“Transforming Niger IGR: From N500M to New Heights!” | (How I moved Niger IGR from N500m)

…Speaks on state’s agricultural revolution, restructuring, parliamentary system of government, insecurity in state, Babangida and Abdulsalami

• Says by the time he finishes new Suleja, Abuja will look like boys quarters

From Adetutu Folasade-Koyi, Paulinus Aidoghie And Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

Niger State governor, Mohammed Umar Bago, has said that he is determined to change the fortunes of the state for the better.

In this interview with Sunday Sun he listed the robust efforts he is making to actualise this dream.

The governor also opened up on his support for state police and restructuring of governance as an enterprise.

The chief farmer also explained  the nexus between international terrorists organisations and Boko Haram operating in the state’s forest reserves and why the National Assembly should discard any consideration of a return to parliamentary system of government. Excerpts:

It has been 17 months since you assumed office as the governor in Niger State. How has it been, so far?

So far, so good. It has not been icing on the cake. But has been so wonderful.

Wonderful, as a governor in Nigeria?

Yes! Wonderful, in that we have been able to, through this opportunity, see the horizon. It is beyond what you think. Governance is the ability to feel the pulse of the common man and also try to address issues that affect the common man – social welfare, security, health, education etc. It is wonderful because the challenges there are not insurmountable. Some, we have been able to surmount. We are also surmounting a lot that are coming.

Barely few months in office, you launched your agricultural revolution; what was the motivation for focusing on agriculture?

Niger State is sitting on 76,000 square kilometers of arable land. In fact, recently, at the stakeholder’s engagement with the Ministry of Works, for the Sokoto-Badagry highway, the value capture on the area that the road is going to pass in Niger, 125 kilometres, I have already secured a farm estate around there, that is bigger than Lebanon -1.2 million hectares of land. Niger State is 76,000 square kilometers. That is about 83 million hectares of land. Along that corridor  that the Sokoto-Badagry Road is coming, I have like 63 dams there. I have four hydropower dams. I have 92 dams across the state. Niger is really endowed and with that kind of natural resources, you have nothing to think of; than how to put them to use. We have seen that before the discovery of oil in Nigeria. Nigeria through the colonial days and early years of independence, survived on agriculture. I went back to see where we got it wrong and tried to fix issues of food-security, social security, financial independence, productivity, industrialisation and I saw those opportunities in agriculture. I decided to look for partnership across the globe. I got a lot of partners from the United States of America; I got partners from the  manufacturers of tractors and equipment, I got some in the UK. I got investment from Germany. I got investment from the Chinese. I got investment form Brazilians. I got investment from Indians. And, all these investments are coming as partnership. So, there is no debt burden on the state. So, it is an off-taker kind of agreement. Even when we had serious shortage of food, even food we aggregated for export, we had to bring them in to subsidise them…to reduce inflation at a point in time in this country, we did that.

You’ve not said anything about Isreal because we know they are good in that field.

The Israelis, we have started discussing, but because of this crisis, we couldn’t take it further because they are overwhelmed with their issues. But we know they are very good in agriculture, even the Dutch and the Czech. We have been to Czech Republic. We have been to Holland, on animal husbandry. Even Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We have a very strong partnership with the UAE for carbon squassation, for transitioning one million people from using normal fossil fuel to power their stove, to clean stove. In fact, they have already offered us for free one million cooking stoves so that we can transition families out of that. We signed that MoU a long time ago. The only thing that was the hitch was the bilateral relationship between Nigeria and the UAE, which became sour at a time. That was halted. At the COP 28, now we have gone for COP 29, and our people are already there, that discussion will be taken further.  We have some initiatives to transition homes. Now, we have an SPU call NiSolar- Niger Solar. The NiSolar is an initiative to transition 1,000,000 households from using the national grid. How it works is like a recharge card in your phone.  You dial a number and you pay and you have power supply.  It is already working. Ten thousand homes are already enjoying it.

Why hide this innovation from Nigerians?

