Believing one’s own lie — a kind of cognitive bias — is about the worst singular thing to happen to anyone. Arrowheads of Kwara’s PDP actually believe their own lies, and that explains their wobbling messaging thus far. They believe the only reason Kwarans rejected them in 2019 was simply because some opposition radio firebrands had lied to the public.

Nine in 10 PDP persons hold this view. Only a tiny but suppressed minority of them believe otherwise. For that reason, the party has lined up its talking heads to go on air to lie to the people in the hope that this will land them in government house in 2023. They have gone as far as saying they did not owe salaries at all; that colleges of education workers were not on strike because they were not being paid; that all accreditations were done as and when due; that the taps were in fact running everywhere; that they had paid N200m RAAMP counterpart to the World Bank; that they were actually up-to-date in promotion and that the stories about their paying percentaged salaries were all made up to tarnish their image, among others.

One of them said on a radio programme last Friday that the administration of His Excellency Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed did not borrow a dime in eight years. In fact, their official spokesman recently said that their administration actually signed the Freedom of Information Bill into law and that this administration, in its hatred for anything PDP, had reversed the gains. Jaw-dropping, right? Those who listened to them may have lost count of this tomfoolery and evidently self-damaging tactics. But these shock-jocks believe their own lies!

Enter Alhaji Abdullahi Yaman, a governorship also-ran now flying the banner of the PDP in the state. “We are not unaware of the problem the APC has put on us in Kwara State by the astronomical increase in the debt portfolio with over 300%. Kwara from the least indebted state is now one of the most indebted,” Yaman said in the capital city Ilorin at an event unveiling his running mate Hon. Gbenga Makanjuola on June 18.

Two major lies were told in those lines: that debt profile of Kwara has risen 300% under this administration and that the state was the least indebted in Nigeria before 2019. It’s been many hours since Yaman made those claims.

Those claims were driven by ignorance, mischief, and a group resolution to continually lie to the people whom the PDP strongly believe are mere pawns in their political chess game.

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Both claims are false. One, at no time in Nigeria’s chequered history was Kwara the least indebted state. In 2019, Kwara had the 10th highest debt profile in Nigeria; conversely, by March 2022 account of the Debt Management Office, it is the 19th most indebted state. That’s a serious improvement on its 2019 ranking. Two, it is not true that debt profile of Kwara has jumped 300% between 2019 and now. The first and only time the state’s debt profile rose so high was in 2009 when former Governor Bukola Saraki took N17bn bond, among other facilities he had earlier accessed. That took the debt profile to above 300%, considering the fact that he had inherited a below N5bn domestic debt from the late Mohammed Lawal’s administration.

But here are some facts of history for the benefit of Alhaji Yaman, his campaign team, and the PDP shock-jocks who assault the people with barefaced lies on the airwaves.

Between 2003 and 2011, Kwara’s domestic debt profile rose from below N5bn to exactly N25.2bn. That is approximately 404% rise in domestic debt profile under Senator Saraki alone. Don’t forget: in one fell-swoop in 2009, the debt profile rose by over 300% when he took the N17bn bond.

Governor Ahmed, of the same tendency as Saraki and now Yaman, took the local debt profile to N67bn and foreign debt to above $47m by May 29, 2019. In other words, the domestic debt profile jumped 165% under Governor Ahmed. Between 2014 and 2016, a space of two years, the debt rose by 140%, or N15.9bn to N38.1bn.

In 2021, this administration took N27.2bn private bond to steadily bridge infrastructural gaps which the PDP administration had in 2016 pegged at above N256bn. Also in 2021, the administration and 35 other state governments across Nigeria accepted a Federal Government’s offer of N18.6bn loan refinancing facility to ease the burden of paying back loans which were taken as far back as 2015. Combined together, this has only raised the domestic debt profile by 68.3%. Where, therefore, did Alhaji Yaman get his 300% debt rise from? At any rate, projects being done with the funds taken by this administration are scattered around the state, north, south, and central.

Let’s put these borrowed monies in context — in the wake of PDP’s red-herrings and the national inflationary trends. The N17bn bond of 2009, then estimated at $113m, is the equivalence of N67.8bn in today’s monetary rate of 600 naira per dollar — far above the combined worth of the two facilities this administration has ever accessed.

There is nothing bad about borrowing to build social and physical infrastructure that improves life’s chances for the people. What is bad, and possibly atrocious, is lying about it or playing the ostrich as candidate Yaman and other PDP elements seem to be doing.

This administration will always speak to its own achievements and seek to be a better version of itself every step of the way, while the PDP is at liberty to go on thinking our people to be fools who cannot tell their yesterday from today. It is their (PDP’s) deserved Golgotha. Good luck!

