Why Northern govs are under-performing – Dan Arewa

Recently you have been commenting on national issues through paid advertorials in the newspapers. What has been the motivation for this? You are correct in the last 3 to four months I have chosen some occasions to make interventions in the national discourse, indeed, to reflect on not just national issues but also global issues […]

Recently you have been commenting on national issues through paid advertorials in the newspapers. What has been the motivation for this?

You are correct in the last 3 to four months I have chosen some occasions to make interventions in the national discourse, indeed, to reflect on not just national issues but also global issues as they affect us as a country. In reflecting on the national condition, I also take the time to have an appreciation of the local issues, as they relate to the North and most particularly, my home state, Katsina state. I intend to pursue this approach with all the resources at my disposal.

I see myself as a professional first before partisan politics, and as a professional economist I am not comfortable with the dearth of critical intellectual and policy discourse in Nigeria today. Unlike during the days of IBB in the 1980s and the 1990s when we had robust debates about the direction of the country, the terrain today is unfortunately barren and this is dangerous for the country.

So this is background against which you should appreciate my modest interventions in those advertorials; it is an attempt to recreate the culture of debate, of discussion, and of constructive appraisal of the national condition as a basis for moving the nation forward. In this way, we will be able to refocus the minds of the citizens towards issues of development and issues that affect their welfare.

In the advertorials you have so far placed in the newspapers, there are instances in which you made reference to a programme you have for the development of Katsina state if given the opportunity, and political watchers are of the view that this is subtle hint that you may want to have a go at the Katsina state government house come 2015.

Definitely, I have a passion for Katsina State and anybody who looks at the situation in Katsina today would realize that despite the solid foundation being put in place by the administrations of Col. Madaki and of recent Alhaji Umaru Musa Yarádua (of blessed memory) who was Governor for 8 years under the present democratic dispensation before he became President, Katsina state still remains a potential to be realized, and it is evident that we are not really focused on the real issues that would lead to translating this potential into greatness, into a model for the rest of the country.

Katsina is rich in agricultural and water resources, in human endowment, etc. It will not be fair to the present and up-coming generation if we keep quiet and not come up with options and alternatives for positioning Katsina State nationally and globally.

This is one. Moreover, I am not the kind of person that thinks that rabble-rousing is the best way to go. So to show to people that we are indeed serious, we make it a point of duty to articulate the issues in such a way that people will see the practicality, the promise and the reality in whatever analysis we make and whatever solution we proffer. Yes, I have sure proof ideas for turning Katsina state around, and as I always qualify it, we will seek for the opportunity to put these ideas in action for the betterment of the people of Katsina state.

The question is: do you have governorship ambition come 2015?

You may not know that I have been participating in partisan politics since my school days more than two decades ago, and till date I have not for even one day stopped. I have in the last two years slowed down purposely to pay more attention to nurturing my businesses but I still keep in touch with politics at national and at the state level. During the presidential, governorship and national assembly elections in 2011 I played my own part in campaigning for my party’s (PDP) candidates and every active politician in Katsina would testify.

Prior to that, I was involved in the campaigns that brought the late President Umaru Yarádua to power as President in 2007 and as Governor of Katsina State in 1999 and 2003.

So I have been in thick of PDP and national politics since 1999. I had made attempts to contest local elections several years ago too. I have also made attempt to contest for the House of Representative seat in Kurfi/Dutsin Ma Constituency.

As a politician, the over-riding ideal is how do you contribute to the well-being of the people? This is the ambition of every genuine politician? How do you position yourself so that the society could maximise the benefit of your participation in politics? To this extent, every genuine politician would like to seek for political power, as a veritable tool for articulating popular aspirations and translating his agenda of development into concrete reality.

But it is too early in the day to categorically make any declaration at this point to say whether I will contest for governorship election or not. As the PDP leadership has counselled this is the time to deliver dividends of democracy and elected officials should not be distracted by politics.

However, I can assure that when the time is ripe and the whistle is blown, we will exercise our inalienable and constitutional rights to make a categorical statement and tell the world whether we are interested in contesting or not. Certainly, at that time, no one can stop us, or intimidate us from making our aspiration known be it at national, state or local levels.

But for now, and consistent with our rights under the 1999 Constitution we will keep sensitising our people as to their potentials, about the options that are available for the development of the state.

