By Danlami Nmodu
Niger State Governor Umar Bago, has pledged to restructure the state’s debts and free funds for development
Bago disclosed this while briefing Journalists after a visit to President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa Abuja, Tuesday.
Responding to a question on the state’s debt burden Bago said, “If you are asking about the finances of Niger State, I think governance is a continuum and I don’t want to allow negative energy to pull me back. As a government, we will have to move on. Whether it is negative as it were, whether it is positive you know, but the most important is that you have identified where we are and we know where we are going to. So rest assured that the debts of governance, you know, if debts are taken progression is positive, if they are taken and carted away, it’s negative. I can reassure you that we’ll restructure these debts and free some funds for development.
His remark and response to more questions below:
We are here today with our colleagues to congratulate Mr. President and ourselves for this victory at the just concluded National assembly leadership election. And to reiterate our commitment to making sure that Mr. President succeeds, and we succeed as Nigerians. Precisely this is the purpose of our visit.
Niger State is the largest in terms of land mass in the country and we know that in the past few years it’sbeen bedeviled by banditry. What are you going todo differently to ensure that the people of your State, whose mandate you enjoy today, enjoy peace?
Yes, if you agree with me Niger State has a lot of ungoverned spaces and we are agrarian and in our strength is agriculture. So, we intend to cultivate most of your ungoverned land. We have a lot of body of water across the state, we want to encourage our irrigation farming and that is why we are collaborating with Mr. President, to ensuring that the agric potential of Niger State is tapped very well.
So, we will harness them. However, in the interim, we are working with security agencies in making sure that we curb this menace and by the grace of God we will come out tops.
On democracy day, we learnt that you pardoned about 80 inmates from the Correctional Service in Niger State. Is this a precedent you are setting and is something you plan to do regularly or is this the one off?
We don’t hope to have a lot of people in the correctional center. So we hope we engage them positively but those that have been remanded, you know for some offenses and needed to pay little amount of money, we thought it was wise, they have learnt their lessons and as a government you should be responsible for our citizenry. And that’s why we did that. And if the situation persists, why not? We will always come to the need of our people. But we hope we don’t have a lot of people to be freeing from the correctional centers or taken to the correctional center.
Does your blueprint include the huge deposits resources in the state aside from having to come to Abuja to collect money at the end of the month?
Thank you for that question. You see the first person that asked a question about our landmass 10% in Nigeria. We are endowed as a state with a lot of mineral deposits and is not only related to the insecurity issues, most of the places where you see these banditry are places where you have lithium or gold. So a lot of these activities are kind of associated to why the banditry is springing up. However, yes, we will harness our mineral potential, we don’t intend to come to Abuja every month to collect FAAC or JACK or whatever you call it. As a State we have to put all the things in order so that we can harness these potentials. Now the state also has an SPV. The State Mining Corporation, where we’re hoping to have an MOU or synergy with other mining companies so that we can harness that potential and I assure you the next one year we will come out tops.
Your State is one of the states with the highest rate of school drop out. How are you going to go about addressing this? Secondly, on affirmative action, are you going to include women in the appointment of your commissioners?
Thank you very much. Let me take the second question on the affirmative action. Yes, as the government we are responsible and we are going to match our words with our actions. First and foremost we have issued an executive order to change all the secretaries of the local government councils to be female, that we’re going to implement in the next local government council, it is compulsory that at least all the vice chairmen of local government will come out as female, that is one. Secondly, I have just made five appointments and I promise that the next one will be female. So you should be watching out for that. So we are not going to even stick to 35 percent, we will have 50-50 if needs arise.
The first question of school dropouts, girl-child inclusive. Yes, it is still associated with this insecurity, and we are bringing technology to learn. Thank God for COVID-19 meetings can be held you know, virtually. So we will deploy lending facilities to areas that are mostly affected so that we can put students back into schools. So, I agree that a lot of these out of school children will be enrolled back to school.
There’s a regular caller from…Niger, he is always crying out for help for his communities saying four, five local governments have been taken by bandits and his family members and community members taken away. How are you going to help the man..?
We don’t have local government that have been taken over by any bandits. But we have activities of banditry you know cutting across some local governments, especially in the eastern part of Niger. We are neighbouring Benin Republic, Zamfara state and Kebbi State and when they come through because of the pastoral nature of Niger state and that area of Amale, because of pastoral activities happing there are bandits come around. However, you know security issues are not for the media. We have our strategy and we have started implementing it. We have the blessing of Mr. President, and the service chiefs, I’m sure we will get there. On the issue of those that are in captivity, I’m sure they are working on something.
You have listed health, infrastructure, education, commerce and tourism as things you will do for your people. But we know that all of these require money. We’re already seeing new governors take office and already complaining about the debt that they’re incurring from their predecessors.
Can you tell us what’s the status of Niger state financially? Did you inherit such? Are you capable? How do you intend to do all of these laudable projects?
If you are asking about the finances of Niger State, I think governance is a continuum and I don’t want to allow negative energy to pull me back. As a government, we will have to move on. Whether it is negative as it were, whether it is positive you know, but the most important is that you have identified where we are and we know where we are going to. So be rest assured that the debts of governance, you know, if debts are taken progression is positive, if they are taken and carted away is negative. I can reassure you that we’ll restructure these debts and free some funds for development.
