Governor Ahmed Ododo is one year in office and in this interview with YINKA OLADOYINBO, the Special Adviser, Media to the governor, Ismaila Isah, highlights the efforts at developing the state and building on the legacies of the immediate past governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello. Excerpts:
Governor Usman Ododo was one year in office yesterday, what makes the last one year worthy of celebration in Kogi State?
The last one year of the administration of Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo is worth celebrating because apart from his commitment to consolidate and continue with the development trajectory of the immediate past administration, he has also turned turn the corner in terms of ensuring that the phenomenon of project abandonment is banished in Kogi State. We have seen a kind of consistent culture, even government of the same party, when another government takes over they tend to abandon the projects initiated by their predecessors, but upon assumption of office the governor pledged that he would ensure that all projects initiated by the immediate past administration, not just because the immediate past governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, is his principal but because he is also concerned about wastage of resources, especially in state like ours where we don’t have so much financial capacity, so whatever little that the past administration has done should not be allowed to go into ruins maybe on the basis that it is not the same person, not the same character but in this instance we are lucky that they are both of the same political family, some of these projects we inherited at over 60 per cent completion, especially the nine kilometers zone 8 to GYB roundabout road and Zango and the 5.5 kilometers from zone 8 to crusher, these are very important roads to the people of Kogi state and Lokoja in particular because they link the state capital to major roads linking our state to the North and the South. By the time the roads are commissioned the people of Lokoja would have a new lease of life, especially on the one leading to crusher, which is very important to our people because of the commercial, nature of the establishment on the route. For the one of zone 8 to Zango, it is equally important because of the number of people that are resident there. There are many projects like that, we have the GYB Model Science Schools in eight federal constituencies within the state, some of them have been completed and by the current administration. Our general hospitals are also receiving attention despite the fact that the immediate past administration started these projects most of them are at the point of completion now. Our healthcare facilities have gotten a new lease of life under the Usman Ododo administration. Over 70 primary healthcare centers are being revitalised, we thought that some of them could be given facelift and turn to what the medical practitioners. Call level 2 functional healthcare facilities. What it means is that they will be elevated to the point where they will have 24-hour power supply, more doctors, support staff like nurses and admin staff, 24 hour water supply, proper security system, they will also have a alternative power source drug supply will also be increased to a level that will almost compare with what we have in general hospitals, We are doing over 74 already and just last week, another site for 88 were handed over to the contractors and this is being done in partnership with the World Bank. The money for it has been provided and that is why they were given four months to complete them. So in the next four months we will continue with the commissioning and projects commissioning is not going to end with the one year anniversary celebration, it is going to be a harvest of commissioning.
While reeling out your achievements, you didn’t mention education, does it mean the administration doesn’t give education priority?
This government place education in its rightful place, Kogi is the only state that established two new universities in the last four years and they are functional and almost all their courses are accredited. Infrastructural development in those universities are going on at speedy rate, as we speak. The 4.5 kilometres road network in the Confluence University of Science and Technology, Osara is completed and ready for commissioning. The two Kilometer road in the Kogi State University, Kabba is completed so also for the Senate building; library and all of the strategic infrastructure, including faculty buildings have been completed. Beyond the infrastructural development in all our higher institutions, there is also a commitment to academic excellence to ensure that our students and teachers are well taken care of. We operate free education from primary one up to SS3. The government has been consistent in the payment of all external examination fees, recently over N600 million was approved for the payment of examination fees of over 8000 of our final year students in public secondary schools.
Kogi is one of states with serious security issues in the country, what is the government to stem the tide and give assurance to investors to come to the state?