Ajakaye is Chief Press Secretary to the Governor.

No fewer than 1,700 People Living with Disabilities (PLWDs) and other less privileged have been empowered by the Nigeria CARES (COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus) with agricultural inputs and agricultural processing equipment in Niger State.

While flagging off the distribution in New Bussa in Borgu Local Government Area, the Niger State Governor Alhaji Abubakar Sani-Bello said the distribution is to support the livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable families in the state. He added that it would facilitate the recovery of local economic activities in all participating states across Nigeria.

“The agricultural livelihoods and food security support under the N-CARES is structured to include investments and policy measures to mitigate the impacts on agricultural livelihoods, enhance the resilience of our farmers to return to their farms, and facilitate faster recovery to lay a solid foundation for agriculture value chains to create jobs.

“The overall target of this initiative is to increase food security and sustain safe-functioning of food supply chains,” he said.

The governor, who was represented by the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Yusuf Mohammed Gunu stated that out of the 1,500 beneficiaries, 747 will receive agricultural inputs under the value chains of rice, maize, sorghum, broiler and aquaculture while 753 will receive agricultural assets and small primary processing equipment.

He urged the beneficiaries to utilise the assets provided effectively.  He said they will be monitored at the community and state levels by facilitators and desk officers, the state Fadama N-CARES office, among others.  and the World Bank.

The Niger State Fadama N-CARES Project Coordinator, Dr Hassan Garba said Nigeria CARES Result Area 2 intervention in the state is in four Disbursement Link Indicators (DLIs) which include the provision of agricultural inputs and services, provision of improved agricultural infrastructure, provision of agricultural assets and small primary processing and wet markets with water and sanitary services.

He added that the goal of the Nigeria CARES programme is to increase food security and the safe-functioning of good supply chains.

One of the beneficiaries, Yohanna Juta Matambo from Agwara Local Government Area said the farm inputs he received would boost his farm products.

The President of the Automobile and Touring Club, Ishaku Bamaiyi has lamented the lack of school zones in most schools in Bwari Area Council, a suburb in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Bamaiyi explained that a lot needed to be done in this regard to avert or reduce traffic accidents to the barest minimum number of school children.

He said this during a Road Safety Grant Programme, organised by the Automobile and Touring Club of Nigeria (ATCN) in Abuja.

Bamaiyi said: “On Tuesday, May 17, 2022, we went for a needs assessment in four school zones in Bwari Area Councils.

“We were saddened by the state of school zones and how pupils cross the roads to and fro.

“A lot needs to be done in this regard to avert or reduce traffic accidents to the barest minimum number of school children.”

Bamaiyi said the organisation had organised campaigns in Ebonyi, Ekiti, Lagos, Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa, and Abuja.

He said 100 drivers have been trained in school zones to promote awareness of road signs, especially the zebra crossing in front of schools and other locations.

Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Boboye Oyeyemi said about nine fatal crashes, involving deaths of students who make use of highways in the FCT, were recorded between January and  March this year.

The corps marshal, who was represented by the FCT Sector Commander, Samuel Ochi, said children and adults, aged between 10 and 45 years make up o70 per cent of  Nigerian road users.

Concerned youths in Benue State have expressed dismay over attempts by major political parties in the state to disenfranchise them by denying them quality representation in next year’s general elections.

Under the aegis of the Benue Youths Forum (BYF), the youth faulted the emergence of candidates of the Labour Party and the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidates for next year’s general elections.

They also accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of allegedly taking sides with some of the officials of the Labour Party and the APC to impose candidates on the parties.

The President of the Forum, Comrade Terrence Kuanum told reporters in Abuja at the weekend that the processes that produced the candidates of the parties were illegal as those parading themselves as the flag-bearers were not members of the parties.

He said his organisation would not only go to court to challenge the anomalies but also has petitioned INEC not to recognise the candidates.

Kuanum said: “Let’s make it clear for instance that out of 23 local government areas in Benue State, the APC submitted the register of members from 21 local government areas. Vandeikya and Katsina-Ala local government areas were not submitted to INEC because there were no registers for them.

“How can you turn around and say the APC governorship candidate emerged from Vandeikya when there are documentary evidence and written communications to the contrary?

“We suspect that the INEC Administrative Secretary compromised because Benue State has no INEC Commissioner. The same scenario applies to the Labour Party.”

The BYF President insisted that unless the matter is addressed, the Forum would consider the APC not having a governorship candidate for next year’s elections.

He urged the INEC to do the needful before the windows opened for submissions and substitution of candidates closed, asserting that the youth in Benue would not want to waste their votes in next year’s general elections.