My relationship with Yarima in the last 3 years -Governor Shinkafi

Politically speaking, the party you left, the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) is gathering momentum and putting a formidable opposition in Zamfara state. How would you confront the ANPP in the forthcoming elections? I am very comfortable. I am not panic by their activities. They are only good in propaganda outside Zamfara state. Whoever is […]

Politically speaking, the party you left, the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) is gathering momentum and putting a formidable opposition in Zamfara state. How would you confront the ANPP in the forthcoming elections?

I am very comfortable. I am not panic by their activities. They are only good in propaganda outside Zamfara state. Whoever is in Zamfara knows that we are calm and very comfortable. We are over 95 percent PDP. (Senator Ahmed Sani)Yarima can’t even win his local government of Bakura. The same thing happened to Abdulazeez Yari, he couldn’t win Mafara local government. I have Shinkafi, Zurmi, Anka, Birnin Magaji, Kaura Namoda, Gusau; I have all the local governments in the state.

I can assure you that they can’t even boast of their local governments. I don’t brag because politics is very practical, it is not done in the pages of newspapers. They tell all sorts of lies. They have been doing their opposition since we were in the ANPP with them. They started ganging up against me even before I was sworn in as governor. They have been doing these things since the first; second third and now we are in the fourth year. Their effort is apparently fruitless.  You know an empty vessel always make the loudest noise. They are frustrated because they lost relevance.

The difference between you and Senator Ahmed Sani, your predecessor seems to be irreconcilable. Thuggery has been introduced into the politics of the state, where armed young men brandishing their weapons are used by politicians in the state for campaign. What is really happening?

They started it all. The difference is now clear. I was only to the local governments to commission projects. I don’t touch local government funds. We have set up a directorate that monitor the projects. A lot has been achieved so far. The people know better, nobody can hoodwink them with all sorts of lies and propaganda. We have enlightened our people and therefore they are now development oriented. They know who to votes now. We are not only winning elections because of incumbency factor, rather the people can now see the difference. Our youths are gainfully employed. These people have to employ thugs from neighbouring states.

But why it is that the political difference between you and Yarima remains irreconcilable?

We still have a cordial relationship.

Are you on speaking terms with him?

Sure. Are you surprised we are?

Yarima feels that you have betrayed him after handing over to you. Do you really betray him?

I have not betrayed him. He is still my friend like I told you.

One of the projects you initiated in Zamfara was the international cargo airport. But reports are indicating that the project like many others in the state, has been abandoned. What is really happening?

It is quite ironic. The cargo airport you are talking about is on- going. We are going to do it. It is going to be constructed by a foreign company. They have started clearing the site already. We are doing it because we have the capability to sustain it. First of all, we have abundant solid minerals in Zamfara State that requires air transportation. Some of the people doing the mining business can’t come to a place if there is no airport. Some of them also used to have private jets and airports. Thus, to create an enabling environment and good infrastructure for mining business you need to have airport in Zamfara. That is why we are building a cargo airport.

In terms of financing, we have little contribution to do because it is a self-financing business project. The project will finance itself out of its profits. We have got a loan that would be paid in seven years moratorium. Many companies have expressed interest to do it. This is because, if, you look into the feasibility studies of the airport many investors had wanted to it.

Apart from the solid minerals components that would be part of the cargo commodities, there is also vegetable, which is an agricultural product we have in abundance not only in Zamfara State but the whole region. I remember I was in Frankfurt during that ash cloud problem. Because of the disruption of flights, the cargo airport in Nairobi, Kenya lost over 400 million dollars in less than a week. The Nairobi cargo airport sends vegetable to various European markets.

In Nigeria, we have more production capabilities and opportunities than the one in Kenya. If there is no cargo airport for people to transport their goods to outside market, there is very little they can do. But from Taraba, Kebbi, Kogi and Abuja people export their fresh vegetable to the outside market because of the cargo. Any fresh vegetable harvested today can get itself into any European market the next day. That is another importance of having a cargo market: it stimulates production.

Meat also, is one of the cargo commodities to be exported to North Africa and far eastern countries. If you look from Morocco up to Dubai, it is a desert covering over 10, 000 kilometres. It is a desert they don’t do agriculture or any livestock farming. Our demand for meat is enormous. Also, along this airport, there are going to be several cold rooms. We are going to build a modern abattoir that would enable us to slaughter up to 1000 animals and store them in cold rooms ready for exportation in containers. That would stimulate livestock production. There is no cargo airport in the country. If we construct it today, we are going to have 50 percent of the total cost upset by the Federal Government.

Several states are currently establishing state universities. Is Zamfara state considering doing so?

We have started the process of establishing a state university. We have started the manpower development. We have selected 150 Zamfara State indigenes from various tertiary institutions and sent them to India, Malaysia, the United States and United Kingdom. Most of them have already completed their doctoral and masters degrees. That is what we have done so far. Building the infrastructure is something that we can do in even two years. The most important thing is the manpower development. Infrastructural development is a bit easier if there is money. We have spent about N350 million to train these Zamfara State indigenes.