Kogi State is safe; there is nothing absolute about insecurity for those that are familiar with the security architecture of Nigeria, a country, there is no absolutism in describing the security of a state and no or state can guarantee the security of every inch of land within its territory, not because they have no capacity to man it but because the security situation, especially at the present time in Nigeria, has become dynamic and fluid to the extend that the enemies of state are looking for opportunities to hit soft target like schools, people in their farmlands, people that are trying to fend for themselves. These are the challenges that states have been faced with for sometime now. But the present administration has been consistent in ensuring that we have been able not only be on top of our game in terms of being ahead of criminals but because of the robust security architecture that we inherited from the immediate past administration. We have been able to build on that, there is now more recruitment into the state security vigilante service, recruitment of at least 50 hunters in each of the 21 local government areas, we have over 3000 people in the state vigilante service and the local hunters and that has ensured that they are able to collaborate and coexist very well with the conventional security. Even sometimes, they lead in terms of intelligent gathering because these guys live in the communities and a lot of people are volunteering to support now. Also, investment in terms of logistics has been very much, over 300 operational vehicles have been deployed in the last one year. Over 1000 motorcycles, the state Security Trust Fund has also embarked on refurbishing of operational vehicles, we have also given special motorcycles to our local vigilantes that make them navigate difficult terrains. Our partnership with the conventional security agencies has also been very robust. The governor has been consistently engaging the top echelon of the security organizations in the country, it is on record that Kogi State is the only state that has consistently taken the fight to criminals in their hideouts, we are not waiting for them to attack our people or repel the attack. Recently, the governor had a meeting with the management of NARSDA with the view of employing space technology to monitor our borders from our command and control centre. With that we can nip in the bud any potential attack on our people in any part of the state. For our investors, there is no cause for alarm.
Kogi State with a large landmass should take advantage of this for agricultural development, so what are you doing in this direction?
We recently had an interaction with the commissioner for agriculture and he was bold in terms of where we are going for the coming wet season farming in the state. The state government also established the ministry of livestock development. It is a very strategic move in the sense that while we are working on crop production, we do not leave livestock production because it is value chain that is also critical for us as a state and the value chain is very easy to manage in terms of production, processing and marketing flow. The value chain of livestock is easier to handle than processing of some crops. The fact that we do not currently have state-owned ranches or settlements that can produce livestock is what the government will be looking into with the establishment of the ministry. Generally on agriculture we have done well in the state. The recent data that puts Kogi as number 36 while rating the states with high level of food inflation, the statistics when we came on board was not too interesting to say that we are top in terms of state with high level of food inflation but now after one year, we are at the bottom, there is nothing more fundamental than the turn around that has been achieved, especially with food security in our state and we want to sustain that. The government did over 10,000 hectares of land cultivation from clearing to mechanisation, planting, seedlings, chemical support, fertilizer to ensure that the production cycle of those crops is enhanced from what it would be normally, apart from high yield seedlings we also ensure that they are supported with whatever needs to be done. With the coming wet season planting, the state plans to do 50, 000 hectares for cultivation.
Beyond the tractors that we brought for land preparation and planting last year, this year the government wants to take a step further by ensuring that other components of mechanisation system like harvesters are brought on board. In terms of supports for farmers a lot of loans and grants have been given under different state projects, some of them in partnership with the World Bank like Agro-climate Resilience in Semi-arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) where 80 communities have been supported with over N3 billion in the last one year.
What should be the expectation of the people of Kogi State in the next for year?
In the next four years, there are a lot of projects in the horizon.
We have the airport projects, the Zariagi airstrip that will be upgraded to international airport. We have been up and doing in terms of securing the right investors that will come there, It is likely going to be a Public Private Partnership (PPP) project, we are going to ensure that we secure the support that we required from the Federal Government, We also plan to have an industrial park, already over 3000 hectares of land have been allocated to that in the Ajaokuta development corridor, The conversation with a potential investor is fast ongoing and I am sure that would be concluded soon, it is a massive project that plans to employ thousands of our people directly and indirectly, there are other investors that are expected to key into what the Anchor 231 investors are doing. In terms of infrastructure, All our local government areas have 10 kilometers that we are doing rehabilitation and construction of new ones
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