Nigerians know. But you know we have overwhelming issues. Things that are worrying our people. People are in despair, a lot of issues. So, what we are trying to do is to model our state as a frontline state for clean energy, agriculture, renewable energy, different kind of syllabuses for education. In China, one of the deals that we got is how to do telemedicine. We have understood that there are shortages of human capital in medicine. And there is no way you can get somebody that is in Canada or America to come to Nigeria as a doctor. So, we are trying to provide services where electronically diagnosis can be made. Right now, we are already in phase three. We have invested in Internet services that would be free across the state capital – so that we can have free Internet services. It is already being deployed because we want our people to transit. This is the only way you can change people and give them skills.  There are businesses and opportunities that people don’t even know exist. For example, a call centre. We want to be able to do services for organisations like Sheraton, Hilton, everywhere, so that when you want to talk to Hilton, you call,  we pick. We have better accent than even the Indians that are doing the business. These are some of the things we want  to bring in. They are alternatives to white collar jobs and they pay well. They pay in dollars.  Now, since COVID-19, a lot of initiatives, a lot of people work from home. How do you work from home?  You need Internet services. So, in our schools, in our market places, we want to be able to give people Internet services so that people can begin to sell. You don’t need to go to market and crowd yourselves.  The infrastructure  has been done. It is being tested; it is working.

With regards to agriculture, what target did you set for yourself and where are you now?

Our target is that we are going to feed Nigeria. That is our target. We are feeding Nigeria, and by 2027, we will have excess to start exporting to West Africa. And, by 2030, we will start feeding Africa and, I can tell you, it is doable. Right now, in this current farming season, I have just started harvesting among the one million metric tons of corn field. We have one hundred hectares of corn field and that will give you about 100 metric tons of corn. We have soya, we have guinea corn, we have millet. In fact, we have got off-take agreement from Turkey for our Soya cake . We are trying to set up the soya plant. Because we are creating SAPs. We have relationships with the AFREXIM and the Chinese EXIM. We have got about $700 million to create agric-processing zones and this is already a reality. We have signed the SAPS agreement with the Nigeria Flour Mill; just last week, where we will also partner with them. We have signed a lot of initiatives with some Chinese companies and this is a reality. It is not just a dream. Already, we have signed and the money is available. We are just trying to dot the i’s and cross the t’s. That is what is remaining.

In terms of naira and kobo, how much are you talking about, particularly for the state, when you sell?

When you talk about revenue for the state, you have to look at before the revenue. Government is not supposed to make money. Government is supposed to provide services and enabling environment for business to come in.   We are expecting a $1 trillion Gross Domestic Prodyuct (GDP) for our state over time. And you know what that means? For example, the Turkish don’t need the oil from soya, they need the cake. So, now, you process the soya. Take out the oil. That oil is good for your market. That is money. So, the oil is jara (extra). Do you understand? So, you export the cake. You employ people and do a lot of things. In the sugarcane thing we are doing with Brazil, I went with the President to Brazil, for the G20. We have seen films pf sugarcane from their machineries and plants. They are able to generate 100,000 megawatts of electricity from those. In sugar processing, you have the raw sugar, you have the ethanol, you have molasses and all these things are by-product of sugarcane. We are looking for sovereign guarantee of $1 billion … and if they start with $200 million for us, in the next five years, I will be paying Nigeria salary. Sugarcane is more than gold. Sugarcane is the future. You can use sugarcane to create ethanol, from ethanol you blend your fuel. For example, if you have four litres of  petrol and you have four litres of ethanol, if you blend it, how many litres liquid do you have? Eight litres. So, it will bring down the cost of your fuel. Even this scarcity, it will  bring it down by 50 per cent and it is going to be clean air. You are going to get carbon credit from the carbon market. It is a lot because it is environmentally friendly production. From ethanol, you produce alcohol. Alcohol, you use it for pharmaceuticals; you can use it for a lot of things. You can even produce yeast and use it for confectionaries and other things. You can get molasses. From molasses, you also generate all those by-products from molasses. And from …gas , you can do animal feeds, you can even make roofs , somethings like clay roof. And you generate  power because the mills, as they run, they are turbines and they produce power. The smallest of it will give you 100 megawatts. And, in Brazil, they have almost 500 of these factories. You can imagine while power is not a problem.  Cities like Sao Palo, are very rich now because they have sugar cane. And, we also have it! On this corridor of Sokoto-Badagry, if I do sugarcane, I will be making about $50 billion annually if I just produce sugarcane for export.  If I want to put up plants there, I don’t even know how much, I will get. What we want to do is to change the psyche of Nigerians. Change the psyche of people. Let people understand that there is prosperity in agriculture .How can I be a graduate and go and sit down in a ministry and they are paying me N80,000 or N100,000? It is a shame.  Some graduates of agriculture, they don’t want to do extension services. We are creating 100 farm estates in Niger State. These 100 farm estates will give one million accommodation. So, one million people  will depopulate Abuja, in the next two years, to start living in Niger State because that corridor that links Abuja to Niger State will have a rail line. So, you can actually work in Abuja and live in Niger State.

