Gov Ododo’s Doing What Has Never Been Done In Hhistory Of kogi State – SA Media

By Achadu Gabriel, kaduna

KOGI State Governor’s Special Adviser (SA), Comrade Ismaila Isah made some revelations in giving an insight on key programs, projects and human development policies of the administration of his principal.

He highlighted that some of the program include creating a trajectory that probably has never been seen in the history of the State. These, among other programs and projections of Governor Ododo were disclosed in an interview with journalists in kaduna. Our Correspondent, Idibia Gabriel, was there. Excerpts:

Qus: Let’s know you formally and tell us programs outline in Kogi under the current administration?

Ans: l am Ismaila Isah, the Special Adviser on media to the Governor of Kogi State.
I am really pleased to be here to tell the Kogi story under the Administration of Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo, the Executive Governor of Kogi State. It’s been so good so far and that is to bring to our understanding what the Governor has done in the last one year.
What we have succeeded in doing as an administration, is to create a trajectory that probably has never been seen in the history of the State. There have been some kind of dynamism in Government, there have Ben deliberate attempts to bring the governance closer to the people.
He has set a clear path in terms of how the course of the administration will run for this four years and God willing, eight years. In that respect, he has set a clear pathway in terms of policies in promoting youth inclusion in governance, policies in agriculture.

Just yesterday, the Sun Newspaper voted his Excellency through their letter of notification of investiture as the best Governor in terms of governance and just a week before then, Daily Independence Newspaper voted him as the best Governor in agriculture. These are backed by credible facts in terms of what we are doing in transforming agriculture and also taking governance to the people, promoting youth and women inclusiveness.

Our socio infrastructure and human capital development indices have also been bearing reports in terms of what we are doing in education, what we are doing in health; over 150 health centers that we are revitalizing in the State which has not been done before now.

We are increasing our payment of bursary to schools and students in the State from 12,000 Naira, students in the State now get 30,000 Naira as bursary and for those in law school, it’s been increased to 300,000 Naira and the same applies to those in medical schools.

There has been a lot we are doing in terms of insurance, covering all widows, children 0-5, pregnant women, the elderly especially those who are pensioners and the vulnerable groups, people living with disabilities and all children or families of fallen heroes that is, our veterans who fought for Nigeria’s peace, unity and sovereignty.

All of these the Government has done, seriously in the last one year plus and there are indices in terms of the projects we are completing. Right now, we are doing over 465km of roads across the 21 LGAs and most of them are about being completed especially those LGA headquarters and Towns in the State.

Our rural roads are also about 165km and we have connected over 80 communities now with the rural roads we are doing and these projects are cutting across all the senatorial districts and LGAs especially areas where we have major hubs for agricultural produce.

We are also setting up processing facilities in the three senatorial districts; one in Alape, one in Osara, and one around Ofu. The Industrial Park that the Governor has proposed is taking off this year, already about 3000 hectres have been allocated for it and we are about unveiling an anchor investor that will help thrive the project.

Approval has been secured from the Federal Government and that Industrial Park will have a free zone status which will take off this year. The project for upgrade of the Zaria airstream to an international airport will also take off before the middle of the year.

Qus: Kogi State has formally commence the take-off of an electricity market and electricity regulatory commission in Nigeria’ How true?

Ans: Very interestingly, by the 15th of March which is about a month from now, Kogi State will be the final rest State to formally commence the take-off of an electricity market and electricity regulatory commission in Nigeria and all appointments have been concluded and all the Commissioners in that Commission have assumed office and if you see the papers, there are a lot of dynamism move

If you see the papers, there are a lot of dynamism and movements going on there, there have secured their offices and all assets of the National Electricity Regulatory Commission that are domicile in the State and they have also handover and received documents with the NIVP so they can inherit all of the transmission facilities that are in the State.

So, by 15th of March, the Kogi State Electricity Regulatory Commission will formally take-off and that will mark a very significant milestone in terms of our power security, in terms of our use of power to drive development especially in rural areas.

