Jigawa State Governor Malam Umar Namadi spoke with AHMED RUFA’I in Dutse, the state capital, on the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s leadership styles, his achievements and constraints, and how he is repositioning the state for development.
It is two years of president Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration. How will you assess the impacts of his administration on Jigawa state?
The two years of president Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been rewarding and promising for us in Jigawa State. I can say this over and over again because we have a President who is bold and has taken bold decisions for the interest of his people and long-term benefits for the country. Nigeria needs transformation that cannot be done by someone who is timid to make some decisions and pronouncements that will affect the high and mighty.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s bold decisions on removal of fuel subsidy and unifying the exchange rate. These decisions should have been made much earlier. It was clear that many Nigerians misconstrued these decisions, hence the brouhaha that trailed those changes. But as we speak, those policies have been paying off. That tells of what we should expect in the long run.
Economists and educated Nigerians knew fuel subsidy was not to the benefit of a common man, rather, the rich and the middle-level class were ripping Nigeria off. But, since those policies had been made, the country is better for it. For instance, more money has been coming into federation account for the federal government and that has rubbed on on states and local governments. And Jigawa State, like other states, has been getting increased allocation. This, in turn has been impacting on governance at the grassroot.
Your Excellency, what specific federal government policies or initiatives have directly benefited Jigawa State since 2023?
This is a good question. Like I said, our our allocation has increased. That means we can undertake more developmental projects that will transform the lives of the people. We are currently taking on several infrastructural projects in the state. I am sure you must have been seeing multiple road and other infrastructure contracts going on the state simultaneously. As we speak, we have awarded hundreds of road projects. These projects are in the addition to the ones we inherited from the past government. I am happy to tell you that most of the inherited projects have been delivered. Some that my administration also began have been completed, while some are at completion stage.
In health sector, we came up with a policy to provide free healthcare services to over 143,000 vulnerable. This is in addition to similar gesture to children under five and pregnant women. We are constructing a specialist hospital in Kazaure, Orthopedic hospital in Gumel, as well as completing a Hadejia specialist hospital at Hadejia. We are also constructing the permanent site of Hadejia School of Nursing. It will interest you to know that we are also constructing primary healthcare clinic at all the 287 political wards.
In Agricultural sector, our administration recently procured 300 unit of tractors and it’s implements, 150 combined harvesters and many other farm implements. We also recruited over 300 youth, who we sponsored to China for a training on operation and repairs of the tractors and other implements. 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 institutions and secondary schools. We also purchased Khadija University Majia among numerous other projects to mentioned the few. All of these become possible due to those policies by President Tinubu. If the central government has failed to unify our exchange rate, there would be a problem of stabilising the country’s economy.
Beyond Jigawa State, the impacts of these decisions are visible in the economic activities both at the national and the grassroots too. For instance, you can see how agricultural activities are going everywhere in Nigeria. People are going into agriculture in almost all parts of the country and federal government is unveiling several interventions programmes. Today, courtesies of the Federal Government, Jigawa State is number producer of wheat in Nigeria. This became achievable through the Federal Government/African Development Bank Wheat Production Programme. As if that was not enough, the Federal Government came with the the same program on Rice, livestock farming and many others.
Recently, there have been several high-profile defections from opposition parties to the APC in Jigawa and Nigeria at large. Do you believe these defections are based on ideology or political survival?
The issue of defection is very clear and straight-forward. If you see somebody moving from his house to another house, that means he has seen a better house. So, the defections where many are leaving in droves to the All Progressives Congress (APC), means they have seen a great future in the ruling party. They are in tune with the progressives and what is happening in the APC as a political party both at the federal and state levels. That’s means the party and it’s program are impacting the lives of the people. It also shows that the reforms being implemented by the Federal Government are improving the lives of ordinary Nigerians. That is why people are moving to APC en mass.
Coming back to Jigawa state, how does your two years in office impact the people in the state?