Are you not taking on too much? And, how will this help IDPs forced out of their homes by bandits and insurgency?

It is not government money. It is private sector driven. The enabling environment is what they want. These monies are there. These people are there.  And the technology is there. My deputy governor just returned from South Africa. We sent them to interact with Hydraform . Hydraform has a technology for building bricks; that you can build a house in two days. We have issues of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the state and we don’t want to have IDPS again. We want to relocate people and start a new city for them, where it is conducive. We want to  build houses for people. We have a partnership with UNDP and other partners. We will take people out of IDP camps. Put  schools there. So, you have to go out. You have to go and talk to people. They need to see seriousness in what you are doing. The Hydraform a machine `will cost you roughly N30 million with all the movements. If you bring in 10, that would be N300 million. You just use earth and miss a little chemical and that is  all. So, people must stop living in primary schools because they are IDPs. There are people in IDP camps for the past eight years. You can imagine how bad it is for those people. We are very determined to move them out of the camps  and resettle them. If after everything is settled and you are willing to go back to your own village, you can go back. That is what we want to do and we are calling on every other government to do that. Once you take out civilians from the communities where terrorists are and resettle them somewhere, it is easy for you to do heavy bombardment. Burn down the entire place and come and rebuild it. But when you have collateral damage, you can’t try those kinds of things. That is why these terrorists are using human shields to continue to perpetrate their crime. I can tell you we have reduction of 80 per cent in terrorists activities in Niger State, because we have cleared some of those bushes and farmed there. We have Grazing Reserves now where we have planted corn on 30 hectares; 30 hectares of land. Do you know how many kilometres that is? It was fallow land and they (the terrorists and bandits) were there. We chased them out and took over the facility and there are other places like that now.

When you assumed office as governor, what was the state IGR like and what is like now?

The State IGR was hovering between N500 million and N700 million but, right now, we are hitting almost N10 billion.

Where did you get that from?

Just by blocking the loopholes. We have migrated a lot of collection system, reporting system. And, there is transparency in our application. We have seen loopholes; even people who generate and consume, now; don’t generate and consume. They report through the system. It is just responsible governance that we have brought into practice. Secondly, with the agriculture initiatives, we are making money.

You were once a banker and a lawmaker and now, you are a governor. You have age on your side, the political acumen, educational exposure and administrative experience to place Niger State higher in terms of economic development, above other states. Are there still challenges for you?

Yes, there are challenges. For instance, security is a challenge. Because everything that has to do with security is centralised. The Federal Government needs to sanction the military to attack. They need to sanction the police to attack. Sometimes, we are forced to create all sorts of alternative standing forces. We are forced to do some local procurement to support local efforts. However, you know that with the current push for state policing, which we are advocates of and I support it 100 per cent. If we have that, I can tell you the issue of insecurity can be by-gone. Let me also tell you something; the problem of Nigeria is the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC); coming to Abuja to share money.

How is that, when states don’t even need to come to Abuja before getting their share?

