Masari’s Government Has Rejuvenated Katsina Water Sector – CEO, Continental Foundation

A few months to the expiration of Governor Aminu Bello Masari’s administration, can we say his government has given Katsina a deserving restoration?

 

Honestly, I would want to say yes, and that has to be within the context of the fact that this government came to being, you know the financial situation it found itself and the price of oil which has been the mainstay and source of revenue not only for the state government, but the Federal government of Nigeria has plummeted and as God will have it. Immediately after, that then COVID-19 set in and so many contemporary challenges also surfaced;  banditry, kidnapping, cattle rustling and what have you, has been the main concern.

I would like to say yes, he has performed much more than expected within the context of the dwindling resources that have been accrued to it from 2015 to date.

 

What specific area can you say the government has made remarkable achievements?

I would like to speak on areas that concern me, areas that I have technical confidence to speak on. I was lecturing at the Hassan Usman Katsina Polytechnic throughout my 21 years of service. I provided to Katsina State. I have a specific concern for education. And that has been the reason why through my intervention programme I constructed a full-place secondary school in my community and it was named after my Father.

I know very well that the state government has done excellently in the area of education, and I’m confident of its tremendous performance in the area which is by far better than previous administrations that served in the past.

The next area that I’m fortunately involved in is water resources. I can say without provocation that the Masari administration has changed and rejuvenated the water sector in Katsina State much more than any other government combined.

Even from the defunct Kaduna State when Katsina State was created on 29th September 1987, I can say without mincing words or any provocation, that since the Ajiwa water treatment plant was commissioned in 1975, by then north central administration, there is no government, like I said, right from Kaduna State cascading down to the creation of Katsina State that has done extensively more than what  Masari administration has done. Why am I saying this? Because I was partly involved in the project.

When this administration came on board, virtually the distribution of water from the Ajiwa water treatment plant, the Barhim Reservoir, and the Kofar Kaura booster station were virtually collapsed and in a state of comatose. We were involved in the manufacture, shipment and installation of pump number one, pump number two and number three.

This was unprecedented because when these high-lift horizontal pumps were installed, as far back as 1973, no government has ever cared to replace them or even do a major overhaul, except this Masari government. And because fortunately, he is a water person that was why he was able to place an order with KSB of Germany, who are among the top 10 manufacturers of high lift pumps in the whole world.

We did the manufacture, shipment and installation. And today if you go to Ajiwa, it’s completely rehabilitated or a water box. Because like I said, in the pump house, there are three pumps which were completely changed to new ones. The entire control panel of the Ajiwa waterworks, as I said, was installed as far back as 47 years ago and has been completely changed with a modern control panel. And that too was manufactured by ABB of Sweden and it’s there.

The next intervention was the power, yes, previous governments have attempted to install one, or two generators, but when this government came into being in 2015, these generators virtually collapsed and they were not generating even one kilowatt of power at Ajiwa Water Works. The government embarked on the construction of brand new generator houses as they ordered 2,100 megawatts generators in two places.

Today, Ajiwa can proudly generate 4,300 megawatts of power, and kilowatts of power in two places. And those power plants were manufactured by no other person than the Rolls-Royce power of Germany, they had been the ones responsible for the manufacture, shipment and installation. The generators had been commissioned and today they are the ones powering the Ajiwa waterworks.

When you come to Kofar kaura booster station, it’s a completely different story because the whole gamut of Kofar Kaura booster station has been because it is the centre of distribution of water to Katsina metropolis, everything about the six pumps that were there has been changed, everything about the control panels have been changed.

All the buildings were demolished, a new set of structures erected with all the aesthetics and the landscaping of the entire surrounding has been done and added to that, an 800 KVA generator from Perkins, UK has been installed and these things that you can easily go and see and verify.

The next one is what we have across Katsina metropolis called water assets, those water assets like I said, have been lying down there idling and most of the sites have been encroached, like I said, for 47 years and this administration today, if you go to Rafindadi water tank, it has been secured with fence and befitting gatehouse and that strategy water asset has been secured. If you go to the concrete tank along the Hassan Usman Katsina Polytechnic, that facility today has been secured. If you come to the industrial tank, which was called Katsina Steel Rolling mills water tank, the facility to has been secured.

And like I said, there was no other administration in the past that has cared to secure those strategic water assets. And you know what it means by securing them because today you have chemical warfare and what have you. So there was a need even in the previous for those strategic water assets to be secured.

And last but not the least, what the governor has done at Ajiwa water works is the complete overhaul and the change of the Whole thing and gear motors.

At the Ajiwa, there is no way anybody can embark on the journey of distribution of water without functional clarifications. Probably last month, the governor was there with his executive council members and the press to see to the commissioning of the two clarifier units.

