Tinubu’s reforms have provided more funds for holistic development — Jigawa gov

Jigawa State governor, Mallam Umar Namadi, in an interview with Adamu Amadu, bares his mind on the economic reforms of President Bola Tinubu, defection by politicians from opposition parties to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and the state of affairs in Jigawa. Excerpts:

It is two years of President Bola Tinubu’s administration. How will you assess the impact of his administration in Jigawa State?

The two years of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu have been rewarding years and promising. Why I said it is rewarding and promising is because a leader must be a very bold person that would take bold decisions for the interest of his people and for long-term benefits for the nation. In Nigeria, we need transformation. It has to be driven by somebody that is bold and that can take pragmatic decisions. You can see President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s bold decisions on the removal of fuel subsidy and also the unification of the exchange rate. These decisions should have been taken earlier than now. People misconstrued the decisions at the early stage, but in the long run, the action will benefit everybody.

That exactly symbolises Tinubu’s boldness. Everyone knows that the common man was not enjoying the subsidy in fuel. It was the middlemen that were benefiting. So, the decision has come with a lot of impact; the impact is clear. Number one, the amount of money that is coming into the Federation Account for the federal government and sub-national has improved greatly. The allocation that comes to Jigawa State is being deployed to the service and benefit of the common man at the grassroots. Another impact of the reform is that it has stopped a few individuals from making illegitimate wealth in the name of subsidy.

Your Excellency, what specific federal policies or initiatives have directly benefited Jigawa State since 2023?

That’s a very good question. We plough the funds accruing to the state into projects that will transform the lives of the people. As long as we continue to do this, a lot of infrastructural development will happen. You can see a lot of contracts have been initiated by this administration in terms of road and other infrastructures.

We awarded hundreds of roads projects in addition to the ones we inherited amounting to over 1000km. So far, we completed most of the inherited projects and many others that we awarded. The few remaining ones are at the completion levels. On healthcare, we came up with a policy to provide free healthcare services to over 143,000 vulnerable, in addition to free healthcare services to children under five and pregnant women. We are constructing a specialist hospital in Kazaure and the orthopedic hospital in Gumel and at the same time, we are completing the Hadejia specialist hospital. We are constructing the permanent site of Hadejia School of Nursing, in addition to construction of primary healthcare clinics at all the 287 political wards.

In agriculture, recently the government procured 300 units of tractors and its implements, 150 combine harvesters and many other farm implements. At the same time, we recruited over 300 youth and sponsored them to China for training on operating and repairs of the tractors and other implements. While in education we recruited over 5000 qualified teachers, provided thousands of pupils and students seats in addition to construction and renovation of classrooms, students’ hostels in both tertiary and O-level institutions.

We also purchased the Khadija University Majia, courtesy of federal government policies. The unification of the exchange rate is stabilising the local currency. The impact of all these two decisions at the national and grassroots levels have begun. For instance, you can see how agricultural activities are going on everywhere in Nigeria. People are going back to agriculture in almost all parts of the country and the Federal Government is coming in with so many interventions.

The wheat programme done by the Federal Government and the African Development Bank, which Jigawa State is a beneficiary, made us to be number one in wheat production in Nigeria today. It was because of the Federal Government’s interventions. It came with the same programme on rice, and of course, the livestock scheme and so many others.

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There has been a wave of defections of high profile politicians from opposition parties to the APC. Some critics claim the realignment is not based on definite ideology but on political survival?

Well, the issue of defection is very clear and straightforward. It is an issue that we need to look at critically because whoever you see leaving where he is to where he is not sure of, it suggests he has something that has attracted him. If you see somebody moving from his house to another house, that means he has seen a better house. So, when you see more people leaving their parties to join APC, it means they have seen a great future in the ruling party. They are in tune with progress and what is happening in APC at both the federal and state levels. It means the party and programmes are impacting the lives of the people. That is why they see the APC as the best place to go.

