What can you say about the last two years of your administration in Plateau State?
First, I must place my gratitude to the people of Plateau State for their support and belief in our transformative leadership since we came into government in 2023. We have restored hope and confidence in governance and we have brought inclusive development across all segments of the state without sentiment.
We have also enjoyed a tremendous relationship with the media, and I want to thank you for your sense of patriotism, so far deployed. Some of the reports have demonstrated that you are stakeholders in the Plateau Project. The essence of the media is not to destroy, it’s to build, and therefore, what you report should add value to the state, being a critical contribution to our progress.
Let me go back to memory lane. When we took over on May 29, 2023, we were not oblivious to the challenges we were going to confront. The first was, of course, the issue of security. Those who have followed us would remember that we convened a security council meeting two days after we were sworn in, and to our chagrin, we found that none had been held for close to a year.
We immediately swung into action, trying to appraise the security situation, and see how we can re-motivate the security agencies, and, unfortunately, the security challenge has not abated as we had hoped.
But one thing we have done is that sometimes it’s difficult for people to appreciate what the government has done when these challenges continue, but I assure you that we will not relent, we are reviewing our strategy to ensure lives and property are safeguarded in the state.
But I want you to know that if we hadn’t done as much as we had done with the intelligence at our disposal, Plateau State would be a different place. There are so many details we cannot unveil, but I’m glad to tell you that Plateau State is relatively safer than most states. At the moment, we do not have any local government that is a complete no-go area, unlike some states. What we have are very opportunistic attacks that come in, and then they disappear. We don’t have a resident camp of bandits on the Plateau except in situations that have arisen in Wase Local Government Area. But I’m glad to tell you that we’ve been able to push back and we’ve been able to substantially regain ground in Wase. That’s why today, the grazing reserve in Wase is available for investment by the grace of God.
What new strategies are you deploying to confront the unabated security challenges in the state?
We are redoubling, rejigging, and recalibrating our efforts to stem the tide, and I’m sure that with the efforts we are putting in place, we’re going to see significant improvements not too long from now. One thing I must say is that we brought Operation Rainbow back to the frontier of security operations. Today, some people are complaining about the operations of Operation Rainbow, and I believe that if Operation Rainbow were not functioning, they would not complain about it. But it has been a good complement to the security agencies on the ground, and going forward, we can only strengthen it and not take it out.
More than the issues of security, which have clouded the progress we have made, is that what we promised the people of Plateau State is leadership. We promised that we’re going to lead, we are not going to be political.
I used to tell people that I’m not a politician. I’m in politics, but I’m not a politician. I’m in politics because that is the only platform by which you can come into governance, in our country, and my attitude is not just to be in office for the sake of it, but to be able to provide leadership that will take Plateau State to the level where we all dream it to be. A state where it’s economically buoyant and self-sufficient, a state that can compete with other states in Nigeria, even beyond the shores of this country.
What quality of leadership have you provided in Plateau State that is different from what has been seen in the past?
Going with the leadership that we promised, we have brought hope to our people. We brought hope that they can expect something tangible, that government and governance is not an avenue for wishful thinking or deceit, that governance is for the benefit of the people, and I think that if you ask me what our achievements are, one that I can readily point out is that we have brought hope back to the people of Plateau State.
I know that we haven’t fulfilled all their expectations, but the people of Plateau State can at least hope that things will get better tomorrow. That for me is very important, and so; this has been the focus of my administration, that in every critical sector of our lives, in education, healthcare, sports, economy, agriculture, mining sector;, all the sectors of our lives, that we can let people know that things can be better, and that is why the way we have approached our output in governance is to see how we can turn around every sector for the betterment of our people.
Over the last two years, by the grace of God, we’ve done as much as we could have done within the constraints of resources at our disposal. I recall that when we came in, we found a backlog of four and a half months’ salaries unpaid, and what we did immediately was to rejig the state finances, reach out to our creditors, and we were able to resolve the issue of unpaid salaries within a few months. I believe within the first two months, we were able to fix that situation, and I’ve often said it, that payment of salary is a duty. It’s a responsibility, and therefore, we don’t count it as an achievement, we have only done what we were supposed to do. If all we were elected to do was to pay salaries, then I think it’s not worth it; anybody can do that.