Why then informed your instruction for the closure of the College of Education Maru?

The school was closed because of their display of irresponsibility and indiscipline. The students went out of their campus one Saturday and started molesting any passerby. People coming from Sokoto to Gusau and vice versa were molested. They vandalised private and government vehicles. They perpetrated those irresponsible acts for more than three hours. You know, we built over 30 junior secondary schools. We don’t have teachers. We even have to employ teachers from other states. How on earth do you expect someone being train as a teacher with such behaviour to impact any meaningful knowledge on the students? Teachers have to be disciplined. We have zero tolerance for indiscipline that is why we close the school to discipline them. There is nothing political about the closure of the school as some people are insinuating. We even wanted to relocate the school to a remote area. But the students must have realised their mistakes now.

A former governor recently said that sitting governors are the major constraints to the conduct of free and fair elections. With a new leadership in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in place, do you think we are going to have credible polls in 2011?

You know in the PDP, a governor is the leader of the party in the state. A governor has the responsibility of seeing the success of his party in the state. When a governor has that responsibility, he practically sees to it that he does adequate campaign to enlighten his people on what he needs. In Nigeria, the opposition is very weak; they are only good in propaganda. The local government chairman and the governor are the closest people to the electorate. They are the only people doing the campaign and attending to the various needs of the people. It is only the governors that are involved in actual politicking; even those in Abuja are not doing much. If you come to our offices you will always see big crowd.

The governors are with the people always. Those in the opposition are almost idle, they hardly embark on any political campaign but governors do. The governors go to the local governments and campaign; the opposition hardly do that that is why governors always win. The governor is the chief security officer of the state. The governors are always in charge.

That is why any serious governor, local government chairman win elections because they are with the people. Unlike those leaving outside the states; who only come to their people during elections and expected to win. That is why most of them hardly win elections even in their wards. We are always in touch with our people. I can’t spend up to three months without going to the local governments in Zamfara State.

The PDP is doing all the campaign in Nigeria. It is the only political party that is doing the traditional political rites all over the country. You can’t see the opposition doing it but when elections come and PDP wins, the opposition would say the election is not free and fair.

 

You are a son-in-law to two presidential aspirants in the PDP: Generals Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and Aliyu Muhammed Gusau (rtd). Since the presidential primaries are now going to hold in states, who are you giving your support as a governor between these two people?

There is party democracy in Nigeria. It is not the responsibility of Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi to do that. It is the party that decides, especially in the PDP.  The most popular candidate will always win.

You were reported to have said that zoning has overstayed its use, but again you went ahead and voted for zoning in Kaduna during the Northern Governors Forum meeting. Why this contradiction?

I didn’t say so. Nobody quoted me. If I said so, I challenge anybody to produce the tapes where I said so.

Then, what did you exactly say at the airport?

I said it is the responsibility of the party. We had a chat about zoning or no zoning, other national issues but some people decided to report what they wanted to report.

After that report came out, you were also said to have been summoned by your two in-laws, Babangida and Gusau. What did the two Generals tell you?   

No. I don’t think so.

Recently there was lead poisoning in Zamfara state that killed over 300 people, mainly children and women. Accusing fingers were pointed by various stakeholders to your government for not taking appropriate action. What really happened?

No, the government took action. There is illegal mining going on in Zamfara. We have over 10,000 illegal miners in Zamfara state and they have buyers. People go with helicopters to buy gold and other precious stones. If you are a supervisor and you go there, the people wit tell their buyers, through GSM, that they shouldn’t come the police are around.  It is something that people are getting money from, therefore you can hardly stop them.

There is a formation between Anka and Bukuyum where there is gold concentration. The people there mine this gold and wash away the lead content. They wash it into their well, into their rooms and they consume it. The utensils they use for their food processing, they also use them in processing the gold. There is a town, where they used to have only one processing machine that grind their food stuff but because of mining activity they have over 60 grinding machines in the town now. Even the village chief has about three grinding machines in his house.

We are very lucky that Doctors Across Borders that are working in Zamfara have diagnosed the disease. Earlier, the victims had been treated of malaria, typhoid fever and so on.  The doctors gave us drugs and we established hospital in Bunkuyum where these patients are treated. It takes about 28 days to cure it and many children, women and men were cured. We removed the topmost soil in their rooms and town and replace it with laterite. In some cases, we even cemented their rooms.  It also takes about N500, 000 to cure one person. But the situation is now under control. The people now understand the danger of their activity. We are giving them mining kits that include gloves, overcoats, boots, and so on to do their business.

How solid is the revenue base of Zamfara and have you been borrowing to run the state?

Of course yes, we borrowed earlier. When we came to power in 2007, we borrowed about N10 billion which we started the capital projects that included roads, schools, building of dams for irrigation, water supply, youth empowerment, educational development; most of them have been completed and commissioned. You know that we have to pay 50 percent to all the Federal Government –based projects like MDGs, BPE and so on. We borrowed about N10 billion. Despite the economic meltdown we are still servicing the debt and executing our capital projects.