bandits to attack their community. I don’t know what happened. They were all ambushed at the same time. Something must have been wrong that happened in that place. It has even affected the rally today because yesterday there was a very big debate about whether the rally should be postponed or shifted to another day because of the unfortunate incidents. After much argument, it was agreed that we should conduct the rally, but largely for condolences and sympathy for those people who have been attacked. We have done it low-key so that we commemorate and share the sorrow that has happened to the community.
Immediately after the incidents, we arranged some food items and money for the victims. The government has sent a powerful delegation. I, as a candidate, have sent a powerful delegation. It is because of the coming of Mr. President today that I could not be able to visit the place, but I am hoping to visit the place very soon so that we also commemorate the people in the area.
In fact, in recent times, like two, three, or four months, the attack has reduced drastically in Katsina because that has allowed us to visit all the 361 wards in the state. All those places, there were no good areas, but we were able to visit those places and we came out safely.
Despite the security warning and the security by most of the security agencies, we felt that we needed to get there so that we feel what those people are feeling in that place. We want to govern them, we want to stop the insurgency, we want to stop this banditry, we want to stop insecurity in our land.
There is no way you can stop it at the desk in the comfort of your office. You have to share the pains, you have to share them and then you have to visit them and have empathy for those people because the most important thing is to put your shoes in the position of other people so you will feel the pain.
I am a victim of this banditry because my beloved brother was killed in his house by this bandit. We are the same father and same mother. The other one also was kidnapped. I had to pay ransom to regain the freedom of my brother. So nobody can tell me about insecurity in Katsina because my family was a victim of this attack. It is one of the things that has given me more courage to seek this office because I have this tyranny in my blood I want to make sure that people live in peace in Katsina
I have said it over and over and over, but maybe people don’t care to listen, but I have said it over and over. Even if I have spent the money of this state as a whole, without building one block of a classroom or a road, or a culvert, I am ready to sacrifice all the money so that the people of the state can sleep with their eyes closed.
Then they can freely go to school, they can freely go to a hospital, they can go to market and earn a living. Because without security, there is nothing anybody can do. Because you can’t go to school, you can’t go to a hospital, you can’t go to market. There are situations before that even if you want to go to the mosque, you think about it because you don’t want to go there and you don’t want a bomb to blast you.
I remember deep down in 2013, and 2014, there was a time I was going to the mosque, and my wife had to hold my clothes so that I’m not going out. Because she’s afraid that maybe if I go to the mosque she won’t see me again. A bomb may blast, but all these things now are history.
Another twist of insecurity came up in the northwest and the north-central. These kidnappings, these killings, unnecessary killings. Heartless people can go just to a village and kill a hundred or fifty or thirty people without doing anything to them. So I think this is a very sad situation and I have come up with a lot of strategies in which I will counter insecurity in this state.
With the support of Almighty God, we’ll be able to deal with the situation and there is nothing wrong in the course of doing that, you lost your life. Because you lost your life in the course of helping your people to gain freedom and there is nothing wrong with doing that.
In Islam we call it a sacrifice, It’s an automatic gate to paradise. If you die in the course of doing all these things for your people and we are ready to lay our lives for these people because there is no way. We were here, we have security guarding us. You go everywhere with security personnel.
So you can buy your security. But the person in the village who is looking for food to eat, how is he going to protect himself and his farm, he has his cattle, he has his goat. So if you don’t allow him in those areas to stay and earn a living, so why do you expect him to go? There are a lot of rich people that have now become very poor.
Because they left their farm, they left their house, they left all that they have earned in their life to save their lives. They are now poor, begging for food. God has provided everything for them. So can’t you put yourself in that position?
On allegations that foreigners are behind the killings in Katsina and elsewhere since Nigerians are not known for brutal killings.
You know, honestly speaking, we are just trying to cover so many things because honestly, the majority of these things that are happening are the locals. The people that we know. If you go to those villages, they know those people that were killing them. They know their parents, and they know their grandparents. I’m not saying there is no infiltration from other places, but virtually the majority of what is happening 80% of it is being done by our people.
We live together. Some of them we school together. If you go to those villages, they will even mention the name of those people. They will tell you who their father was, they can tell you who their grandfather was. It’s not anything hidden. There was a place we went to in Sabo, a local government, Ndunguma Azo. we were campaigning, we were giving lectures. After the lecture, some of the security men were telling me that there are some of these bandits inside us. So they are known. They are known. So part of the strategy we are going to use is to use local intelligence. Gather intelligence at the local level. Try to see how you can suppress it.
We saw them live, and the distance where we saw them from the military checkpoint is not up to 500 meters. We saw them on their motorcycles with their AK-47. They ran inside the bush.
