Your administration is one year in office, what have you been able to achieve within this period?
When we came in last year, Katsina state was battling with a lot of issues, especially the issue of insecurity. We believed that we must do something as a state not to fold our arms because security is being controlled at the centre, or it is the sole responsibility of the federal government. As a governor, you cannot just fold your arms and allow criminals to be killing your people on a daily basis. You must do something to support what the federal government is doing in order to reduce the incidence of insecurity in the state. We took over about 23 local government areas which we categorise in two. The front-line local government areas are eight in number, and the vulnerable local government areas. The issue of insecurity has reached up to places like Charanchi, Ingawa, Bindawa, Kankia local government areas and moving. But as almighty Allah will have it, when we came on board, we set up our own local security outfit. And this thing has reduced drastically and the whole has moved down to the frontline local government areas. It was only maybe one or two vulnerable local governments that are affected in one way or the other from time to time. And their tactics have changed drastically. Not coming as they want to molest people. Now 90 per cent of the attacks are done at night and in very hard to reach areas that may take security agents about two to three hours to reach there. It is very bad terrain. We have taken the war to the next level in which we have organized operations through the eight local governments where the security agencies are attacking the bandits and not waiting for bandits to come and attack.
We have done that for a month, and we are still appraising the performance and making assessments on that operation to see the success and otherwise of it before we strategize on the next stage, which I don’t have to mention in detail of what we are planning to do. But we have lost a number of people. We have lost a number of properties. And this thing keeps occurring and the system, the terrain and the strategy look almost the same.The security agencies need to study and do something different from what we used to do before. We had a series of security meetings that I don’t want to disclose, but we are also working towards eliminating the issue to the barest minimum we could at this stage. And we have been calling and seeking for partnership and collaboration with the security agencies which have more superior fighting power that can match what the bandits have.
Just last three days we had a bandit attack in which they used a rocket propeller and shot one of our APC vehicles which made the vehicle somersaulted but with the intervention of the security we were able to restore the situation. And recover our vehicle and rescue the passengers. So the war is not as easy as people think it is. Because it is a very difficult war in such a way that you don’t know who your friend is and you don’t know who your enemy is. You don’t know if you are sleeping with your enemy in your own house. So whatever strategy we put in place, in 31 hours you will get information that the people in the bush, they may get the information before us. So that is what makes the war difficult and the war has been a major distraction. I don’t want to be carried away by what we were able to achieve in the first year, because I’m looking ahead. This is not what I want Katsina to be. I have set for myself a very high target and I’m working to achieve that. But my major happiness as a governor is always to make sure that the right person gets the right thing. That’s why I am moving away from an era of lobbying, political considerations, favouritism, and making sure that my approach to governance is to reach the people at the bottom of the pyramid.
I was so happy at this chamber when we had a fair event with 41 students that we took to Egypt to study MBBS, who came from public schools and are the children of the poor without the influence of one single individual in this state. They got the opportunity purely based on merit. They sat for the examination and passed. And the opportunity was equal in proportion because we allowed every local government to produce the best they have. When we recruited the teachers, I did not allow any member of my cabinet or a member of the state assembly to manipulate or to influence decisions on who should be recruited. The first thing I did which set the tone was that immediately I was sworn in, I dissolved all the permanent secretaries and subjected them to examination before they got back their seats. So, if I start from the top, anybody at the lower level should sit up and know that we are not here to joke. That is part of my happiest moments. But the saddest ones were to received calls that 10 or 20 people were killed in a village or were forced to abandoned their houses or their women raped and some kidnapped. The only way you can appreciate that is to imagine being in their position. I’ve already developed that feeling and it remains with me because my elder brother, who I share the same parents with, was killed by the bandit. He left behind 27 children and three wives.
Sometimes you feel that why should I be here when people are being killed and I can’t do anything? And that was what called for the debate of the state police. Before I became a governor, I was one of the critics of the state police, but I have seen the need for it and I have seen the effort the Katsina state community is making towards curbing insecurity with the optimum courage, determination, and dexterity. And that informed my decision to call on the president to make sure that any police officer from the rank of assistant superintendent of police should be posted to the state of his origin. Any military officer at the general level should be posted to their state of origin. Why? Because they should protect the life of their people and they should have affection because their relatives, their brothers or their sisters, if they like, they should allow people to kill them. I tend to wonder when people start to say that state governors are going to manipulate state security authorities to oppose their opponents. Were we not in Nigeria when Jonathan has all the security agencies answerable to him and he lost the election?
