Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, at the weekend interacted with journalists on his stewardship in the last two years. JOHNSON BABAJIDE brings excerpts of the interaction, which covers milestones recorded, while lack of funds and insecurity are the governor’s greatest challenges.
Expectations and what was on ground
As a Christian, the Bible says, “all things works together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose.” I will not say I regretted or disappointed with what I met on ground. But honestly, I met a deficit treasury when I came, in the midst of very high expectations from the people, especially looking at my track record. I’ve never been a failure despite the challenges that I met in my life, I’ve always overcome and I’ve always been positive about life and the records are there, it has shown.
Background
I am from a very poor background; I dropped out of school in form two and despite all these, I was able to overcome my academic challenges and I had to crown it up with a Ph.D through very difficult circumstances, but God saw me through. I started work as a motor park tout and by the grace of God, I became a conductor, a driver and went on to see myself in leadership positions at the local government, state and national levels. My last appointment before becoming a governor was Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As a Tiv man, we are known for farming and I started at a very small level, but today I’m one of the biggest farmers, not just in Benue State, but in Nigeria and I’m into various segments of agriculture – livestock, poultry, grains, tubers, citrus and fishery. So, it has been a success story all along. Everything I lay my hands on has always succeeded, so even though the people were expecting so much from me to take them out of poverty, ignorance and disease, I was quite prepared and ready to do it and that I’ve been doing.
Challenges
But the fact is that I met a deficit treasury and having salary arrears, pensions and gratuity of over N69 billion was quite tasking. Almost all the institutions of government were grounded – schools were on strike; primary schools, Benue State University and several other unions were on strike. So to contend with this, the first thing we did was to seek an approval from the House of Assembly to borrow N10 billion to, at least, serve as a cushion for the hardship that salary earners were having. And we all know that Benue State is a civil service state. Agriculture comes in to support the people but they are doing it at a very small level; not much commercial agriculture is going on in Benue so it has been very difficult. And so the civil service is the main economic driver of the state. And so once salaries are not paid, it becomes a very big challenge. The average person on the street and the average person in the village are affected as a result of this. So, we were able to borrow money to take off and since then we have been battling to see how we can clear salary arrears. The Federal Government came in with a bailout. We had wanted them to bail us out with N69 billion but only N28 billion was approved; N15.5 billion for the local government and N12.5 billion for the state. These we paid to workers and because of the screening we undertook, we were able to save at the state level, more than one billion naira, which we injected back into the treasury for other government activities. At the local government level, we were able to save up to N1.4 billion after the screening and it was garnished by the Industrial Court order and so we had gone on appeal and we’re looking forward that we can inject it back to settle some arrears also. So, it has been a very difficult problem – trying to update salaries of workers in the state. But one thing that we’ve noticed also is that there is a cartel, a syndicate that is responsible for the over-bloated wage bill we have. We have set up various committees and they are working and I think that we are trying to get it right now because the interim report that was submitted to me two weeks ago shows clearly that we’ll get it right this time. This is because one tenth of the workforce was screened using previous payments and it was discovered that within a period of one year and three months, for one tenth of the work force of the state, the committee discovered that N1.4 billion was being siphoned through ghost workers; those who were retired and their names were still featuring and things like that. So, I believe that by the time they round up their work, we will be able to get it right. Because, honestly, I believe having a wage bill at the local government level of N3.7 billion is a big challenge. And at the state level, when you put it together, it’s N4.2 billion and so you are talking about contending with N7.8 billion for a state like ours. Meanwhile in the actual sense, at the local government level, we get an average of N2.4 billion from the Federation Account; at the state level we get an average of about N2.5 billion. So this becomes a very difficult problem. But there was also this arrangement from the Federal Government – the budget support fund which is an average of N1.1 billion that comes in to support. So when you put all these together, there is still a shortfall contending with N7.8 billion. This is what has been responsible for the arrears of salaries we have today. At the state level, we have four months, at the local government, we have seven months. And we are working closely with the labour unions in the state and that is why you’ve not seen strike in the civil service, the reason being that we’re transparent. Whatever comes in from the Federation Account, from the IGR; we put it on the table and we are able to make distribution with the knowledge of the labour unions. At the local government level, it was the unions that suggested that since what comes in cannot take local government staff and teachers, they would sacrifice. For every month, you pay either teachers or local government staff and that is what we’ve been doing. And so for every two months, the teachers and local government staff get one month salary and there is a short fall of one month and this is with their understanding, because at a point, we wanted to say that let us pay half and owe you the rest but they said no, pay us full salary and this is the method we’ve adopted. At the state level we pay every month and sometimes when we don’t have enough, we leave some departments out and make it up the following month. And so this is where we are, this has been the major challenge.