But I’m glad that we’re able to stabilise that situation, and I’m also glad that when the issue of the new minimum wage came on board, we were among the states that started the implementation. I believe that our civil servants today will testify that the work environment has improved for them.
We met a situation where ministries, departments, and agencies were conducting a lot of government business outside government offices, and it was pathetic to see Permanent Secretaries carrying out their work in business centers, but we’ve been able to give hope back to the service.
Again, some of them have not gone for any training for a couple of years before we came on board, and today, I believe that there’s a revival going on. We are not there yet, but there is work in progress. We will ensure we improve the lives of our people.
How has the removal of the fuel subsidy affected the state economically?
One of the key policy decisions of the federal government when we came on board was the removal of the fuel subsidy, and of course, it left a huge gap in the standard of living and purchasing power of the people and the government.
What we did immediately was to see how we can ameliorate that situation, and that’s why we’ve made tremendous investments in the transport sector, for example.
We decided to make sure that we improve public transportation, and we subsidize it. Instead of giving people palliatives, we thought that this kind of palliative would count, I believe that we will found that at the end of every month, an average user of our public transport will be saving between N 39,00 to N50,000 monthly and for us, that is transparent way of alleviating the suffering of the people because those savings can be deployed elsewhere.
And that’s why we also made sure that we worked on the railway system. Globally, the railway is one of the cheapest sources of transportation. We had to collaborate with the Nigerian Railway Corporation. We had some challenges, but I am glad that despite that, we’ve been able to bring it back on track, and I am sure that in the last week or two, people are using the train service effectively.
I’ve also read some social media comments deriding what we have done, and why we are not doing the blue metro line like in Lagos. Of course, like people would say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and I believe that we can only do better; we are not regressing.
When we came on board, you remember that there were issues even with air travel, and I am glad that we’re able to restore that service to the people of Plateau State. It has been improved because we now have at least three flights in and out of Abuja every week and then we have about six flights in and out of Lagos and in and out of Jos. We have improved tremendously. We also signed with the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria to be able to designate the Jos Airport as a Cargo International Airport, and therefore, in the next year, we’re going to be making investments to make sure that, that airport fits into that purpose so that from here it will become a regional hub for cargo aviation.
We’re working strenuously on the mistakes that air hostesses used to make when we were landing Jos, they say we’re about to arrive at Yakubu Gowon International Airport, and I look forward to seeing it become a true International Airport. Indeed, one of the things that I am happy with the media community is that you have not painted Jos a a no-go area and that is why today I am glad to let you know that our rooms occupation rate in our hotels is one of the highest in the country because people come into Jos and sometimes they struggle to find hotel rooms to sleep. Now, what that has done is that the standards of hotel accommodation are beginning to improve because of the competition, and I am glad that this year we’ve also been able to hold a lot of high-profile events where a lot of visitors have come into town. I remember we had almost a category of about a thousand lawyers when the Nigerian Bar Association Legal Practice section had its conference.
We also recently hosted the North Central zonal consultation of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Review, which brought a lot of people to the State. We had our group from outside the state, we’ve had diplomats that have come in here, and the amazing thing demonstrated to them that have come are amazed that this is not what they told them about Plateau.
They discovered that Jos particularly, is a very peaceful, pleasant, attractive city to visit and to stay. And they have continued to be our ambassadors outside the state too. Despite all the destruction brought by insecurity, by the grace of God, we have continued to attract people to this state, and I’m sure we can only do better as the days go by, and so aligning the transport sector with our general urban renewal program, we’ve been able to make a lot of investments in urban infrastructure, the roads we’ve had to construct. We’ve demonstrated inclusivity, we’ve made sure that the road infrastructure traverses the entire nooks and crannies of the city without discrimination. So, there is ga reat improvement in terms of infrastructural development.
