The key to employment generation is not an over bloated public service, it is to stimulate the private sector, that is why I have been holding the economic summit, that’s why I have established the Bayelsa Development Investment Corporation, BDIC, the first investment arm of the state and it has made wonderful investments. We have majority stakes in insurance, banks, real estate investment under this government. Over time, the investment arm will have a lot of money on its own. It can create jobs not the state. Look at Lagos, Lagos is the way it is and they are having high IGR, not because of state government but the private sector, they create the jobs, develop skills and then pay taxes so that’s what we are pursuing.
Q: How much of loans have you taken in the last couple of months?
A: Well that is an interesting question because when we took over government, Bayelsa was one of the highest indebted states, our debt volume was so high, my predecessor borrowed a lot and committed the state to a lot of bonds and other obligations. Debt volume was very high, meaning that every month, a substantial amount of our revenue went to debt servicing and they took it off from the source. We have to manage and now Bayelsa is now one of the least indebted states that will answer the question as to how much we have been borrowing.
You can’t run a government without borrowing. There are short term facilities you take to meet one exigency or the other. Bayelsa was the highest indebted but now the least indebted. This shows you the frugality and prudence and the ijebu blood!
Q: When elections are approaching, people get desperate. As the chief security officer of the state, are there measures you are putting in place to make sure that there is no breakdown of law and order. Secondly, when you leave office, what are you going to do so that things will not slip back into the situation of the past?
A: Things will not slip back by the grace of God. That is why most of what we are doing, we instutionalise by backing up with laws, the transparency. Do you know what I formulated there? I said, if a governor of Bayelsa does not address the press, does not call the whole state and tell them what has come in and what it has spent, if he doesn’t do this for three months, the governor should be impeached. I proposed the legislation and when they passed it, I signed it, so that is to instutionalised it. Also there is the savings law, anything put into that account, the governor cannot touch it, it can only be touched by two-thirds majority of the house of assembly for a, b, c reasons.
There is one aspect of the political culture that we have changed. For example, when President Buhari was campaigning, even against Jonathan in his own state, when he came, I gave him state facilities, stadium, traditional rulers came to me for permission to receive him, I said go ahead and receive him. Now the last Saturday rally, APC never expected me to give them the stadium. I gave them the stadium. I directed the security to go and protect them. There were people who disagreed with me and I disagreed with their politics, but they are Nigerians and they are Bayelsans and they are entitled to their views. No one person has been molested or harassed for having a contrary view.
“They are the people in Bayelsa who have gone to APC because their own kind of politics can’t fix into my own idea of service. And their doing so, telling people, that look, we need federal power, calling young people to come and do anything they want because we have the federal power, that is the feeling they have for going to APC and my position is that I believe strongly that President Buhari will not allow that to happen. Security agencies are professional enough to do their job”
If a cripple wanted to declare governorship, Silva and his people would send bombs, dynamites to go and kill people. Same with Alaibe when he was running, guns, guns, shooting, killing people. That culture has to change and that brings me back to the issue of security.
There is a lot of concern in my state because the APC by the nature of the people they have attracted to their fold is made up of the most violent politicians in the Niger Delta. The politicians who don’t give a hoot about killing and maiming and destroying people and properties. They are the people in Bayelsa who have gone to APC because their own kind of politics can’t fix into my own idea of service. And their doing so, telling people, that look, we need federal power, calling young people to come and do anything they want because we have the federal power, that is the feeling they have for going to APC and my position is that I believe strongly that President Buhari will not allow that to happen. Security agencies are professional enough to do their job and I know also that the citizenry of Bayelsa state will rise up to the occasion. We have already seen signs of increase in wave of criminality. Bayelsa, when I took over, was one of the highest in the chart, but now Bayelsa is by crime statistics in this country one of the least. The people themselves have keyed into our agenda of peace and security. The people will work with the security agents to hold these men accountable.
Q: You have built about 400 schools, how many of them are functioning now?
A: All schools are in use. The boarding schools will take off hopefully September, October. There was no boarding facilities, so we are going to test run them, it is a massive logistical problem. For the first time, children will be sleeping in boarding houses. We are even building more schools. The building of schools will not end but the scale of investment after we finish this, I don’t think any governor after me will put in much because infrastructure was allowed to decay for so long and even when you build the schools, the boarding schools and all the rest, you have to furnish. It is so massive, it runs into billons.