There were more than 20 motorcycles. They ran inside the bush and we passed. There was a road that took us about two hours to get to Sabo, a local government, and on tar road. Very bad road. It doesn’t surprise me when they said they called security, they came after three or four hours. Even, though we went for a campaign, it took us 32 hours to pass from that village to the main road. I’ve never made promises since when I started my campaign because it is only when I get there I will know what is available for me, and what I can do. But there and then I had to make a promise that I will do that because even if there is an attack, there is no way you can give them help in less than two hours. By two hours distance, the gap, two hours gap in between the attack, everybody must have left. But if you can respond to an attack in less than 30 minutes, it makes it easier.
So these are the issues. You know you tackle insecurity in two ways, kinetic and non-kinetic. And if you want to stop all these things, you have to use the locals. Train them, give them enough training, give them what they need to work with, and link them up with the police and the conventional police, and the army. Because those locals are killing their parents, they are raping their wives and their mothers. They won’t sit down and look at it because they rather lose their lives than watch that thing happening.
So if they have the training and they have what it takes to fight these people, they will do it. If you don’t do that, you don’t expect anybody that comes from somewhere who doesn’t know the terrain, who doesn’t know the people, who doesn’t know the culture, who doesn’t know anything, to just enter the bush and start killing them. Because they will kill all the security, because they know the topography of the place, they will hide somewhere and ambush them, that’s the way they did it in Bakore now. But the locals know all those places they can hide. They know the bush also just as well as the way they know it.
So they can be able to tackle the situation if you can give them all the necessary support they need.
The informal sector constitutes 60% of the GDP and being the former DG of SMEDAN, what are your plans to develop the informal sector, the MSMEs?
Of course, that is one area that I have much interest in. I was in SMEDAN for six years. I know what is MSME. I know what it will take to develop people in that direction. So that was why in my strategic policy I came up with the idea of establishing a ministry or an agency of small and medium, macro, small and medium enterprises in Katsina State. and it will be answerable directly to the office of the governor. I will be in charge. So that I wouldn’t want anybody to come and mess it up. Because if you want them, you must develop the informal sector.
No governor can tell you that if he becomes a governor he will give people a job. Where is the job to give them? How are you even struggling to pay salaries? You are even struggling to pay salaries and talk less about employing other people. How do you do it? The only way you can employ people is to allow them to grow. Let them be job providers, not job seekers.
We have this bad culture that if you finish school you start going from one office to another as a PA as a CP. We teach you to develop a bankable business plan. That if you go to the bank with that beautiful business plan you get access to credit and you become a job provider that you can be able to employ others.
People don’t know the joy of being an employer of the level until when they find themselves in that situation. I had been working, I was a teacher, I was a banker, I was a local government chairman. I have all been paid salaries. When they removed me as local government chairman I thought I was going to die because I had been used to my salary but immediately I started looking for a company and started looking for contracts. Started buying cars from Germany and the rest of the places. Before you know it I was earning in a month what I cannot earn in a year and I wake up when I want to wake up and I go to the office and go to my office at the time I wanted to go.
You get more freedom, you get more money, and you employ other people but people don’t understand. I give a simple analysis. I was working in SMEDAN so the average salary of a graduate in Smeden is not more than 60,000. At the federal ministries and all you have, you don’t have more than 60,000 as a salary as a fresh graduate level 8. Even in the state, it’s lower. But if you are selling Indomie, if you are earning 3,000 in a day, you will have 90,000. So the rapper is going to buy it for his wife, you that is earning 60,000 as a graduate, you can buy it. But you look down and you look at him, he is selling Indomie.
But you are the idiot because you are just asleep and fear, because of fear of the unknown. People have fear in them. Before you make money you have to take risks. Before you become successful why do you have to take risks
I resigned from my appointment, I have four more years to spend in SMEDAN Four more good years. Even if I become a governor it’s just four years. You have to undergo another election. When I took the risk of resigning, I’m not certain that if I come I will win. Even now that I’m contesting the general election I’m not sure I’m going to win. Life is about taking risks. But taking risks for good. So the only way you provide employment is through MSME development.
We have 15 microfinance banks in Katsina, in every federal constituency. What we intend to do is to revive them, recapitalize them, develop an agency that will train and empower them, and then follow it up with monitoring, and extension services, so that they can grow. Then, livelihood, increasing income. When you increase your income you increase your livelihood. The life of your children will increase, the education level of your children, and even the health status of your children and the family increase. Because the more money you have, the better life you have and the more you reduce the risk of going to the hospital. Then poverty. You reduce poverty. All this poverty that people are talking about, you reduce it to the barest minimum. Because when you multiply a bit, it helps us.
