National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
Politics
Thursday, August 9, 2012
15
I didn’t abandon Yar’Adua’s projects – Shema Governor Ibrahim Shema has been piloting the affairs of Katsina State in the last five years. In this interview with JAMES DANJUMA, he speaks on the challenges of administering a state and his efforts at repositioning Katsina. Excerpts: You have been in office for the past five years, how has it been administering a state like Katsina? Administering anything is always a challenge. Administration of a local government, state, nation and even a family is always a challenge. And I’m glad that the challenges in Katsina have not been insurmountable. The challenges in Katsina are like the challenges elsewhere in Nigeria. The issues of poverty, unemployment, infrastructural decay, which requires attention and development, educational standard that needs to be uplifted, agriculture and livestock development that needs all attention, and the security that requires all hands to be on the deck. In the past five years in Katsina, we have tried to do our very best to deliver services to our people in all and more of these areas I mentioned and didn’t mention. Of course, it’s quite interesting too to say that in the process, I learnt a lot, because every time you have opportunity to manage the affairs of men and material, if you handle it right, you come out with a lot of extra knowledge of what you didn’t know before you went in there. Right now as I’m talking to you, five years down the line, I’ve learnt a lot in terms of administration of men and material, people and resources, and I’ve been able to share my views and opinion with people. I receive a lot of advices from people from across the length and breadth of the state, and even from outside the state. I use most of those advices for the good of the people and we have made a lot of progress in terms of development of Katsina State. The issue of development in Katsina State is not new. In the past five years, things are there on ground for everyone to see. Whenever we talk of development in education, which is our number one priority, agriculture, human capital development, resource development and solid minerals, youth empowerment, job creation and governance; this administration has strived hard to make sure that we make a difference in the lives of the people. What efforts have you made to give the education sector a face-lift? No doubt, education is one area we have worked to make maximum impact. Currently, we have the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua University which I met under construction and which has been completed by this administration. We’ve equally been able to get a federal university located in Katsina, the status of our tertiary institutions have been upgraded, students acquire education for free in primary and secondary schools, while at the tertiary institutions they get scholarships. Every child in public school in Katsina doesn’t have to pay for WAEC and NECO fees; we have been paying for this in the past five years. We built over 165 new secondary schools, we provided lots of furniture to most of these secondary schools, we upgraded over 28 primary schools, and we have been able to introduce one girl-child primary school in every local government. We have provided scholarship for foreign training in the fields of medicine, pharmacy, nursing, calligraphy, Arabic computing for well over 270 students of Katsina origin. We don’t just pay for one year; every student’s scholarship is paid for the entire duration of his course. If it’s medicine, five years or six years, we pay the whole. So, in the field of education, this administration has left no stone unturned, and we are striving hard and working much harder and we intend to do much more than what we’ve been doing before. We are looking at the areas where corrections are to be made, and by the grace of God, we will take up the gauntlet and make sure that all those areas that require correction are addressed. Education, no doubt, provides a society the opportunity to move forward. By educating people, you are providing
Yar’Adua Child and Maternal Healthcare Hospital, you’ll see the date of commissioning and the function as it is today. Electrification projects; every single one we met we have completed. All the eight road projects commenced by the late President that I met on ground, have been completed. So, in a nutshell, I’m telling you, that to my knowledge, there is not a single Yar’Adua project left uncompleted within my first two years in office, but please if you have any that you know, kindly tell me.
Shema
a huge opportunity for the nation to move forward, not to move backward. So, we’ve been working hard in all of these areas, we did not leave other fields just like agriculture and livestock development. Your critics have accused you of failing to give attention to some of the projects you inherited from the late President Umaru Yar’Adua against the campaign promises you made. What is the real position? This is a question hinged on promises I made in 2007. I told anyone who cared to listen that Nigeria is littered with uncompleted projects, and I want to make a difference and change that trend by ensuring that wherever every penny of taxpayers’ money is put, it is completed and put to use. So, when people say I have not completed all the projects inherited from Yar’Adua; it’s very simple, late President Yar’Adua of blessed memory awarded the contract for the expansion of Katsina International Airport. I completed that in the space of nine months of my coming into office. It’s up and running; it has done five Hajj operations with Boeing 747 aircraft landing and taking off. Our late President, then governor here, equally started the construction of the Katsina State University; within 18 months of the coming of this administration, that university has not only been completed and equipped, but students have moved in and lectures are taking place. We are doing a lot of expansions there; we are building more hostels for 1,500 students, a lecture theatre that has the capacity of 1,500 people. We have completed the entire project that late Yar’Adua stared in that area. Late President Yar’Adua equally awarded contract for the construction of the Child and Maternal Care Hospital, which has 165-bed capacity. That project was completed, furnished, and today, if you leave here, go to Turai
WHEN PEOPLE SAY
I HAVE NOT
COMPLETED ALL THE PROJECTS
YAR’ADUA; IT’S VERY SIMPLE... TO MY KNOWLEDGE, THERE IS NOT A SINGLE YAR’ADUA PROJECT
INHERITED FROM
LEFT UNCOMPLETED WITHIN MY FIRST TWO YEARS IN OFFICE
How relevant is the free education policy in the face of mass failure of students in the school certificate examination? On this education thing, the challenge is for all of Nigeria. From the results we have been seeing in the nation from both WAEC and NECO, certainly a lot has gone wrong in the entire educational system in the county. Yes, Katsina runs a free education policy; we did that for one fundamental reason from the beginning; when I became governor, you hardly see students in classrooms 10 days after resumption date. Two weeks later, students would just be trickling in. And the enquiry I made was that parents were struggling to get money to pay the basic school fees. When we computed the figures annually collected from students, we found that a single contractor may end up making that kind of money in the state. Why don’t we assist the students by making education free? The concept of free education itself is that every child should have access to free education at primary and secondary levels. That you cannot deny anybody, whether sharp or daft, rich or poor; you have to give equal opportunity to everybody. But when it comes to writing examination, yes we have an open gate for everyone, because when you start up something on a pilot scheme, you watch how it works, you look at areas where there is need to make amendments or adjustments. And one of the areas we have now seen and we require to make adjustment on is the introduction of mock examinations. The Commissioner for Education intimated me that they are looking at those areas of introducing mock examinations before writing the WAEC or NECO. Those who pass that examination, certainly, will be qualified to get their examination fees paid for. If you don’t introduce certain levels of control, you may lose the point of getting everybody to write the examination. But fundamentally, it’s a good principle to ensure that every child has access, not just to education but to final exams, because our concern was this: from very humble or poor homes there may be very brilliant students across the length and breadth of the state. They may acquire the education for free. In fact, some parents can even afford to send them to school to pay in those days, but when it comes to writing WAEC, they may not have the money to pay for it and that child has lost out the chance. So, for that reason, we said we must give every child the right to have access to free education. Most states rely on federal allocation for survival. What are you doing to change the trend in Katsina? In the area of commerce, we are re-energising the Katsina Investment Property and Development Company (KIPDECO), which is now gearing up towards helping commerce and industry to thrive. We have sponsored some private business people to China on investment and business trip; we’ve encouraged the thriving of the chamber of commerce of the state which was virtually moribund befeor the advent of this administration. Now, the Katsina State Chamber of Commerce is vibrant, organising trade fairs across the nation. We have taken very deliberate measures in the area of investment. We try to invest in banks; in the last four and half years, this administration has made over N9 billion from interest deposits in our banks; N9 billion extra cash, liquid funds to the administration. Till date, we have not borrowed a kobo; all these projects you see or you read or you hear about, the state administration has not borrowed a kobo from a local or foreign source to complete them.