Local government autonomy
I hear that local governments are seeking autonomy. I was privileged to be Local Government Chairman from 1991 to 1993; then we had autonomy, so I understand why they seek autonomy now. But that autonomy ran into troubled waters. Local governments elsewhere in the world are an appendage of State Government. You know, we say that we have three tiers of government but you know that the local government operates under the supervision of the state. To me, autonomy should be about money. I don’t have anything to do with local government funds as it is today. I met a system that was operated by my predecessor where local government puts money together and the state adds to execute projects; they called it projects account. But since I came in and discovered that the funds were not enough for the local governments and there was no point in that with people trying to accuse us here and there, I decided to ban that account. So, whatever comes for the local government goes to them. I have no business interfering in their accounts and all that. But the challenge I have is the issue of arbitrary employment at the local government level. I can tell you because I served in this local government, this local government does not need 250 staff to make it functional and there are over 1,200 and so it is in several other local governments, and in fact all the local governments. Local government politicians derive pleasure from coming to just do recruitment. Each group when they come, they do recruitment until they don’t know what to do again. And I tell you, very few local government staff come to work. If you want, go to any of the local governments in Benue State; even the one in Makurdi. But if you say come and collect salary by hand, you will see the whole place filled up and you will be wondering if they are really local government staff. There are people I know who operate freely in Makurdi, who are staff of Vandeikya Local Government, which is over 100km from here. Every day you see them in Makurdi and the same thing happens in Guma. So, local government is just a fraud. Nothing is happening there; they just collect money. Some people insert unborn children on the pay roll. I know of a traditional ruler with 15 wives and all the wives are local government staff and all the children are local government staff. And when you don’t pay, they begin to create problems for you and you know, even the Bible says that it is the worker that deserves wages. It’s when you work that you deserve those wages; if you don’t work you don’t deserve anything. But this is what is happening in all the local governments. Some, 1,500 staff; you don’t need it. So this is the problem.
Milestones
But despite all these, by the grace of God, we’ve been able to gain milestones in several sectors. In education, we have done so much. If you look at what is happening at the primary school today, we were able to secure a loan of N3.8 billion to match with the counterpart funding of UBEC and we have N7.6 billion and we are executing about 740 projects in various primary schools in the state – renovation of dilapidated primary schools and construction of new blocks and provision of instructional materials to various primary schools. Some of them are completed while some are on-going but here too we had a little challenge. Inflation came in due to the dollar exchange rate and it has been a very big challenge but we are talking and encouraging the contractors and we also see the possibility of making some corrections because actually they have a case. When we gave this contract, cement was sold for N1, 300; today it’s N2, 700; so are other building materials like iron rods and several others. So their complaints, we are looking at them and we are looking at possible ways we can raise money to handle it. When we came in, Benue State University, for instance, was on strike; we were able to negotiate with them and they came back and today we have succeeded in securing accreditation for several courses that were left out ,including School of Health Sciences. One interesting thing was that the medical students who were admitted to read Medicine were stagnated for 12 years and we came in and were able to secure the accreditation by providing all that was needed and today, in this our two-year tenure, we have succeeded in graduating four sets and we have on record 152 medical doctors who have graduated from the School of Health Sciences. Now the School of Nursing and Midwifery; the accreditation was also withdrawn and for four years, there was no admission. We came and we provided the equipment and upgraded the facilities and today the school has been given accreditation and we’ve also recruited additional staff and the school is on and today admissions are being made and the students are back to school. Likewise, the School of Health Technology in Agasha, that one, we have provided all the facilities that were needed and we have written for the accreditation and we believe that in the next two months, that school too will reopen. In our secondary schools, we are working to renovate and upgrade the structures in the 64 government schools. We’ve taken education as a priority and that is where we are so far despite the challenges we have in funding, we have been able to provide minimum facilities in all the schools. So, so far, so good, but one other thing that we discovered when we came in, and of course, that was one of the first thing that we undertook, was the issue of security. For me, I was coming from the background of the private sector and I felt that it will be important at a critical time in the history of Nigeria, knowing that we will not have enough infrastructure, we needed to woo investors to come into the state and it was a big challenge. No investor will come to Benue State if he knows that his investment will one day be destroyed or he will be killed or he will be kidnapped and so on. And so we took on this matter of security very seriously and the wisdom we applied initially was to invite the young men especially who were involved in these criminal acts by granting amnesty to whosoever will be ready to surrender his arms.
