Kogi State Governor Idris Wada spoke with reporters in Lagos on the cash crunch, the state’s debt profile, his second term bid and the preparations for the governorship election. MUSA ODOSHIMOKHE was there.
In the face of dwindling resources across the country, what course is your administration carting for Kogi State, in terms of sustainability and survival?
Kogi State is totally a civil service state. But, we have a lot of solid minerals that can be explore to provide economic opportunities for our people. The Federal Government by the provisions of the constitution takes control of the mineral resources. The state government has limited role to play in terms of what it does in exploring the mineral resources. That is why the states are seeking the necessary permission and licences, from the Federal Government to exploit the mineral resources within the state. Again, the security situation in the country has made it quite difficult to attract the type of investors, who have financial capacity, to exploit solid mineral resources in the state. That is why we have focused on agriculture, which is a straight forward fact in terms of development and economic opportunities. We have created the enabling environment which promotes agricultural development in our state. The people have invested in farming than it used to be. We are working with the Federal Government, World Bank and Agriculture Development Bank to establish the farms in the state. We have acquired hectare of lands running into 30,000. We are now a rice growing state in Nigeria. We have got a lot of young people to invest in farming. We have equally made effort to improve on our Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). We have increase it from about N150 million a month, to about N550 million. Remember that Kogi is a civil service state. We have invested in the Obajana Cement and there are smaller industries that are coming up as well. This we have done through our industrial promotion drive efforts. All these will eventually bring income to the state and would be able to pay its workers and meet up other social responsibilities. There are other economic benefit will accrue to the state in due course given our efforts. We are promoting small and medium scale industries, creating conducive environment for enterprises in the state. We have reformed our land allocation and administration policy in the state. This is meant to promote the establishment of agriculture and encourage investors in the state. The reforms will take care of land allocation and the bureaucracy associated with it. All of these have made it easier for people to come and establish in the state and to promote industrial growth. In the last three and half years, we have been able to promote the establishment of cement factory, hoping that in the months ahead, it will be put on sale for public consumption. The foundation of the cement factory was laid about two and half years ago. These are some of the things we have done for the economic transformation of the state. The tourism centres in our state are being refurbished and renovated. The historical artefacts are being rehabilitated to promote tourism and generate income for the state. It will increase the IGR of our state in the coming years; and strongly know these will become regular source of income for the state in the years ahead.
In the past incumbent governors are given automatic ticket, but you are contesting with others for the position. It was also said the leadership People Democratic Party (PDP) in Kogi demanded N1 billion from you to get its support for your ambition. What is your reaction?
On the issue of automatic ticket has not place in the PDP. From my experience, the only person who has in a way got it in the PDP was the immediate past President of the country, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. It was automatic in the sense that he was the sole candidate during the primary. There was primary and he was the only presidential candidate. The others withdrew before the day of the primaries. That to an extent was the only semblance of automatic ticket. Normally, in the contest for leadership of the state, people show interest. Those who show interest see the incumbent as a challenge? And because you are incumbent, your second run for office is not as free. You are restrained until you are in office again. So, you don’t have the same space like those outside. You don’t have the same opportunities, as those who are outside, in terms of issuing statements. You are restrained, you have a lot of restriction because of the position you are occupying. That is why you see lots of people coming out to contest. But, all must go through a primary, even when nobody shows interest, you must go through primaries. It is a yes vote or no vote, that determines whether you get the ticket or not. I don’t know of any position in the PDP constitution that gives automatic ticket to anyone. It is the party leadership that pronounce it. When that is done is done, I will announce my interest whether to contest or not. We are not at that point yet, you will hear from me when we get there.
On the issue of the PDP and the National Working Committee demanding money from me, that is a matter to ponder about. Whoever is insinuating that the sum of N1 billion was demanded from me is evil, it is a lie. It is part of this evil machination by people who don’t want progress. In Kogi State, we don’t have N1 billion to give to anybody, I can assure you. Having paid our workers up to date and embarking on infrastructure development, I can tell you that we don’t have N1 million to give to anybody. And nobody has ever asked me for N1 billion or the NWC. What will I get from the chairman to invest N1 billion just to earn a ticket? So, let us be realistic, when some of these things are said, we should questions about the logic in them. So, it is just a figment of the people imagination. There is no basis or foundation for that kind of statement.