What is the secret of this improvement despite other competing demands confronting the state?
People are seeing the benefits of these infrastructures along that line, of course, we didn’t just stay in the city. We’ve been able to go back to all the local governments. I’m glad to inform you, and I’m sure the Director of Press and Public Affairs can give you the details of all the road constructions going on in virtually every local government on the Plateau.
We are trying to make sure that all the road infrastructure, and the interesting thing is that we are not awarding new contracts, particularly for the local governments. We are only trying to complete the well-thought-out projects under the last PDP government of our father, Da Jonah Jang, that most of those contracts were awarded during this era, but they were not followed through, and we believe that governance is a continuous one, there is no need to discriminate who started which project, as long as it’s for the benefit of the people of the state, and that’s why we’ve been able to mobilize most of those contractors to go back to site.
We are confident that, by the grace of God, between now and early next year, we are going to see tremendous impact in terms of the road infrastructure, we are looking at it from different angles.
Some of them are from the World Bank projects we inherited, but we need to manage them well to get the desired impact, and so, for us, this has been very key. Road infrastructure is what benefits everybody there is no limitation as to who benefits what. And even for car owners, when the roads are better, your cars stay longer, and I believe that everybody will benefit from it.
What significant interventions have you made in education, health, and other key sectors?
When we came on board, we found out that the education sector was completely in disarray. I can tell you that when we took over, Plateau Polytechnic, for example, was about to lose many of its courses because of non-accreditation. We immediately swung into action. At the time we came in, it had sunk to the lowest of about 3,000 admissions. Today, we’re above 6,000, getting towards 7,000 and above with confidence coming back, and I’m glad that we were able to make those changes. The changes we made in those institutions are yielding the desired dividend.
At the Plateau State University, we’re able to also stabilize things, and I’m sure that if you go there today, you’re going to find significant improvement because we’ve not only improved the quality of teaching, we’ve been able to also increase the faculties, and work is also going on steadily in the state University too.
At the College of Education, Gindiri, we’ve also made some giant strides. We were able to get the approval of the National University’s commission to start about 17 degree programs at the College of Education, in addition to strengthening what was already on the ground, and so we are making progress.
But we didn’t just stop there; we’ve been able to intervene at the secondary level, too. We are also looking at the basic education level, and one of the things we are doing is to be able to put round pegs in round holes and make sure that the system is functioning the way it should be.
We are beginning to emphasize continuing education, particularly for personnel in the education sector, so that they can continuously improve themselves, and so we are making progress.
We are trusting God that the journey we have begun in the education sector is to reposition education on the Plateau within the next two years. Wait for the next WAEC, you will notice significant improvement, and we ar,e making steady progress.
In the health sector, it was a despondent situ;tion. We swung into action immediately, from the Primary Health Care (PHC) which is the foundation, and to the tertiary institutions, which is the Plateau Specialist Hospital, and I’m glad when we celebrated the tsecondanniversary some of you went with us on a tour of the hospital where a lot of work has been done, projects that started during the Jang administration, we were able to complete them, and today one of the high points of that initiative is the setting up of a modern laboratory which is comparable to any laboratory institution in the country.
Today I want to believe that our medical personnel will not be doing guesswork, they will do evidence-based diagnosis to be able to deal with all the complaints of people, and we’ve also been able to improve the departments within the hospital. We’ve moved from two departments to six departments. We have also brought the dental clinic under the hospital. By God’s grace, we’re going to make significant improvements in that sector.
If you plot a graph in the health sector, I’m sure you’re going to find out that it’s an upward trajectory, and then ultimately to cash in on the advantage of our weather to build capacity for medical tourism. We’re looking at how to be able to achieve that in the not-too-distant future. More so because we’re about to start the Medical Faculty at the Plateau State University, and so in the next two to three years, it will become imperative to have a teaching hospital owned by the state. This we hope to pursue by the grace of God.