It also shows that the reforms being implemented by the Federal Government are improving the lives of Nigerians. People are moving massively into APC. Governors are taking the whole structure of their states to APC. It is a conviction that there is a leader they can trust on and that is President Bola Tinubu.

To what extent has your administration impacted on the people after two years in office?

Alhamdulillah (I thank God Almighty). My two years have been very eventful and rewarding. We thank Allah (SWT) for His mercies and guidance to do what we have done. We thank Allah for guiding us properly. We thank the entire people of the state; we thank the civil servants, my cabinet, special advisers, assistants and everybody for their support and cooperation, because without their cooperation, we would not have achieved what we have achieved in Jigawa.

We did and are doing our best to fulfill our promises by implementing our 12-point agenda we earlier presented to the people in the state. The people voted for us based on trust and what is contained in the blueprint. Since we assumed office, we did and are doing a lot of economic empowerment schemes, where thousands of people, mostly youth and women, have benefited. These include various projects and programmes of skill acquisition training, agricultural production, support to establish or improve both small and medium businesses. We increased the students’ scholarship by over 300 per cent, in addition to sponsoring over 230 students abroad to study Medicine. We recruited over 10,000 private security personnel to man schools, hospitals, courts and other public facilities across the state and so many other projects that time would not permit me to mention.

You returned from an official trip to India recently with a delegation from the state’s agricultural sector. What are the gains from the trip?

My trip to India is very fruitful and rewarding for that matter. Jigawa is an agrarian state, so we give premium on agriculture because between 80 per cent and 85 per cent of the population of Jigawa depend on agriculture as their means of livelihood. Like I said, we do not handle with levity anything that has to do with agriculture because if you didn’t transform the sector in the state, you have not done anything.

So, while in India, we made efforts to get investors that we can work together with to improve so many aspects of agriculture in Jigawa State, particularly on dairy, poultry and seeds. These are the three important areas we discussed during the trip. It was a successful and rewarding trip.

With regards to dairy, we met with many stakeholders. First, we met with the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) of India. It is a 60-year-old organisation that is working assiduously to improve dairy production in India. They have successfully achieved their targets. For instance, they have a system of cooperative bodies in different sectors. They gather farmers into cooperative societies that have three, four or five heads of cows each. They were trained in artificial insemination to improve the productivity of their cows in terms of milk production. That has given them opportunities on milk export to other countries.

That is exactly the effort of NDDB. We were able to see the farmers, talk to them and their testimonies were quite encouraging on their income sources, which have improved. Not only that, the farmers are always buoyant. They are happy with the arrangements.

They have three layers of institutions: they have a cooperative society at the grassroots level, that is to say at the ward level here in Jigawa State. At the local government level, there is what they call Amore, which is an association of the chairmen of the cooperatives at the different levels. Every chairman at the ward level is a member of that association. Those at the ward level are responsible for milk production; those at the local government level are responsible for milk processing. They are to take the milk at a price and pay the farmers to process it into different products.

They have established processing centres where the milk would be collected through tankers from the ward level to be frozen at the same temperature and then taken to the state level, which is the market segment. It is responsible for selling the product in the country or abroad. You can see the complete value chains that have improved the lives of farmers at the grassroots. This is something we have seen and discussed with the NDDB.

In addition, the private sector is following the same system in a small profit. The objective is to improve the lives of the farmers at the grassroots. At the end, we were able to have collaboration with two organisations. They are willing to come to Jigawa State. When they come, we will take them round and see how we can form the cooperatives. They are ready to come and work with the Jigawa State government.

We plan to form the cooperatives and all other structures in partnership with them. They agreed and are ready to come and establish a dairy processing plant. It is a complete value chain because there is production of other products such as animal feeds. The animal feeds would be produced for farmers to collect and pay when they bring their milk at a subsidised rate. So, farmers are able to stay in one place without going anywhere. Everything is provided for the cattle.