That arrangement should be reviewed. When you go to other climes, there are projects that are called national projects. There are projects that are called developmental projects. Like in China, you have two kinds of budgets – infrastructure budget. The military did it, during the military regimes here. They will say we want to do Third Mainland Bridge. They will agree on the amount and they will pay the contractor and nobody will say ‘no, it is my allocation.’ They wanted to build Abuja, they built Abuja. They didn’t look at FAAC or anything. The arrangement here is that everybody goes on the FAAC day, you share money. We have generated N1 trillion,  there is a formula to share it , they share. They send me my change. I collect the change. If I like, I will just sit down. That is what is affecting bureaucracy. You must pay me at the end of the month. If you want to produce, you must use the money very well. So, imagine, you look at some of these initiatives, and the Federal Government or the government of Nigeria says we want to do sugarcane as Brazil is doing, to solve our power problem, to solve unemployment problem, to solve this and that and they say okay, we are taking $1 billion to create, on this corridor, farm estates for sugarcane. And here we are going to have 10 plantations or six plantations and also six factories – if at 100 megawatts alone per each, that is 600 megawatts of power. How many people can you employ on those farms? You will start to transition from dependent on small pay-checks. Even universities can have farms. You have agric departments, you have works departments, if you collaborate, you will do a lot. We have to run government like an enterprise. But we are patronising contractors, giving them money when you have trained people from the university that are not working. Our contractors are doing everything. Our engineers are redundant. And they will finish their 30 years of employment and they have never done anything physical. So, you must look at Ministry of Works like an enterprise. To say you must generate revenue, you must compete. This is the standard of roads and it must be delivered. How many engineers do you have?  So, you run that as a business. Look at health. You run health as a business. If government wants to do subsidy, government will do subsidy, but you must run it like a business. You can’t just run health and you say you are a director of health, you wear tie, you sit down; or a director in education (ministry). How can the Federal Government condescend to local government level? Local governments are supposed to run education. Every year, you do budget, in the budget, (there are allocations for Federal Government College, Unity Schools. No! Even the state government is above secondary school issue. What is the state government going to do in schools? What is the local government doing? Also, let the Federal Government be concerned about our currency, foreign policy and defence. Leave the other things to states. What is the business of the Federal Ministry of Works doing federal roads? What is federal road? That was why since I came, there is no dichotomy between federal roads and state roads or local government roads. My people live here. They are suffering. I have responsibility to fix it. when I am done, I can reach out to the Federal Government to say ‘I did this your road.’ If they don’t want to refund, so be it. It is for my people at the end of the day. But we must take ownership of governance; it is very important. I am just giving you few examples. Look at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture; Agronomy. A professor collecting salary of N400,000. Why?

But there will be need for bureaucrats to formulate policies and ensure implementation?

No. It is because we have over depended on that. If we are producing, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture should run as a business. We want you to open farms and produce and pay Nigeria. Federal Ministry of Housing—build houses and come pay money to Nigeria. You want seed money, take seed money.  This arrangement will not last long. And, that is why we are indebted and we will continue to be in a cyclical debt. We need to first reorganise as how governance is supposed to be. In other climes, even military, you have military engineering, and they are constructing roads. They should compete. You say, okay, there are bandits on the road, let military be given the contract to do that road like they are giving Julius Berger. We are expecting you to make a mark up of 30 per cent from this money, then you will pay the government.

But we have DICON?

DICON is to produce weapons. If they produce weapons, they can sell. We are buying ammunition; we are buying weapons from other countries. So, if DICON steps up and want to produce, why not?

So, the challenges are surmountable?

Yes. It is just that we need to sit down at a roundtable and look ourselves in the face and tell ourselves: ‘how we are going to restructure Nigeria for Nigeria to move?’ When you say restructure, it is not about balkanising Nigeria, but how governance can be restructured. From 1999 when we took over this democracy to now, in Abuja , have you built a hotel that is close to Transcorp Hilton? Have you built any estate that is close to Gwarimpa? Have you laid roads like Kubwa Road? Let me tell you, it is because you sit down and do sharing formula. Let me tell you how low we have condescended – you do bridge, short bridge, not up to 30 metres and you are commissioning it. When people are building flyovers on 10 levels. When people are building tunnels. And, that was what the President told me that he wants to build tunnels. He is challenged to do tunnels. Not these bridges.

Where is the space now?

There is space.

Abuja is almost built up?

Break those houses.

There will be problem?

There won’t be problem. Relocate them.

To Where?

Come to Niger State, I will give you space.  Put infrastructure. This Abuja, you are talking – Maitama , Wuse  were  carved out from Niger State. We gave them to the Federal Government and we were not even compensated.

No compensation yet?

As a state? Who compensated us? The military took it by Decree. We are happy that FCT is here. But, we are saying, if you want more space, get it planned. In fact, right now, we have designed two cities. One on the left side of Abuja and one on the right side of Abuja. And, we have the new Minna 1 and new Minna 2. It was done by the Korean government free, pro bono. The boundary thing with Abuja and Niger, a committee is already working on it to bring it out. But, let me tell you, the Kaduna Road that you are seeing is just a small portion of the boundary with Niger. If I show you the design for the new Suleja, you will marvel. We cannot come and build an ugly city. We want to make Abuja look like Boys Quarter.

