The Special Adviser on Media, Ismaila Isah, to the Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo, has said that the state is witnessing speedy development in every sector of governance in the last one year in office.
Governor Ododo’s Media Aide specifically pointed out that the transformation in the security and agricultural sectors was unprecedented, which has drawn the attention of investors to do business in the state.
Isah spoke to journalists when he visited the Kaduna State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Secretariat.
According to him, Governor Ododo was able to listen to all voices and ensured representation for all groups of people in the governance of the state.
“I am really pleased to be here to tell the Kogi story under the administration of Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo, the Executive Governor of Kogi State. It’s been so good so far, and that is to bring to our understanding what the Governor has done in the last one year.
“What we have succeeded in doing as an administration is to create a trajectory that probably has never been seen in the history of the state. There has been some kind of dynamism in government, there have been deliberate attempts to bring governance closer to the people.
“We are doing a lot to secure the lives and property of the people in Kogi State. We take the fight to terrorists because there’s no time to start negotiating with them since they cause a lot of havoc and this approach has been copied by other states like Kwara, Ekiti, Ondo, Benue and even to some extent, Niger and Nasarawa.
“So, every time we are embarking on a region in all the bushes and jungles around the state, we try to enlist the support of our neighbouring states so we don’t chase these terrorists and they hide in those states and come back to haunt our people.
“We increased our logistical support for security agencies by providing over 300 vehicles for security agencies in the last one year. We have also provided over 1,000 specialised motorbikes that can navigate almost every terrain, and that has assisted us in ensuring that our security agencies are well-armed and supported.
“In the vigilante service, I am proud to note that it is enhanced and a lot of improvement has been done. Apart from the recruitment of well over 3,000 people for both the vigilante service and the man hunters group, who are very well complementing our conventional security agencies in the state.
“The Government has also been gracious enough to increase the salaries of the vigilante service and they now earn over 100,000 Naira. They are well kitted, probably more combat-ready than some of our conventional security agents and our neighbourhood watch has been rigid with a robust network that provides almost minute-by-minute intelligence to our security agencies.
“Almost every community in Kogi State has people on the watch, especially when you get there as a stranger and send us intelligence, and if you have no good answer you might be apprehended or reported to security agencies.
“They do this by working in nexus with our conventional security agencies and we are committed to embarking on clearance operations in all the states that border our state. So, we are always going after terrorists, and that has largely paid off, which is why it’s now safer to move around in Kogi unlike before. Now, we are doing things differently.
“We are very grateful for the support we are enjoying from our top military and paramilitary leaders who are really pushing their men to put their lives on the line to make sure our people can sleep with their two eyes closed,” Isah said.
Speaking on the agricultural sector, the Media Aide disclosed that, “We currently have about 76 farm clusters in Kogi State covering up to 10,000 hectares of land that has been cultivated by over 8,000 farmers in the immediate past wet season.
“For the coming wet season, we are planning to do between 25,000 to 50,000 hectares of land and there’s something unique about what we are doing in agriculture because unlike some other states, we have been able to recover and refurbish over 150 tractors with all the components that enable us to prepare land, till the places, and also deploy planters and even harvesters in preparation for the new farming season.
“What is also interesting is that the Government is providing all the implements, all the seedlings, and the inputs, including fertilisers, for free. Our year-round farming, which was flagged off recently with our dry season farming, witnessed a lot of input from the government.
“So far, we have invested over 10 billion Naira in agriculture, and with the refurbishment that we did of over 150 tractors, the government under the administration of Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo saved well over 20-50 billion Naira that would have been spent in buying all those tractors anew.
“What we did was to recover some from states as far as Enugu, Niger, Nasarawa and maybe Kaduna, but from almost all our neighbouring states, we were able to recover all those tractors, refurbish them and put them to use by the farmers.”
“On education and human capital development, Kogi State is the first state in Nigeria to have inaugurated a Human Capital Development Council just a few days ago. That Council is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that we ramp up investment in education, which we have been doing, up to 30 percent in the last one year.
“Just last week, the Government approved about N1.2 billion to pay for all external examinations of over 74,000 students and pupils in the state, and they are already getting registered for WAEC; those registering for JAMB are also preparing.
“Kogi State is also the first state in Northern Nigeria, from what I heard, to have an updated education law which ensures that we are not only capturing our schools in the database but the law ensures that our students and pupils are also captured in the database.
“We are told that most of our states in the North are still using the 1959 education law but I’m told that about two or three states in the North now are trying to learn from what Kogi has done with its education law which has reformed education in the state and ensured that we do not go below the minimum benchmark of 26 percent of the UNESCO requirement as budgetary allocation for education.
“We are also ramping up investment in terms of healthcare and health insurance. Almost everybody now has a health insurance scheme because, apart from the formal sector where we have the state government and local government workers, the informal sector is also being captured.”
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