You are strong supporter of PDP and in Katsina state it said that the opposition is very strong and will likely give the PDP a run for its money, so to say come 2015. Do you see the opposition as a threat to your party’s ambition to retain the governorship seat come 2015?

Any careful observer of Katsina state politics will notice two things. First, the opposition is not organised. Second, the main opposition party, which is the CPC, is sharply divided and I cannot see it constituting any threat to the PDP.

For instance, up till date nobody could tell who the real CPC elected representatives from Katsina State in the National Assembly. Because initially one camp was there, later on another camp was said to be the real representative, and the matter is still in court. So they are in crisis for over two years, which from my knowledge of the actors, it will be difficult to resolve before 2015 because of their unbridled ambition.

To be frank with you, General Buhari as the leader of the party has a strong political appeal amongst the masses in Katsina State.

He is also very a very strong factor in Katsina politics, no doubt about it and we must take that into account in whatever calculation we will make towards 2015.

What I am not sure though is whether those who claim to be supporters are sincere enough to translate his strength into electoral asset, particularly the elite, because they are only interested in using him as a pillar to gain political power and nothing more.

To this extent the CPC is a bit at a disadvantage relative to the PDP that is well organized and has grassroots support. Even the rump of PDP supporters that decamped to CPC and shored its support base during the 2011 election are back to the fold of PDP. So I do not see the opposition as a threat.

You keep talking about your programme, your agenda. Can you give us an idea of what this agenda is all about?

You will agree with me that the whole world today is talking about socio-economic development. Just take a look at the US elections campaigns. They are all centred around the economy, how to position the US economy to get out of the crisis, tackle the debts burden and deficits, generate jobs, improve living standards, and secure a more pre-eminent role for the country within the global economy. The campaign is all through ideas driven.

Now what I am talking about? I will not become the Governor of Katsina state, to day, for instance and pre-occupy myself with building rural roads or health clinics or schools, important as these are.

These are things that even a local government works department if properly empowered can do, and do very well, as we have seen during the era of Native Authourity and the early part of the 1970s. The role of the Governor and his cabinet is far more than these mundane things.

As a leader, my role will be to elevate the level of ideas that will drive policy and development in the state. For instance, how do we utilize the idle capacities in Katsina state today? The three or four dams we have, Sabke, Zobe and Jibiya, for example, which are not operating up to 10% capacity in terms of irrigation agriculture, fisheries and power production.

And also the vast mineral resources that are yet untapped. How do we integrate Katsina into the regional economy of West Africa and the global economy more widely, looking at our comparative advantage, what can we produce for the local market and for export, for instance, to the Middle-East and Asian economies?

How can we build human capital, so that for instance, we can boast and tell any foreign investor that look: come to Katsina we have a very highly qualified manpower more than any state in the country in terms of information technology, science and technology, and other technical skills that are globally scarce and but very valuable.

How do we build centres of excellence in education, health care such that we provide the same quality obtained in India, Dubai and Malaysia and stop our people from trooping to these countries in search for quality education and Medicare and things like that. How do we raise the capital and the financing to build infrastructure like power plants to provide power for our industries and Small-scale and medium enterprises.

I am convinced that within two years one can put up a power plant without a single kobo from the state or local government treasury if the commitment is there. How do we harness the latent energies of our youth and women and link them with the productive economy, with wealth creation, with entrepreneurship and innovation in all sectors of the economy?

How do we build a great public service that is well trained and well motivated and not just dependent on minimum wage but on real income? These are the questions we will be pre-occupied with and make all the efforts to answer them.

So our programmes will not be a run-of-the-mill type, the lazy approach that now obtains but they will be anchored on a broad vision of development, well targeted and ambitious. They are programmes that will also be hinged on a benchmarking formula; in every area, we will look at the best in the world and set our standards at that level. In this case we will be living the dictum of “thinking globally and acting locally”.

This is the way to go in this 21st century, in this knowledge economy, in this competitive and globalising economic environment. This approach will enable us to stretch ourselves, to exert ourselves to bring about the needed transformation, to reverse the unfortunate and shameful dependence on federation account.

If some people could transform a backward country to a first world country in a matter of a life-time, in fact, in just 25 years, what stops us from drawing that inspiration and pushing the production frontier of the state far beyond the current state within 4 years or 8 years?