In the course of this conversation, you have spoken about insecurity, your plans to take your people out of the occupied areas. Recently, Niger State was in the news for insecurity. What are you doing?

Let me tell you, Niger State is the largest state in Nigeria; 80 per cent of Niger State is fallow. No human being there. We are bordering Zamfara and Kebbi on one side. On the other side we are bordering Kogi State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). On another side, we are bordering Kaduna State. We are bordering six states and Benin Republic. Over time, these people have lived in these ungoverned spaces for a long time. Niger State has the largest congregation of cattle in West Africa because of the topography; because of the bodies of water and a lot of things. So, you will find herdsmen from everywhere gravitating to Niger State because, seven months of dry season is dry-lush green, plenty of water and no tsetse fly. So, they all come from everywhere. But because of population explosion, a lot of corridors, the pathways of the cattle have been encroached by farming. So, you have farmers/ herders clashes on that axis. And, that has also endeared bandits to continue to come because they want to steal cattle. In my bush now, I have more than six million cattle that are astray, no owners. They have stolen them. They have killed the people. And, the government is just trying its best. About six million cattle! What we have done is that we have pushed them into grazing reserves; to protect them and if people that have lost them will come and identify them, it will be released to them. We have been doing that year in, year out. Now, the second issue we are having is the terrorists – Boko Haram elements that are already in our forest reserves. A lot of gold mining that is happening around here, it is sponsored by extreme terrorism. International terror organisations have found a way to make money by illegal mining. The security agencies know, everybody know that mining is also symbiotic to all these insecurity. We are trying to call all the legal miners out, discuss them with them, reorganise them; for illegal miners, we will flush them out.

In 2019, you sought to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives and ran a fine campaign with a catchy slogan “Bago has no baggage” pitched against powerful forces. What was the experience for you. Did you feel betrayed when you lost?

No. No betrayal. It was an experience that gave me impetus to  be where I am today. At every level in life, you have quadrants. At that level, I had wanted to be the speaker to revolutionise the Assembly but God said it wasn’t my time. I did my best but my best was not good enough. So, I gave it a try as a governor. Today, I am a governor. So, I have no regrets. I am only grateful I was not speaker. Probably, it could have cut me off from my people because I am a grassroots person. When I lost speakership, I decided to go back home. My committee was taken away from me. I was given Committee on Cooperation and Integration in Africa. So, I was talking to people. God has a way of doing things. That committee gave me a horizon in Africa. I have a lot friends in Africa as Presidents now. Even (Paul) Kagame (Rwanda) is my friend. What gave me that was because of that committee I had. Even the new Senegalese President, I met him when he was not a president. He was just looking for the Presidency at that time. And host of presidents.  I have contacts across Africa. So, it can add up to my experience in governance. So, that was the reason God did not give me that. I don’t feel betrayed.

In other words, you are happy you did not become Speaker of the House of Representatives?

Yes, because that was God’s wish. Yes, I am happy. It gave me an experience. What I am doing today, I may not have been able to do it.  So, don’t worry yourself about what happened yesterday. That is history. It is not meant to be interpreted today. It is tomorrow.

Earlier, you talked about restructuring governance, your former colleagues in the  House of Representatives are sponsoring a bill to return the country to parliamentary system of government…