Those clarifier units have completely been changed. And if you go there, you’ll probably think that you’re in another place. So like I said, I stand to be corrected, Masari intervention in the area of water is unprecedented in the history of Kaduna and even Katsina State.

 

What kind of assurance would you give residents as regards the quality work done by the company that handled the project?

You see us as continental computers. We are just vendors and just modifying the transaction because of my previous engagement with an international community. I am an offshore procurement specialist, I’m coming from the background of being the president of Katsina Chamber of Commerce, Mines and Agriculture for four years, a vice chairman of Northern Chambers of Commerce for 4 years. I was a national officer of Nigeria Association of Businessmen for 4 years and that gave me the privilege to have understood international procurement.

And so the continental computer was just serving as a link, that was why I gave you specific names of those companies that are among the top 10 manufacturers in the world that have manufactured most of this equipment at both Ajiwa water works, the power plants and the Kofar Kaura booster station and even at Gwagwaye dam at Funtua.

If you’re conversant with the water sector, the water sector is synonymous with the KSB of Germany. Like I told you, this is a 216-year-old company. you are a member of the fourth estate of the realm, you can easily verify. They are the manufacturers of the whole equipment and all components that were installed at the waterworks.

Like I told you, the power generators at Ajiwa were manufactured by Rolls Royce power of Germany. So there is no two about it, you are engaging the best original equipment manufacturers you can find anywhere in this world.

 

What has your relationship with the governor been like?

My relationship with His Excellency, Governor Aminu Bello Masari, dates back 33 years ago, and throughout this period that I knew him, he has assisted me in so many ways that he can. It has been a long-lasting relationship.

I would want to describe him as a gentleman to the core, and I’m sure posterity would be the one to judge him in the next nine or 10 months when he has successfully finished his tenure as governor of the state.

There is nothing you can remember about him as much as the fact that he has demystified governance, in the sense that today he is the only governor of the state that is within the midst of everybody. He is the only governor in Nigeria that I know that people have access to him right from morning to late or mid-day and night. And he is associated with the low, high and even the lowest of the lowest in society.

He has a listening ear for everybody, probably that is the reason God has made him what he is today, that people will remember him as a governor that has demystified governance. I’m sure those of you who have been around at the press in the past, have seen the rate of courtesy calls from the kinds and manner of people that will want to come and interact with him. And honestly, his meekness of human kindness is second to none.

It is not because probably I have associated or he has assisted me in so many ways, but I’m sure I’m speaking the minds of the public. As I said, posterity would be better judged for the good conduct and character of Rt Hon. Aminu Bello Masari.

Certainly, he will be missed. The dynamic nature of human beings is that no two persons are the same. So whosoever that is coming after him would be left with a big vacuum to fill.

 

What informed the Continental Foundation to embark on community interventions?

Right from the onset, I’m coming from the background of the fact that my late father was a community leader, and I imbibe this culture or spirit of giving from him.

He always tells us when we are growing up, that wealth is given to us in the custody of God. So, whatever you have is for the benefit of the larger. In Fact he always says that any wealth that is not shared, then it’s not wealth but poverty and the only way you can show appreciation to God is by applying it back to society.

 

Throughout his life, up to the time he died in 2006, he lived for 94, and he was inaugurated as a councillor as far back as 1st October 1976, representing Rimi district in Katsina local government here. And then the chairman of the local government as far back as 1976, when they were inaugurated the 1st set of elections that were carried out under the transition of Gowon or Murtala administration towards a transition to civilian rule on an experimental basis at the local government level was done by then.

 

He contested and won elections on a non-party basis and they were inaugurated along with so many other personalities including Senator Abba Ali, who is still alive, he was the chairman of Katsina local government then and he has served up to the coup of 1983, December 31st.

 

So, as I told you, my late father is a community leader and all his life, he has served to the best of his ability. So it is from him and so many other well-spirited individuals that when we were growing up, I imbibed this spirit or culture of giving back to society.

 

And for those who know my background from where I started, my philanthropy dated back to 27 years, and since then I have been trying to see whatever I get, whatever I have, I blow back part of it for the benefit of the larger, especially my immediate Kadadani community in Rimi local government area.

 

What are some of the interventions your foundation has made in the state?

 

You see my major intervention, because I want to call it a major intervention, was the construction of two classrooms and an office and store at Kadandani primary school. It was built in 2006 and that block is still standing there since it was commissioned, much later in 2012.

 

I constructed what is called the second Juma’at mosque also commissioned by His Royal Highness, the Emir of Katsina Dr Abdulmumini Kabir Usman as far back as 2012. The third major intervention structurally was the construction of the Kadandani primary healthcare centre. This was a project we carried out alongside CSDP on a 50/50 basis. These two were done in 2013 and commissioned at that time after the construction of the Kadandani Jumaat mosque.