And if you said that an elected governor is going to manipulate the state apparatus against the opponent, what makes Mr President a saint who won’t do exactly the same since he has control over the security apparatus. It is about leadership. It’s about responsibility. It’s about doing the right thing at the right time.
Because if you’re a governor today, you use state police against the opponent, you may not be governor tomorrow and the person that is a governor may use it against you. So why can’t you do the right thing? It’s about responsibility and having responsible leaders.
You recently said some security operatives, civil servants and traditional rulers among others, are aiding banditry. Have they been identified for sanctions?
That statement generated reactions. Let me say this: I hold the security operatives in high esteem because they are also being killed on a regular basis in their determined efforts to curb insecurity in the state. But the point is, there is no set category of people not involved in this, what is hidden here and who was not arrested? Different categories of people were arrested for an allegation of being involved in banditry, criminalities and many other vices, even here in Katsina. So I don’t know why people should be bothering themselves when I say this, because some people want to foil it, but I still remain here and say the same thing that there are a lot of different categories of people, in or outside government, that are involved. A number of arrests were made and there are security reports that we have. And even in prisons now when you go, you will see some people who were arrested, they may be from the security agency, may be from the government, they may be traditional rulers and what have you. But the issue is that we should understand that we have good people everywhere, but you can’t eliminate bad eggs and the bad eggs are with us.Why should we meet and then you hear information somewhere from the bandit on the discussions after an hour or 30 minutes? So somebody must have leaked the outcome of the meetings to the bandits. If there is an operation before you get there, the bandit will have the information. So you must ask who told them that? We must tell ourselves the truth before we get to the root of the problem. We have to examine ourselves. There is no organization that doesn’t have a bad egg. We should fish it out.
Can you give us an insight to the achievements of the community watch corps vis-a-vis the roles of the traditional rulers who were placed on surveillance?
I think the Commissioner of internal Security is here who can shed more light on what we have achieved so far but to answer your question is yes, we were able to arrest a representative of a village head in Kuka village, Bakori local government. He was arrested because of his involvement with the bandits. He was given 700,000 to allow bandits to invade a village and kill over 30 people.This government has tried very well to bring the police, the army, the Air force, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC), the DSS and the Community Watch Corps (CWC) to work as a team. That is why we’re recording these successes. We did not force somebody to work outside his local government. They’re all indigenes of Katsina. They are working hard to curb the insecurity challenges, and they reduced the insecurity to about 20 to 30 per cent.
Available data from the national bureau of statistics shows that Katsina has a 72 per cent poverty rate. And I know that sometime last year you pledged to prioritise the welfare of the people. What has your government done so far in this regard? And what are your plans going forward?
I will first of all address the issue of poverty, so that you don’t need anybody to tell you that there is poverty in our land, because you can see it in the faces of the people when you move around. And then we understood that the problem of insecurity is attached to the problem of banditry and criminalities that we have in our region. If a woman can be given N500 to transport petroleum in a disguised manner to the bush to give to the bandits, if a young man can be recruited for N2000 to provide information on his neighbour, you cannot say that, yes, there is poverty here because when there is poverty you even lose your conscious. So we said we’ll approach it in two ways: kinetic and non-kinetic. So we have come up with a lot of strategies and that was the reason why we established Katsina State Enterprise Development Agency (KSEDA), to provide support to our SMEs, especially micro and small scale businesses. And the government has since set aside N3.4 billion for that in collaboration with the Bank of industry as managers. Just last three weeks, we launched the training of mechatronics, where 3000 youth across the state will be attached to various mechanic workshops and after their graduation will support them to open their own workshop and to establish their own businesses and provide employment to teaming youth. And one other way of addressing poverty is by improving productivity. Agriculture is our major occupation. That is why we created Katsina state irrigation authority so that we have all year-round farming in the state and reduce redundancy by keeping everybody busy for the whole year. Also, we’ve increased the number of extension workers in the state.