So are you saying that the Governors are not living up to expectations in terms of development of their states?

Without equivocation I will answer in the affirmative. Take the Northern states for instance. They have all the resources but what are they doing? I would have thought that they will use the Northern Governors Forum to talk about real issues and throw up alternative pathways for the North in terms of development.

But every time they meet, their agenda is always about relics of the past: the NNDC, The New Nigerian Newspapers and one other thing. Nothing that is forward looking. Even to coordinate on security in the region looks like a big issue. Now the talk is about how to receive more allocation.

Fine and good, seek for equity within the federation, but for how long will we continue to depend on federation account? Still no new thinking is forthcoming on this. We need to come up with a timeline for instance reversing the current ration of federation account to internally generated resources and such similar radical measures that will turn-around the economies of the states.

Again at the risk of being immodest, some of us have the ideas and will surely deliver them if given the opportunity. So there is really the need to have a new orientation, about how resources could be harnessed, how commerce and trade could be promoted and how synergies could be forged to develop the region and the country at large.

But we need to remove sentiments, pettiness, self-centredness and selfishness, as these critical obstacles to unity and progress of the country.

Recently, there has been some altercation between the aides of the President and the National Assembly over the 2013 budget. What is your take on this an observer of the political scene?

I have followed the development and my candid view is that presidential aides should stop seeing the National Assembly and its principal officers as if they are an opposition party. The National Assembly is an arm of the same government, it is PDP at the leadership position and so whatever they say should be taken in good faith.

I do not think that Chief David Mark, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House, Alhaji Tambuwal will do anything that will undermine this government because they are part of it. This is one.

Number two, even if they make critical remarks about the budget, they as citizens have that right and it is up to the Executive to take such a wise counsel in good faith. But for an unelected person to come out full blast and casting aspersion on a major pillar of our democratic institution is definitely not in order; it is counter-productive.

Indeed, the other day I even saw Alhaji Abba Dabo joining the crowd in attacking the Assembly, and I was a bit taken aback. If Doyin Okupe could abuse the Assembly or Ahmed Gulak could impute motives and disparage the leaders of our parliament I will not be surprised given their antecedents, but for Abba Dabo, someone of sound knowledge and great background in public service and politics to follow suite, it is unfortunate.

The point I am making is that this approach is not the best way of protecting the President, it is in fact widening the gap between the President and the Assembly and creating enemies for him even where there is none. Mr. President should call his aides to order and let us bring back mutual respect and sanity in to our system.

What is your assessment of 2013 budget?

I have said it several times that the Minister of Finance Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Central bank Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi are not helping this government on quite a number of important policy matters. It is sad that with all the noise they cannot implement the 2012 budget as it should be. This clearly undermines the credibility of the 2013 budget because there is still a question mark on implementation capacity of the Minister of Finance.

Like the 2012 budget, the 2013 budget is essentially a consumption budget with the recurrent expenditure taking the bulk of the resources leaving a little over 30% for capital budget.

Now capital budget is the real investment in the economy and we are devoting only about 30%. This can hardly propel the economy to any appreciable level. If you take the issue sectorally, you will realise that for the sectors that received the highest allocation, on the average their recurrent budget is far above 70% and mainly devoted to personnel costs.

So there is little to expect in terms of real development. Secondly the budget did not fundamentally address the question of deficit financing and domestic and external debts which are growing at an alarming rate and which will surely land the economy in a serious crisis if care is not taken.

The government is still the biggest borrower in the economy, thereby overcrowding private sector, which is a contradiction, when we are talking of building a market-oriented, private sector driven economy.

It is bad economics to borrow and finance recurrent expenditure but we hear that bonds are issued by the Debt Management Office to pay salaries or to settle pensions. Thirdly, the budget did not address the issue of abandoned capital projects across the country. It is estimated that there are over 6000 abandoned projects as at 2012 and would require about N7 trillion to complete.

Fourthly, we still have about N900 billion provided for oil subsidy and without any clear policy direction geared towards reforming the downstream petroleum sector and checking abuses and corruption. NNPC alone is said to be indebted to the tune of about US$8 billion and if care is not taken, the NNPC will face bankruptcy soon and the government will have to assume those debts.