Challenge of herdsmen
The issue of herdsmen too is a big challenge. I inherited it. While serving as Minister in 2013, my ancestral home was destroyed by these herdsmen and more than 52 of my kinsmen were killed in one day. My village is just about four kilometres away from here. They were killed and this town, Gbajimba, was under siege for some days; the militia group came and they dealt with us. In fact, the entire local government of Guma was under siege. It was amazing because our people did not participate in rustling their cattle but we were accused that the cattle were rustled within our area and so these militia men came and took on the helpless and armless people and killed them in that area and so it was a big challenge. By the time I took over, more than 13 local governments were under siege. Some local governments were taken over completely by these herdsmen. So the point was that the criminality that was going on among the youth, we were able to control them through this amnesty programme, but the herdsmen were a big challenge. Though, I appreciate the fact that, some of them had issues, not with farmers but criminal elements in our society, coming to rustle their cattle, coming to steal their cattle, coming to kill their cattle and even coming to kill the herdsmen and so on and doing away with their cattle. But each time they come, they don’t go for the real target, they go for innocent people who know nothing about it.
In South Africa they ranch, in Kenya they ranch and in several other African countries and that was what motivated us to send an executive bill to the Benue State House of Assembly to make a law to ban open grazing and successfully, the bill was passed about two weeks ago and signed it into law on Monday, 22nd of May. We believe that will put to rest all these issues. The Fulani men are free and any other person is also free to secure land in Benue State and ranch their cattle for peace to reign. And I think that since the passage of this bill, most of them have expressed their willingness to comply because the land to do open grazing is no longer there. I’m sure on your way from Makurdi to Gbajimba, you saw that left and right, people are on their farmlands but you see a pocket of herdsmen still around. So, no matter how they control these cattle, they will still encroach on people’s farmlands because there is no empty land for them to do open grazing. So it is not a matter of sending Fulani men or herdsmen away from our land. But for us to secure peace, we must understand. And I have been saying that as a government, the Federal and State Governments must come together to find ways of supporting these herdsmen, because they will require some infrastructure to be able to do this ranching. So generally, I want to say that despite all the challenges we’ve been having, we are on track and I believe that we have kept faith with the people.
Unemployment
On the problem of unemployment, it’s a national problem and we are encouraging our people to go massively into agriculture because the Federation Account is no longer meeting the demand of our state, and the IGR too is not improving, and so we have to tap from where we have comparative advantage and for us, the first thing is agriculture. We have other sectors that can also add value to the development of our economy like solid minerals. We have them all over Benue State. Even culture and tourism, it’s something that we can explore but these are things that will undertake a process, so all these things are going on. But honestly, we are encouraging our people to go massively, apart from agriculture into processing to add value because processing will create jobs, wealth, opportunities and commercial activities. Our people are mostly civil servants and peasant farmers. So we are encouraging them to venture into things that can expose them into doing commercial activities and we believe that they are taking heed and towards the realisation of this, we have drawn Bank of Industry to Benue State to deal with people who are interested in micro, small and medium scale enterprises; we are into partnership with them. We have provided a billion naira to counterpart with them and so we have N2 billion for people to access and do micro, small and medium scale enterprises, especially in processing. So we have also secured money from Central Bank, which we intend to use to develop indigenous entrepreneurs who may be having some cash flow problems. So, these are some of the things we are doing to add value to the development of our economy. So, I want to say that so far, we are on track and despite the challenges, we are not looking back, we are looking ahead. We are looking at using these challenges we have to explore new ways of adding value to the lives of our people in Benue State and to our economy.
and then