The problem with Sovereign Wealth Fund, by Gov Lamido

Posted by admin Governors, Latest Politics Sunday, November 20th, 2011

By Jimoh Babatunde
INTERVIEW IN BRIEF
Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State speaks on his love for the downtrodden, the introduction of social welfare package for the disabled, plans to open up Jigawa to investors, agriculture and civil responsibilities of citizens to the Nigerian State. Lamido also speaks on the proposed Sovereign Wealth Fund, SWF, which, according to him, is not desirable now. There are more things to be done that just keeping money.

“All monies accruing to the federation must be shared among all the three tiers of government, so says the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and anything to the contrary is null and void”.

“Which money do you want to save when there is not enough money to execute several developmental progammes and projects?”, he says. Excerpts:

How do you see leaders of today?

Our leaders of the past had commitment.

They were not greedy compared to what we have today. Today’s generations are selfish, we believe in using people as tools to attain selfish advantage.

Nobody trusts anybody anymore.

That is why we have crises here and there in the country.

What motivated your social security scheme targeted at the masses?

This ideology simply means democratising love, care and compassion so as to benchmark humanity in terms of dignity and respect.

First, save the weakest among us otherwise called the disabled, whom physical disabilities and other afflictions have consigned to objects of repugnance in our midst.

Governor Sule Lamido

If you say because somebody is disabled and you neglect him, you are not being fair, even you that is healthy need support not to talk of somebody who is disabled.

The money we make is for all. How then do you abandon them, abandon a part of you and turn them to unwanted species?

The social security package is their right too.

They no longer beg, they are no longer neglected. They must feed and feel to be part of the society.

It’s more evil to make them feel unwanted.

We have to care for them. The allocation to Jigawa State from the Federation Account is for all the sons and daughters of Jigawa, so, because they are getting that money, you can see that they are very clean, they can take care of themselves. They no longer go hungry or go about begging for food.

So, our efforts to develop, our efforts to become more civilized people is because, with this programme, they have been switched on as human beings and not as it was before when they were switched off and un-catered for.

This same principle of caring for the people led to the construction, reactivation and equipping of six skills acquisition centres in Birnin Kudu, Dutse, Hadejia, Gumel, Ringim and Kazaure, where hitherto unemployed youths are being trained in trades like shoe-making, cell-phone repairs, chalk-making, paint-making, photography, tailoring, horse decoration, plumbing and auto mechanic.

The skill acquisition programmes will restore the artisans into their rightful place in the emerging and expanding service sector in Jigawa State.

Before you came on board, statistics showed that Jigawa State had the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the country. Some people don’t see your intervention in this sector as anything cheering?

Why? Today, we have developed an effective and impressive health care system under the Gunduma Health Care System with a bottom-up approach from primary health care to the secondary and the tertiary.

The Rasheed Shekoni Specialist Hospital, the most modern equipped hospital in Nigeria, stands in testimony to this. Jigawa State today offers free maternal services covering delivery and the child’s life up to the age of five. This is in addition to regular and periodic vaccination on polio, malaria, measles and similar diseases. The sparkling eyes and smiling faces of mothers and babies all over Jigawa State bear testimony to this.

Of what significance is the Sawaba Monument erected inside the Mallam Aminu Kano Triangle in Dutse? And you also have the G-9 Quarters?

No nation grows without knowing where you are coming from.

We must know our history to be able to chart a way forward. G-9 is an appreciation to leaders who played a key role in restoring democracy in Nigeria.

When Abacha tried to transform into military president, those in the opposition were engaging him from the tribal angle, it was difficult to really get a national appeal.

Abacha came up with his own parties, we met the requirements, yet things were not falling into place.

So, myself, the late Chief Bola Ige, Adamu Ciroma, Francis Ella, Abubakar Rimi, Iyorcha Ayu and Solomon Lar met in Lagos, somewhere on Raymond Njoku Street, in1996, to rub minds on how to chart a way forward for the country in the aftermath of the crisis that engulfed the country due to the annulment of June 12 presidential election.

We looked at Nigeria and we looked at the roles being played by NADECO and we noted that the body was engaging Abacha from tribal point of view and, because it was tribal, other Nigerians refused to go along. The more you hammered him (Abacha) from the tribal angle, the more you strengthened him as people looked at NADECO as mainly a Yoruba organization.

