Governor Idris Wada:
“I said power comes from God and God gives it to who he wishes. I will not be intimidated by any human being. I will do my best, sell my programmes, and development ideas to the people. I have done my best to serve the people well and I hope that they will reflect that in their support for me as the candidate of our party for the November elections.”

Governor Idris Wada on Monday night was declared the winner of governorship primary of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Kogi State, defeating his main challenger, Alhaji Jibrin Isa Echocho. The victory has set up the Wada against Abubakar Audu, the two time governor of the state and candidate of All Progressives Congress, APC regarded as his main challenger in the November gubernatorial polls. In this interview with journalists just before the primaries, Wada spoke about his expectations from the coming polls, the state of Kogi, his chances and that of him main opponent in the election among other issues. AYORINDE OLUOKUN was there.

Q: How would you assess the state of Kogi today 24 years after its creation?
A: I think as a state, we have done relatively well. Development must be measured against the resources available to the State. The State was created as an amalgamation of Kwara and Benue States, so a lot of our people were engine room for production of civil servants for the whole of Northern Nigeria in those days. So, when Kogi was created, a lot of civil servants came in. So, we are more of a civil servant state. We inherited a lot of civil servants and about 80 per cent of our income was for paying salaries and that gives you the amount of money available for infrastructure development. So, that explains to you the level of infrastructure development we have because we started with a lot of civil servants, pensions and gratuity liabilities and things like that.

And since I came in, I have focused on trying to attract investments. We have to improve the investment climate quickly and we have signed a lot of memorandum of understanding with investors to explore the solid mineral resources we have in the state. But some of these things take time – they have to do their own capital formation, attract the funds, do feasibilities and be sure that the project could be viable and generate income. So, we’ve set up one stop shop to help those who want to do business in our state. We have attracted a cement industry across River Niger on the eastern side which should be completed before the end of this year. It is more of a private-public partnership with a Chinese company and it is almost coming on line. There is a methanol factory which is along Lokoja way and some small scale industries are coming up. We believe that over time, with more industrialisation, our economy will improve.

We have focused on agriculture as an engine for growth, job and wealth creation for our people because we have fertile land. Rather than depend on federal allocation, we believe that in future, agriculture will be a driver of Kogi State with more people being employed, our tax income will improve and our overall income will improve and then, better infrastructure development. We are also trying to sign strategic partnership with some construction companies for infrastructural development that will allow us to pay over a long time because, again, we don’t have money to finance big projects. So, we look for a way of structuring infrastructure developments. Another things we did was to subscribe to a bond of N20 billion purely for infrastructure. We have done about N8 billion of it now and we are doing 12 key infrastructure projects with the bond, most of the projects are about 40, 50 per cent completed now. With the amount of money we have drawn and it is for seven years repayment period. So, I think we have done very well and with these strategies that we have introduced, in the coming years, our infrastructure profile will improve.

Like other states, you’ve had problems with payment of salaries because of dwindling allocation from the federal purse. What are you doing to generate more revenue internally?
We are doing a lot. We’ve done away with paper receipts now; we have gone to e-receipts, people paying their tax and all that through the banks and bring the tellers to the revenue office. We have computerized our operations, depending on IT to drive our revenue generation. We have restructured the Board of Internal Revenue in the State and also, recruited about 60 young men and women and trained them to go on aggressive drive for revenue. So, various strategies are being adopted to improve the revenue profile. When we came in, it was about N180 million, now we are achieving N560, N600 million in a month which is a great leap for us here because we are a civil service state.

Governor Idris Wada:
“It will be a competition between parties and not individuals. Individual attributes will play a role, but then, it is up to the voters to decide if they want to support someone with a gentle mien or someone with a tough mien. It’s a democratic choice that people will have to make. We have different styles of governance – I believe in the gentle approach, I don’t tolerate violence.”

A former governor of the State, Abubakar Audu has already emerged as the presidential candidate of APC. You will compete against him. Are you not intimidated by his profile?

I said power comes from God and God gives it to who he wishes. I will not be intimidated by any human being. I will do my best, sell my programmes, and development ideas to the people. I have done my best to serve the people well and I hope that they will reflect that in their support for me as the candidate of our party for the November elections.

But do you think you have the capacity to go into the election and win given the reputation of Audu, your main opponent and the performance of APC in the last presidential election in Kogi State?

I am not going into the election as an individual. I will be going as a candidate of PDP which is the government in our state today. And in 2011, we ran against Audu, he was in ACN then, he is a human being. He is also coming on the platform of a political party. It will be a competition between parties and not individuals. Individual attributes will play a role, but then, it is up to the voters to decide if they want to support someone with a gentle mien or someone with a tough mien. It’s a democratic choice that people will have to make. We have different styles of governance – I believe in the gentle approach, I don’t tolerate violence and I try to work with sincerity without too much propaganda to deceive people. So, during the campaign, people will know what we have in mind for them, they will know what will have in mind for the state, they will know which party to support. It is true that APC won the presidential election, but we won the state assembly elections – the colours of these elections are different, depending on the platform, what are the issues and what are the positions- Is it presidential, gubernatorial, national assembly, state assembly? All of these impact on the electorates differently and I believe that for this election, based on our record, what we have done and what we have in mind for the people by the grace of God, PDP will achieve victory.

But people say Wada has not achieved anything in Kogi and that this may work against you in the election?
The opposition said we have done nothing. You should expect that from the opposition. It is natural for a sitting government to have a lot of issues to deal with. The opposition has nothing to show, they are not in government. All they have are plans. We have done things and I can tell you that here in Lokoja, we are building a 16-kilometre bye pass from Area A to Ganaja, a dual carriage way which will open up a new development area for this capital. It has not happened in 24 years of our existence and it will give us an opportunity to do a layout. Lokoja is a historic town, it has culture, it has people who have sentimental attachment to their father’s property that we can’t just go and knock out and start building modern buildings. So, we have to tolerate the culture and the society and now, we have decided consciously – let’s open up a new area and develop it as a modern city.