However, don’t be surprised if critics go to one place and take a photograph of a school, an isolated place, and say Governor says he is doing so much in education, why are these children like this? It is a massive problem we are addressing, it takes time, yes, we have spent N23 billion for educational infrastructure alone, building schools, boarding schools. Most of us went to boarding schools, we learnt how to live with our peers, in a controlled environment, skills and attitudes were learnt from the boarding houses. In this area of the Niger Delta, the role models they see are the people carrying AK 47. If the so called generals, you know in the Niger Delta, there is a difference between a general and a general (pronounced generale)…
If you spell them, spelling is the same, and these guys run their system, their own governments, some build schools and even hospitals, now tell me if you go to that person’s community, will you blame any of the young lads from aspiring to be like that person? So these are the things, and it’s only in education that you can capture the young people; otherwise you will be dealing with second and third generations of militants. We are dealing with militants who now have children, so if we don’t sustain what am doing, which means their own children too will be general (generales).
And a we have a long line of (generales), I don’t mind them become a general. But not (generale).
Q: Let’s talk about the PDP. There is the belief that the PDP is going into extinction, you have talked about Bayelsa and those who have decamped. What went wrong with PDP as a ruling party and failed woefully and secondly you have talked about what you have built schools…
A: Schools, Hospital, there is an airport that we are building, which is at 50 per cent completed
Q: Can you talk about some of those things sector by sector”
A: Sector by sector? Aah, Commissioners will have to do that. Like the airport is the major one and you ask yourself, why are we now thinking about building, why is this government building an airport in the 19 years of Bayelsa state? Agriculture, Works, all their commissioners are all here. In fact, the talks everywhere is that I’ am over working. A have done too much or am doing too much. I used to hear some remarks, Na work, work, hospital, road, na him we go chop? For me that is complimentary. Because that is what I promised that the state will be a construction site, promised that the state and the Ijaw nation will not be the same again after me so we are aiming at maximum impact, unfortunately our pace has been slowed down in the last year because of the financial crunch but we are managing.
Talking about the PDP, this is the first time the ruling party has lost in the federal level, so in Nigeria we don’t have any precedent, in my party, my former party AD, we started, and by the way I was state chairman in Bayelsa, became national legal adviser of AD, so when we have three parties I was actually legal adviser of one. We went into the 2003 election and we lost all our state except Lagos, Jagaban (Asiwaju Bola Tinubu) was able to hold fort, was able to protect Lagos for us in AD at the time. And you can see how AD metamorphosed to AC and then ACN and now it is part of APC. So don’t worry politics is dynamic, what is constant is the people. APC is at the centre, they did a lot of good work, my friends and colleagues. I have a lot of respect and admiration for the hard work they put into bringing the APC to existence. But they themselves have to deal with the problem of managing the success and managing the national party.
You saw what happened in the National Assembly, probably with more pro-activeness they could have saved the situation, my good friends, and am happy they have resolved their problems. My good friend, Gbaja, and Dogara had to be made to go to the polls. I congratulate them, they are both my friends, Gbaja could have made a fantastic speaker, great guy; he was my ally in the house. Those are the challenges of managing national power, let’s watch event develop. I don’t think PDP is dead in the sense you are putting it.
Q: What are you going to do now that Bayelsa needs development?
A: That is very important, that is why we set up the BDIC, that is why we are attracting, working with partners in agriculture, to build fish farms, cassava farms, improve on our palm plantation, Bayelsa is richly endowed agriculturally, that’s why we are sponsoring the economic summit every year.
Q: With the boarding schools you built, what are the security measures because there could be criminals and copy cats that may want to replicate what happened in Chibok…
A: Security challenges are there everywhere, every state, and I just told you that Bayelsa is the safest place in the country, that does not mean that there is no criminal activity here but the statistic is very low. And if there are boarding schools in Lagos for example or any other in other states, I don’t see why having boarding school in Bayelsa will be a problem. Bayelsa doesn’t need special arrangements for our boarding schools.
Q: How do you feel when you stay among your colleagues and they complain about lack of resources.
A. That’s one area we need to learn from. For example I will send my officials to Ondo to learn about the residency card. Because I believe that is something that we should do, it is an idea I also had but am interested in the implementation. For planning purposes we need to have data, good ideas, so governors had to learn from one another. I sent people to Lagos State to learn about their tax system, I sent people to Cross River to learn about tourism and how government gets revenue from tourism can improve.
That’s why we need the Governors’ Forum, as a mechanism for peer review, so we can talk about our experiences. I believe others can learn from what we are doing in Bayelsa, for example in the area of security where we have an effective 911 system, whereby within three minutes of any incidence, the patrol team can get to you, now, even when women are pregnant, in the mid night, they call, it is as effective as that, computerised. We have a purpose built command and control centre, we have started the CCTV programme, where you see part of Yenagoa, that’s how other countries are kept safe.
Leave a Reply