How are you preparing for the election?
With regard to the Presidential election, won by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi State, it was basically because of Buharimania. It is a movement which many people boarded the train. That is why we are where we are today. It is not because the PDP is not doing well in the state. The PDP is on ground, it is a solid party and has added value to the lives of the people. We have structure in every local government, we have structure in every ward and we are confident we will win by the grace of God, in the next election. And if I will correct other wrong impression, the PDP won major of the seats in the Kogi State House of Assembly election. That is a reflection of the fact that once you remove the Buharimania out of the equation, PDP is solidly on ground, we will win the next election. As regards to performance, of course, you will not expect my opponents to praise me. They will always find something wrong. What we do as a sitting governor, our opponents will always see something bad in them.
Your administration has been accused of not performing…
You measure performance in context to the fund available to you. For instance, we are trying to build a flyover in Lokoja, which they cost it at about N4.6 million. In a state like ours, getting N4.6 million is a major challenge. In some states, this is nothing. Our average income per month is about N3.2 billion per month. Our salary base is about N3 billion per month. So we have challenges. But, if you look at the money that has come into the state during my tenure, you will agree that we have performed in term of development of the state. We have done well with the fund available to us. The projects are there for you to verify. These are comments from our opponents, and you will remember the contest of my coming on board, that people who lost out despite our effort at reconciliation, have continued to hammer us. Some went to court, with two of them ending up at the Supreme Court level. Some of them are still in the court despite the fact that we are approaching another election. In such an environment, they only look at what you have done wrong, but the reality on ground, is that we have performed. We have tried to follow due process; we have done well within the resource made available.
In this period of cash crunch, how are you reducing the cost of governance. Could you also shed light on the debt profile of your state?
In the effort to reduce the cost of governance, we have reduced many areas of waste as you can see. We are focused on ensuring, that government business is done transparently well and in a competitive way. We are ensuring that government get value on whatever money we spend on projects. We are ensuring the completion of projects being executed and prompt delivery. On labour matters, we are very sensitive to the nature of our state; it is a civil service state. We ensure that the issue of down-sizing does not arise, trying to accommodate as many workers as we can within the resources available. We are blocking leakages and ensuring prudent management of resources available. For any project that we embark on, we properly cost them and award them to competent and reliable contractors to execute for us. We are also trying as much as possible to improve our IGR. Our financial system is now computerised, reducing the use of papers work. These are efforts to reduce waste. The money to be accrued from this will go a long way, to for the benefit of the state. On the debt profile, we have very low debt profile. We have overdraft of N1 billion, we have about N1.5 billion in term of money that is taken as counterpart funding for primary education. We have a bond that we subscribed to in the capital market amounting to N20 billion, which we have drawn N8 billion so far. We are using the bond money for the tourist projects, most of the projects are in the degree of 40 percent completion. We still have close to N12 billion to draw. We are in the process of doing that. That is our debt so far.
Some governors appealed to the Federal Government for bailout, but some said it is loan. What is the real position?
There are different elements on the bailout. Many states have fallen behind in the payment of salaries due to their workers. This became a national issue; the governors met and approached Mr. President on the matter. Governors did not use the word bailout, we went for financial restructuring. The governors were not disposed to that word bailout. But, two elements that I would recall are that, there were some monies that came from the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) money. That money was part of the dividend and part of the tax. It is the money that comes into the federation account, and is shared among states on the basis of revenue allocation formula. Some people took that for bailout. In the presentation to Mr. President, we asked for short term loans for states that will be extended to five or seven years’ repayment. So that states will be able to accommodate the payment of salaries and structure our finances. More so, the tenure of bond in Nigeria is seven years; the Federal Government bond is within 20 and 25 years. We requested that those who have taken this bond, the Federal Government should reduce the amount the states pay every month for the bond. The issue of direct bailout was not agreed to, it was money to pay workers and restructure our finance.