(Cuts in) It is not about system of government. It is about a deliberate attempt to move for prosperity. System of governance? If you want go back to the 1963 constitution and have regional government and have premiers, have constituent assembly, try it. It is not a problem. But, what about the people who are supposed to lead us? We have to first cleanse our psyche. We need to be patriotic. Let me tell you something; in China, somebody asked me  ‘Excellency, (he is a Chinese man) why is Nigeria like this?” This and that, he made all the issues with corruption, I said corruption, he said ‘no, it is not corruption.’ I asked ‘why?’ He said there is no patriotism. He said if you bring down the flag of China, you will be jailed. That China symbol , their flag means everything to them. That is one. He said if the government of China takes the entire money of China to build something in Lagos(for instance), it is for China. No indigene. Until you scarp indigenisation and take citizenship, no matter the system of government you bring, it will not prosper. So that you feel free. I tell a lot of people who care to listen that if I want to go and live in Enugu, I am a Nigerian, I should go and live there freely.  I should not be limited, because of my religion and tribe. And, vice versa. So, before, we were living like that. I had my clan—my people who lived in Onitsha for a long time; nobody knew they were even from the North. So, how did we come to this level that we are now segregating? Even if you are from Enugu , you have your local government, you can’t come and sit in my local government . Why? If you are from Niger state, you have to be Nupe, Gwari, you have to be Hausa. Why? So, there is need for national reorientation, for patriotism. Let us do it for Nigeria. Let’s do it for Nigeria. So, even if you operate any system of government, if there is no patriotism, it won’t work. You see somebody on the social media will be throwing abuses at the president of  a country, in the name of freedom of speech. It cannot happen in America. You can’t dare it. Go and abuse Trump(General laughter). You can’t. You can make your demonstration. But, there is a boundary. Freedom of speech. Your freedom is in your hands! The conversation is about production. How many legislators have farms? How many public servants have farms?  And, farming is not just crops. To operate a fish pound, even animal husbandry , even poultry—we Whave breeds of chicken that they are semi agric, semi local,  because of cross breeding. They grow bigger, and they have the ajekpako meat. Because they ae able to graze on their own, what you  just add to them is some micronutrients .You mix some vitamins and put where they are. They eat those ones and they still go and pick insects, so they come strong. And they produce. So, if you have that kind of chicken, I can tell you every day your children will eat boiled egg or friend egg free. So, your children will be smart. You have three cattle. One male, two female. You milk fresh milk, you process it. People must do something.  All you need to do is the small space in your house and utilise it. Let me tell you, if every Nigeria has 10 chickens that are laying one egg every day, so 10 times 200 million people; how many eggs? You would have 2 billion eggs. It is a conversation you must start. The National Assembly has  big land; Villa, big land. Government Houses big land. Secretariat big land. Schools big land. In my state now, we have school farms; we have returned them to those days. When Minister of Works came, the fruits he took were from our farms. So, the conversation is like that. Productivity, so that everybody will be sufficient in food. Even hospitals, can’t you have small gardens behind hospitals. And give patients fruits. It will reduce sickness. The conversation is around what I am talking about. I am not talking about any reinventing of the wheel. Let’s talk to our conscience. If you count your number and everybody is producing something, imagine the per capital income. How can I go to the secretariat, morning to night, after going to do four years degree and they are paying me N200,000! it is because there is opportunity for stealing. That is why people are excited about that job.  Even if If you pay minimum wage of N1 million, it is not enough because you are not producing. Where will you get the money from? In my farm, my minimum wage is N500,000; if you don’t skills.

Niger State is home to two former Heads of State, General Ibrahim Babangida and General Abdulsalami Abubakar, have you been able to leverage on their experience in the running of the state?

Very well. They have been responsible for some of the actions we have taken, because of the sacrifices they made for Nigeria. And, the legacies they have built. We must thank them for the opportunities they gave us. We must also thank them for their mentorship. I will tell you that if you don’t value anything, go to the hills of AIT and look at Abuja at night. And, go back and get the clip of when Abuja was built and see how they transformed a bush to a federal capital. Go and see Third Mainland Bridge. What would have been of Lagos if there was no Third Mainland Bridge? These people have played their own part and thy are detribalised. They did not promote ethnic sentiments, religious bigotry. There were not after that. They were after Nigeria. They are nationalists. We have to go back to the basics—how these people were able to change the narrative.  It is very important. I sometimes look at (Obafemi) Awolowo books and video clips and things he said about agriculture. He spoke with passion. Ahmadu Bello—when he spoke about agriculture and education. Look at ABU, Zaria. The time it took to build that school was miraculous. Has anybody come to build on that? See, we must talk to ourselves. If we are expecting manna,  manna will not come from heaven. We have to talk to ourselves, think out of the box, have a roadmap,  pursue it and there would be prosperity.

Critics, especially those  in opposition , believe your party, the APC, has not done very well. What are the chances of the APC in the 2027 elections?