My two years is very uneventful and rewarding. We that the almighty God for His mercies and guidance to do what we have done. We thank Allah for His guidance too. We thank the entire people in the state, the civil servants, my cabinet, my special advisers and assistance and everybody for their support and cooperation, because without their cooperation, we will not achieve what we have achieved in Jigawa State. With the help of God, we did and still doing our best to fulfill our promises through implementing our 12 points agenda we earlier presented to the people in the state and voted for us based on trust and what it contained. Since we assumed office, we have done a lots of economic empowerment where hundred of thousands of people mostly youth and women have benefited through various projects and programs; we have introduced numerous skills acquisition trainings, agricultural production, supports to establish or improve both small and medium businesses. We increased the students’ scholarship by over 300 percent in addition to sponsoring over 230 students abroad to study medicine. We recruited over 10,000 private security to mans schools, hospital, courts and other public facilities across the state among many others.
Last week, you returned from an official trip to India with a powerful delegation from Jigawa State’s agricultural sector. Is there any good news for Jigawa citizens?
My trip to India is very fruitful and rewarding for that matter. Jigawa State is an agrarian state, so, anything that has to deal with agriculture is given priority because 80 to 85 percent of Jigawa population depend on agriculture as their means of livelihood. Like I said, we are focusing majorly on agriculture. We know for a fact that, if we fail transform agriculture in Jigawa State, we would have ended without impacting the state as much as we should have done. We went to India to get investors and those that we can work together with to improve so many aspects of agriculture in Jigawa State particularly on dairy, poultry and the issue of seeds. These are three important areas we went to discuss and I thank God for the trip that it was fruitful. With regards to dairy, we met with many stakeholders. First of all, we have met with the National Dairy Development Bard (NDDB) of India. It is a 60 years old organization that is working assiduously to improve dairy production in India. Soon, we shall be unveiling further details and our engagement with the company.
Interestingly, we discovered that the country has a system of cooperative in different sectors. We can domesticate this in our state. They gather farmers in different cooperative groups, train them in an artificial insemination to improve their productivity in milk production. That system has changed the country’s narrative from a milk importing country to a milk exporting country.
We were able to meet the farmers, interact with them and improved with our findings. With government’s interventions, they are happy on the job and pledged their loyalty to their country. At the grassroots, there is cooperatives to enhance their yields. We can compare that to ward levels in Jigawa. At local government level, they have what they call Amore – that is the association of cooperatives for their chairmen. While those at the wards 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 who will process it into different products. They have established processing centers where the milk would be collected through tankers from the ward levels to be freeze and thereafter, the products will be taken to the state level where the market segment is. This is the arm responsible for selling the product in the country or abroad. Can you see the complete value chains that have improved the lives of farmers at the grassroots? We have extensively discussed this with NDDB.
Similarly, the private sector follows 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 organizations, which are willing to come to Jigawa State. When they come, we will take them round and see how we can form cooperative societies for our farmers too. They have agreed and ready to come and invest Jigawa to establish a dairy processing plant. The animal feeds would be produced to farmers, to collect and pay when they bring their milk on the subsidised rate. And, one interesting thing is, the climates condition of India is the same we have here. So, we are hopeful that we can conveniently replicate this.
On poultry, we discussed with them extensively. The major challenges facing poultry in Nigeria include the cost of poultry feeds, disease and biosecurity. We have discussed that with them. We got some people that are willing to come here to have a partnership with us to establish hatchery and big poultry farms. They are also to train our people on poultry, who may also decide to go into subsistence farming.
Seedlings are very critical in agriculture. During our trip, we visited different seeds companies and saw how the research really improved the seeds productions. We visited their rice seeds that yield an average of 10 tonnes per hectare. There others that can make 12 to 13 tonnes per hectare. Can you imagine that? Currently, the highest we are doing as a state maximum of five tonnes per hectare. With this arrangement, that will greatly improve. While the people are ready to partner with us, we will talk to the National Seeds Development Company to see how we can all collaborate for the seeds production.