We now agreed to form a body that would have a nationalistic outlook so as to effectively engage Abacha and stop him from transforming to become military president.

We now named the body G-9. Later, it became G-18, then G-34 and finally metamorphosed into PDP (Peoples Democratic Party).

To give Nigerians a sense of history, that is why the G-9 Quarters was built and named after leaders who played key roles in giving Nigerians democracy we are enjoying today, so that they can appreciate the sacrifices made by their leaders.

The G-9 Quarters is adding to the beauty of the state capital, Dutse; it is an effort to improve on the infrastructure in the state.

Critics are querying the huge chunks of the state budget spent on the provision of road infrastructure in the state.

Without basic infrastructure, especially in road network, the required stimulus to economic growth and the opening up of the towns and villages will not be possible. Also, our efforts in education, health and agriculture will come to naught if that level of movement of goods and services was not put in place.

We have invested heavily on roads, ranging from asphalting major arteries, which intersect across the state, to building new inter-town/inter-local government network that has made Jigawa to assume spider web in road facility today. One may not be far from the truth if one says Jigawa State has the best road network in Nigeria today.

We have embarked on the transformation of all our local government headquarters into modern cities with asphalt township roads and drainages, to be completed with street lights before the end of our tenure in 2015.

The plan to have an airport in Dutse is also high on our list. What we desire most now is an airport in the state to ease movement of people and investors into and out of Jigawa to transact business.

We are very close to Cameroun in the east, very close to Chad in the north, Kano in the east. It has beautiful scenery, good climate and is an investor’s haven.

People there are anxious to reach the world and the only means today is to have an airport. For example, if you are coming from Abuja by air, you have to drop in Kano and come to the Jigawa State capital, Dutse, by road and the roads linking us with Kano are very very bad. They are horrendous.

The Federal Government has made a commitment to build the airport for the state. We are therefore looking forward to the fulfillment of that commitment.

If people like Bill Gates want to come to Jigawa as he has planned to come to assist us in the polio eradication campaign, he cannot come now because there is no airport through which his plane can land.

By whatever criteria, Jigawa needs an airport to open up our state to industrial development aside from the massive road network construction currently going on.

It does not look as if your government is doing much in the area of agriculture.

We depend on self help to develop the state. Agriculture is one area we are investing in to turn around Jigawa economy. Land is our own oil. We are willing to give land to interested investors. Within three months of applying for land, you are through with your certificate of occupancy. In this emerging economy, agro based industry is important. We have half a million hectares of irrigable land.

Federal Government is investing heavily in Hadejia/Jamare river valley. Recently, during the visit of the vice president, N10billion commitment was made to improve on the Hadejia/Jamare agro-based industry.

It is common knowledge that agriculture in this part of the country accounts for over 90 per cent of our people’s occupation. But it is not only subsistent, it is also human labour-driven in the hi-tech 21st century. Not only is this condition pitiable, we are also harassed by the protocols of the World Trade Organisation when the Jigawa farmer is put on the same pedestal with his European or American counterpart.

It was with this in mind and to save the Jigawa farmer from slipping further into perpetual hunger and poverty that we rolled out certain programmes to assist our farmers in terms of rock bottom fertiliser prices, improved and high yielding seeds, subsidised tractor prices and hiring, loans facilities for work, bull and appliances, farm extension services, crop fumigation and pests aerial spray, opening of Fadama irrigation in suitable local government areas for our youths and government’s purchase of excess harvest as incentive to grow more.

When you put a thing like this in place, you trigger economic activities, you think of how to preserve them and get them to the market.

Loans are being given to small scale farmers. Government is ever willing to support any investor in this regard.

To promote and further boost economic activities in the state, the state government facilitated the establishment of the popular payless Sahad Stores in Jigawa. This was made possible by the decision to give free allocation of land to the owners of the store in Dutse where the one-stop shop supermarket now operates. Today, people from across the 19 northern states troop daily to Dutse to purchase goods from the store because of the rock-bottom prices at which it sells.

-Vanguardwp_posts

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Posted by admin on Nov 20 2011. Filed under Governors, Latest Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry