My best day in government

 We had just ordered our lunch when the governor rose from the table after finishing his. He didn’t know we had not eaten. But it was time to go. So bye-bye lunch. We dragged our unwilling feet to the vehicles. I jumped on my press crew bus. Then a sadist of a headache chose this […]

 We had just ordered our lunch when the governor rose from the table after finishing his. He didn’t know we had not eaten. But it was time to go. So bye-bye lunch.

We dragged our unwilling feet to the vehicles. I jumped on my press crew bus. Then a sadist of a headache chose this time to visit. 

And for the first time I paid attention to the tongue in cheek grumbles of members of the governor’s entourage. “The governor doesn’t tire easily,” they complained. “His daily activities are too many and too tedious,” they said. “He journeys with us for long distances and through bad roads,” they said. 

Before now, I never paid them any heed. 

Indeed, before we started this voyage, two of his aides made quick excuses and disappeared. 

Then I remembered what his friend, Malam Sa’ad Baloni, said during breakfast that day. The governor had stepped out of the dining room and someone reminded us of yesterday’s events and mentioned that he couldn’t keep up with him. 

Upon hearing this, the governor’s longtime friend said: “You guys are in trouble. This is his nature. And now that he’s found a higher purpose, you’ve seen nothing yet.”

We started the journey. We left Borgu, Kainji, Wawa, Wildlife Park, Luma, Babanna and Swashi. Then we were soon to bear away from the tarred road and began an arduous journey into the swamps. Being the oldest vehicle in the convoy, we stopped to fix my bus – twice. 

We left Saminaka behind. We continued. How long do we have to go? ‘It’s not far now,’ the driver told me. I quickly found out that his estimation were far from accurate. 

For the first time, I saw the smugglers routes. When they buy “cheap” cars from Cotounou in Benin Republic, these are the routes they take.

Then the governor’s car stopped. Everybody stopped. We all came down. Now we were quite near Benin Republic. From what I was told, if a giant had thrown a stone from where I stood, it would have landed on somebody’s head in Cotonou.

So here it is!  of diamond in the rough. It’s a farm! A ricefarm. It has 4,000 jobs.

The farm covers 7,500 hectares. Each hectare will yield six tonnes instead of the just over one tonne that our farmers harvest. The land was in the process of being leased to Indian farmers by Upper Niger River Basin for 10 years. 

The Indians are currently utilising 500 hectares to test which seed would give the best yield in the area. They claimed to have directly employed 50 Nigerlites so far.  They are using the land that had been laying fallow for many years, which means they didn’t displace any of our farmers from their farms. The company has a rice mill in Bida called Pearl. The company already imports 350 tonnes of rice annually, which they intend to substitute with this farm. 

So the journey was worth it. Actually, immediately I heard 4,000 jobs, my headache disappeared. 

I could see how excited Governor Bello was too. He assured the farmers of the government’s assistance, including facilitating the construction of the road and any intervention fund they need to access from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). 

What kept ringing in my head was 4,000 JOBS. 

It’s the reason why this day was my best day in government. I’d seen plans of the government creating even more jobs, but this was the first time that I’d seen the process of generating thousands of jobs already in motion, the workers happily working in the fields and investors talking about bringing in $2 million of their own money to fix a road leading to their farm. 

But I had to control my excitement because I was drawn to recall what a director in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture once told me: “If you have a rice mill in Nigeria, FG would give you a 50 percent concession on import duties,” he told me. Therefore some importers open a mill, operate for a few days, close it up, but would continue to enjoy the 50 percent without fulfilling their obligations. 

But the little investment that these ones have made, the resolve of the federal government of President Muhammadu Buhari and the plans of the new administration in Niger State, give me hope that we won’t be disappointed. 

Other than the jobs for our people, what made this day my best in government were the demonstration (through action) of the governor’s good intentions and his drive to realise them. I find efforts like this inspiring and hope to see more.

Since this piece was written many weeks ago, I’ve seen other best days in government, including the home-grown plans by the Niger State chapter of the Association of Agricultural Science Graduates which has already put in process their plans to generate 5,000 direct and 20,000 indirect jobs in the rice value-chain. More about this impressive scheme later.

This was first written in September 2015, when I was still the chief press secretary to the governor of Niger State.