 

My next project was the construction of a befitting hospital. Unfortunately, there was this intervention coming from the CSDP project and they were constructing little primary health centers but I told them that we can partner and they agreed. I gave them a commitment in writing that whatever resources they would want to commit wherever they stopped, then I continue from where they stopped.

 

I gave them that commitment. Fortunately, the operators of the project were Salisu Yusuf Yar’adua who was the general manager and Masaudu Banye and so many others who are my colleagues at the Polytechnic. I gave them my commitment to writing and it was based on that I embarked on the project.

 

I provided the 10 per cent deposits required and when the builder reached a certain level where their money had finished, it’s a 16-ward hospital and I continued from there and finished the building. then provided all the beddings, the equipment, furniture and what have you that are required to commission the hospital.

 

The biggest of them all came in 2015, was the construction of the Kadandani community day secondary school that consists of 12 number classrooms, an administration block, the computer centre, VIP latrines for both male and female students, staff offices, solar facilities, computer system among others things to mention.  And the laying foundation ceremony was specifically done in August of 2015 and it was commissioned nine months later precisely around July 2016.

 

That was the biggest project I’ve carried out by constructing that secondary school and subsequently after that as you have seen last three weeks, we commissioned a 24 -bed female medical ward at the general hospital and ‘Insha Allah’ in the next few weeks, we are still going back to Kadandani community secondary school to commission the 350 seats assembly or multipurpose purpose hall, which has been named after living memory of the Late Amina Kabir Usman, the mother of the present Emir of Katsina. The project like I told you has been completed.

 

 

It’s a very big structure with all the requirements and as I said in the next few coming weeks, that project will be commissioned.

 

 

And when we wanted to start quite a several projects at the Ajiwa water treatment plant, I was looking around, because my eyes were not only on the projects or the contract but given the opportunity to do 1 or 2 projects there. So I was looking at the specific needs of the community.

 

And I realized that they don’t have an Islamiyya school and it was in realization of that, that I consulted them and the pupils, and their children were virtually attending Islamiya in the evening once the primary school was under the shed. So today I have erected befitting structures, I have erected a befitting mosque. The mosque has already been commissioned.

 

How would you like to see Katsina in the near future?

 

You see, fortunately for us, right from the onset when the state was created precisely 27th September 1987. Right from the days of Col. Sarki Mukhar who was a military administrator, then up to the present Governor of Katsina state, fortunately for us as God would have it, I would want to say is a divine providence to Katsina that the state has never had a governor that has not shown interest in infrastructural or developmental strides of the state.

 

I believe Katsina would continue to grow and anybody who has been to Katsina or who has not been here for 10, 20 or 30 years, it has always been a wow!  And whenever you come around, you say this place has become big, has grown. Now you will never hear such comments as this was a place I left 10, 20 years ago and is still what it was when I was here 20 or 30 years ago. It has always grown in life and bound.

 

So honestly speaking, I aspire to see to the sustainability of this trajectory and the development of Katsina State.

 

What would be your message to residents of the state?

 

My message has always been to those of us that are entrepreneurs, we will want to say that I participated in one activity of the government or the other. In those echelons of society, we have a lot to contribute. Everyone has a lot to contribute his quarter towards the growth and development, it may not be in a bigger perspective, but our immediate communities.

 

I will want to appeal to every one of us to go back to where we came from. Because every one of us has a specific community that he comes from. The other day I was discussing with somebody and he was seeking my intervention, I said, let me see your intervention first, that go back to your alma mater, the primary school in the village you attended, see what you can do in terms of probably blown-off roof, then buy one bundle of zinc and give to the headmaster or the education sector or just ask a carpenter to construct 1, 2, 3, 5 or 10 sets of furniture. And you donate that is a starting point.

 

If we wouldn’t do that, the reality of it is that the situation of resources at the disposal of either tier of the government is not enough to even provide for the needs of Nigerian or Katsina people in the area of education, because why exponential growth that we have witnessed in population when Katsina state was created, I will not want to quote the population, but I’m sure we are no more than 2 million people today, NBC, the population figure of Katsina state is more than 8 million.

 

So exponential population growth, today, the population of Nigeria is over 200 million, so people will still want to say that as of 1980, which is our 42 years, people who have been paid at various levels of education are being provided with scholarships forgetting the fact that goes back to 1980, get the census, get the figures, get the revenue that accrues, get the student population. And that is when 42 years later today, 2020 will get the back sheets of revenue that have accrued, the population number of students and so on then that tells you that yes, government at different levels needs to be complemented by all and sundry.

 

It’s not about the fact that this intervention has to be mega or big, the smallest intervention you rendered can change the narrative. As I said, I am a village boy and I come from the village and I know that little intervention, honestly speaking will change the whole concept of society.

 

So, we don’t have to wait until when you have big money, big resources or until you have specific money to do a specific project. Just that small project that you can intervene in, as I said, specific two areas, education and health are very critical and germane to the needs of our local communities.