Look at the situation we found ourselves in Nigeria. We have gone into recession twice and we were out of recession twice. Not because of anything, it’s because of the informal sector. These people selling akara and everything that you don’t care to value. They sustain the economy and people don’t understand. This cash transfer from the federal government to school feeding and all these initiatives, credit money, market money, what have you, this COVID loan, and the rest of it. These survival funds were rolled out because of us. These are the things that help to revive the economy. You know this 5,000 that is given to a family in a month. When he gets the 5,000 he goes to the market. Those people selling, they get buyers, they get customers and the economy moves.
There is no government, I have ever known in Nigeria that has funded capital projects 100% more than the Buhari administration. I was a DG. My budget was funded 100%. And I know the budget of other places where I funded and it’s only when you fund capital projects that you will be able to revive the economy and stimulate the economy. If you are building a primary school, you buy roof sheets, you buy wood, you buy cement from people, and you hire laborers to do it. Those laborers that you hire, a girl will come who is selling rice and beans, she will sell and she goes home. You know this is how you stimulate the economy. There is no rocket science you use to stimulate the economy. When money is not in circulation, that is why now people are crying because of this cash policy. Because there is no money in circulation. Once there is money in circulation, people will be happy. They will not mind the government.
So we want to stimulate the economy so that people will not put their minds to what is happening in the government and they can be able to freely criticize the government at the time they want to criticize it since they are not looking for anything from anybody. In the morning they go to the market. If the governor didn’t do well, they will go to the radio and say he didn’t do well. We tell them you will not stop them from going to the market. The only thing is maybe you will not give the contract. It doesn’t matter. So people get more freedom. This democracy will also be able to stabilize more, and progress more, where people have freedom and economic stability. And that is all that we want to create.
There is no joy in becoming a governor. It is because I am a candidate that you came here. I could have been sleeping. Of course not. There is no joy in becoming a governor, honestly. The only joy that it will give you is if you do well for your people. You leave behind something. Now when they see your child tomorrow, they will say your father is a good man and that was what earned Mr. President’s respect. That was why he retired as a former head of state. People begged him to come and contest the election, which he did.
So I think leadership is not about enjoyment. Leadership is about sacrifice and it is not a joke. And whoever wants to sleep well, should not be after any political office.
The CBN policy on cash flow, do you think is a threat to an election?
Honestly, I would have loved for them to extend it. Because honestly, people are suffering. You see people in a queue. Some are crying. They have their money but they can’t get it. The only problem with this cash policy is that cash policy is going to be very good for our economy. Because there will be more money in the banks. And when there is more money in the banks, it makes credit availability more. And it will crash the interest rate because there will be competition because of banking. They don’t want to just keep the money. They want to keep the money so that they can make money.
But if there is no money in the banking sector, it makes the interest rate high. And a lot of people cannot do legitimate businesses because there are so many businesses that you want to do. But because the interest rate is high, nobody can make anything out of it if you collect that money. So that is why people don’t go to borrow money, but because the money is expensive. But once the money is available in the banking, formal banking sector, it makes it, there is liquidity. And if there is liquidity, people get access. But the only bad thing about it is the money is not available.
Like now, the cash policy says if I have a company, I can withdraw cash 5 million in a week. If you are an individual, you can withdraw 500 but if you go to the bank, whether you are a company or anything, you don’t get anything more than 20,000. How could that be? But the only thing, is you do the policy, you make the money available. That is just it. If you make the money available, there is nothing wrong. It’s a very good thing and it will help to curb corruption in the country. Because most of this corrupt money, you give it in cash, not in kind or more trust. Because if you transfer, there will be traces. So no government official will want you to transfer money if he does business with you. Because the EFCC can easily catch you because the transaction will be there for 20 years. You transfer, but it will reduce corruption in government. It will reduce corruption in the country. I love it. But the only problem with it is the money is not there. You moped up 2.7 trillion in circulation and printed only 300 billion.
If you take the salaries of states, no state in Nigeria pays less than 3 billion a salary, for primary school, state government workers, and local government workers. In Katsina, we paid about 6 billion in total. So if you add it up, maybe you take an average of 5 billion in each state, you have 36 states. How much are you looking at? You are looking at about $500, You are looking at about $300 and $30 or something. So you printed 300 billion.
Those people that are being paid a salary, remove it and buy foodstuffs and other things for their families. I don’t think there is any salary earner that will earn $30,000 and save $5,000. You can’t. So you need this money to go to the market. And they printed only 300 billion and if you go to Abuja, the federal government, the salaries at the federal government level, agencies, ministry, and what have you, I believe you have more than 300 billion also.
So it’s practically impossible. People must cry. But my only call is to let them make this money available. It’s not the distance. Even if they are going to close on the 10th of February, no problem. But let’s make the money available. What if I go, I’m looking for 5 billion, I can collect it and that is it. Even if you extend it for one year, as long as the money is not available, it doesn’t make any sense.