When we came in, we met only 72 extension workers in the state, but we were able to improve it by 722 more extension workers in the state. Just yesterday we gave each one of them a motorcycle and some other equipment that will allow them to walk and to move around to enlighten farmers on the way to improve their productivity. Just yesterday we launched 20,000 metric tons of fertilizer to be distributed to farmers at a very subsidized price, it was yesterday that we launched that and we were giving it just before they start the farming activity so that the farmers will have their fertilizer in their rooms before the time for them to apply it. Because it would be very wrong to give a farmer fertilizer after two or three months when that time has passed because agriculture is timely production. These are some of the things we are putting in place to engage the farmers, to engage the youth and the locals to be productive and to reduce the level of poverty and improve their livelihood. In the last three months, we supported over 6,100 farmers in the state and we supported women and youth with huge items worth N2.5 billion just to keep them moving and supportive. And then at the interim level, we provided foodstuff, because we have reached a stage that we are not even talking about, we are looking at what are you going to put in your mouth.
You may also wish to tell us what you have done in addressing challenges of water supply which remained intractable?
Yes we have an issue of water supply in the state and this is due to expansion because the water system that we have in the state through Ajiwa dam, all the infrastructure was put in place for the last 40 to 50 years. It was the last administration that started the work on how to improve the piping, the submersibles, the machines, the engines and which they engage the original producers of those machines in the last 40 years. I visited that factory and as I speak to you, some of those heavy submersible machines were on their way to Katsina to improve water supply. But that will not solve the problem because the network and the piping of the state were done in the last 40 to 50 years. So the expansion we have is almost five times the original size because of urbanisation. But we are working with the company to get a support that we can be able to pursue the second phase of the Zobe project that second phase of Zobe project will include piping the water through Dutsin-ma, Kankia to back to Katsina, and also refine the water in the state. But that requires heavy amount of money that we have been talking with some partners to see if we can get some funding to pursue that very big mega project that will address the issue of water to about nine local governments coming from Dutsin-ma, Kankia Ingawa, Bindawa, Rimi down here and also coming from the other side, addressing issues in Kurfi and other neighbouring Batagarawa local governments. And under the SURWASH programme, we have improved some articulations and water networks in some parts of Sardauna Estate, part of Batagarawa low-cost, Rafindadi and Tudun Matawalle. We have done a lot of work there, which we have spent over N5.6 billion to improve the supply of water in the state. But the mega work that we want to pursue to provide a permanent solution to the water problem in the state requires financing and we are talking with a lot of partners to see how we can get funding to pursue that very big project.
What do you think is the best way to address the rate of insecurity in the state and country at large?
I think the only way out for this insecurity issue is to use technology. What stops the government from using technology to fight this insecurity? What stops us from having a coordinated and joint operation? What stops us from pursuing and being proactive rather than being reactive? Why do we have to wait until they attack us before we react? Why can’t we have coordinated, selective targeted attacks and targeted approaches to fight this insecurity? Why can’t we use drones? Why can’t we use surveillance cameras? Why can’t we use trackers? Why can’t we pursue this thing? Fighting insecurity requires some level of strength. There should be a clear and a very supportive approach between the subnational and the national government. We are here, everybody calls us the chief security officers of the state, but are we? We are not because we don’t control the security operatives. So what are you chief for when you are not in control. It is better we look at it holistically and address it so that we’ll have peace and get the needed development that we require in the country because we are going backward. Just an example, we have built schools, hospitals in these frontline local government areas. Some of them were destroyed, so you have to redo it again. So it’s like we are going backward instead of us to keep progressing. We will remain in the same place. And when you look at the inflation, you see that the school you built for N9 million yesterday, you will build it for about N18 million today.
What is your administration doing to offset the backlog of pension and gratuity of retirees?
When I came in as a governor, we met a huge liability on pension and gratuity. The state workers are being owed about N10 billion and the local government was about N23 billion, totalling N33 billion. What we did was to keep paying the pension as at when due. I then put up a verification committee in which they submitted a report last month and they brought their interim report and they’re still working. But what we agreed with the committee is for us to start paying for the death gratuity from 2019. And we came up with a figure of about N6 billion or so and we agreed to pay it within six months, we split it for both local government and state, it will end by June we finish paying all the accumulated debts. And after that, we’ll now plan to pay the rest of the money, splitting it over some months to see how we can be able to address that. But I’m assuring you that we are addressing the issue and we have made payments so far of over N4 billion for the death gratuity. And we are still counting. And then you will never see any debt of our retiree or civil servants again. I’m assuring you that over time we’ll try to address that. To ensure we address this issue permanently, we now have a contributory pension commission because a time will come that pension will be greater than the salaries that we are paying if we didn’t address it now. So we must take the pain and address the issue now so that we provide a permanent solution to the problem.