First and foremost, you the media are promoting mal-governance by promoting campaign before campaign. What is somebody’s headache with election? Why not talk about governance; 2027 is still far away. What happens between 2023 and 2027 is what you are going to account for at the end of the day. Your continuous assessment is 60 per cent,  exam is 40 per cent.  In fact now,  continuous assessment is 70 per cent, exam is 30 per cent. What we are able to do between 2023 June to 2027 will determine how you can judge us. And, I will ask you about the economic malaise—did it start today? The infrastructural decay; did  it start today? The corruption; did it start today? But how we are able to change the focus of Nigeria, how we are able to do things for Nigeria will determine…So, it is too soon for you to say that. Right now, APC is in government. APC has its roadmap and we are working. And, I can assure you by the grace of God, Victoria acerta.

But, APC came to power on the promise of change. Your party told Nigerians that it’ll sweep away the malaise of PDP government. Right now, we cannot say for a certainty that corruption has ended. The change you promised us, Nigerians are saying that they have not seen it?

When you are building a house, a lot of work goes under the earth. People don’t see it. What we are building now, we are building a foundation. You spend so much money – put iron road, concrete, stone, everything, put cement. When you finish, you cover it with sand. It becomes flat before you start putting blocks on it, so that it can last long. So, we are not in haste to build a house on just bare earth. We have gone down to build a foundation that is sustainable. So, be patient. When the building comes up , you will see it and it is going to be a beautiful house.

The assumption is that the governor is the Chief Security Officer of the state. Is it that the governor doesn’t have the power to direct the commissioner of police to rout bandits , insurgents and kidnappers?

No you cannot. The police commissioner does not report to you. He only collaborates with you. That is why we are calling for state police. Every military, paramilitary, civil defence, DSS, every other person is a federal appointment. That is why we are saying that the success of this government will correct this misgiving; so that  you will take responsibility. Chief security officer of a state and you don’t have armed forces. You don’t have police? We don’t want soldiers to be reporting to us. But, we can have our police, which will be very strong to fight and combat these things.

Governor Discusses Niger State’s Agriculture, Government Structure, Security Issues, and Historical Leaders

• Claims new Suleja will make Abuja look small by comparison

By Adetutu Folasade-Koyi, Paulinus Aidoghie, and Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja

Niger State Governor Mohammed Umar Bago is committed to improving the state.

The governor shared his plans in an interview, highlighting his focus on agriculture, the need for state police, and the restructuring of governance. He also talked about the link between international terrorism and local issues like Boko Haram, and why a return to a parliamentary system of government should not be considered. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

It’s been 17 months since you became Niger State’s governor. How has it been so far?

It’s been good. While not without challenges, it has been a rewarding experience.

Good, for a governor in Nigeria?

Yes! It’s good because I’ve had the chance to connect with the needs of the people and address major issues like welfare, security, health, and education. The challenges we’re facing are not impossible to overcome. We’re managing to address many of them.

Early in your term, you launched your agricultural initiative. What motivated you to focus on agriculture?

Niger State has 76,000 square kilometers of fertile land. I recently secured a farm estate bigger than Lebanon’s. We have an impressive number of dams and natural resources. Before oil was discovered, Nigeria thrived on agriculture. We’re looking to solve issues related to food security and financial independence. To do this, I’ve sought partnerships globally, bringing in investments without adding debt to the state.

What about partnerships with countries like Israel, known for their agricultural expertise?

We have initiated discussions but had to delay due to ongoing conflicts in Israel. We also have partnerships with countries like the UAE, focusing on clean energy and other projects.

What are your specific targets for agriculture?

Our aim is to feed Nigeria and then export to West Africa by 2027 and to Africa by 2030. Currently, we are starting the harvest of corn, soy, and other crops. We have partnerships to create agricultural processing zones and have secured funding to make this a reality.

How much are we talking in terms of revenue?

Niger State’s internal revenue was between N500 million and N700 million, but now we’re close to N10 billion thanks to improved governance and agricultural initiatives.

As a governor, what challenges do you face?

Security is a significant issue. We often need federal approval for military actions, leading to delays. Advocating for state policing is essential for improving our security situation.

You mentioned two former leaders from Niger State, General Babangida and General Abdulsalami. Have you learned from them?

Absolutely! Their experiences and legacies guide many of our actions today. They helped shape our country without promoting ethnic or religious divisions.

What do you think about the APC party’s performance leading up to the 2027 elections?

It’s too early to critique the APC’s performance. We need to focus on governance and implementation of our plans between now and then.

Do you believe the governor should have more control over local security?

As it stands, commissioners do not directly report to governors, which is why we are advocating for state police. Being the chief security officer without direct control over security forces is not feasible.