This also play into the recent agreement that the State entered into with the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) which has commenced upgrade of facilities in all our rural areas where we tend to do a big grid of alternative source of power an upgrade system to also power development in rural areas especially in processing centers in all of our agricultural hub.

Qus: How about agriculture?

Ans: We currently have about 76 farm clusters in Kogi State covering up to 10,000 hectares of land that has been cultivated by over 8,000 farmers in the immediate past wet season.

For the coming wet season, we are planning to do between 25,000 to 50,000 hectares of land and there’s something unique about what we are doing in agriculture because unlike some other States, we have been able to recover and refurbish over 150 tractors with all the components that enable us to prepare land, teal the places and also deploy planters and even harvesters in preparation for the new farming season.

What is also interesting is that, Government is providing all the implements, all the seedlings, the inputs including fertilizers for free. Our round the year farming which was flagged off recently with our dry season farming witnessed a lot of input from the government.

So far, we have invested over 10 Billion Naira in agriculture and with the refurbishment that we did of over 150 tractors, the government under the Administration of Alhaji Muhammad Usman, saved well over 20-50 Billion Naira that would have been spent in buying all those tractors anew.

What we did was to recover some from States as far as Enugu, Niger, Nasarawa and maybe Kaduna but almost all our neighboring States, we were able to recover all those tractors and refurbish them and put them to use by the Farmers.

Qus: How about security?

Ans: We are also doing a lot in securing the lives and properties of the people in Kogi State. We take the fight to them cause there’s no time to start negotiating with them because they cause a lot of havoc and this approach has been copied by other states like Kwara, Ekiti, Ondo, Benue and even to some extent, Niger and Nasarawa.

So, every time we are embarking on region in all the bushes and jungles around the State, we try to enlist the support of our neighboring States so we don’t chase these terrorists and they hide in those States and come back to hunt our people.

We increased our logistical support for security agencies by providing over 300 vehicles for security agencies in the last one year. We have also provided over 1000 specialized motor bikes that can navigate almost every terrain and that has assisted us to do a lot in terms of ensuring that our security agencies are well armed and supported.

In the vigilante service, I am proud to note that it is enhanced and a lot of improvement have been done. Apart from the recruitment of well over 3000 people both for the vigilante service and man hunters group who are very well complementing our conventional security agencies in the State.

The Government have also been gracious enough to increase salaries of vigilante service and they now earn over 100,000 Naira. They are well kitted, probably more combat ready than some of our conventional security agents and our neighborhood watch has been rigid with a robust network that provides almost minute by minute intelligence to our security agencies.

Almost every community in Kogi State has people on the watch especially when you get there as a stranger and sends us intelligence and if you have no good answer you might be apprehended or reported to security agencies.

They do this by working in nexus with our conventional security agencies and we are committed to embarking on clearance operation in all the States that borders our State. So, we are always going after terrorists and that has largely paid off, which is why it’s now safer to move around in Kogi unlike before, but now we are doing things differently.

We are very grateful for the support we are enjoying from our top military and paramilitary leaders who are really pushing their men to put their lives on the line to make sure our people can sleep with their two eyes closed.

Qus: Government priority on education, how far?

Ans: On education and human capital development, Kogi State is the first State in. Nigeria to have inaugurated a Human Capital Development Council, just about few days ago. That Council is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that we ramp up investment in education which we have been doing, up to 30 percent in the last one year.

We are also ramping up investment in terms of healthcare and health insurance is now everything, almost everybody now have health insurance scheme because apart from the formal sector where we have the State Government and Local government workers, the informal sector is also being captured.

Just today, an MoU was signed with all Heads of educational institutions in the State and all their workers are covered under the Kogi State Health Issurance Agency.We are also ensuring that the organized labour is captured in what we are doing to promote human capital development.

On the issue of partisanship, issue of ensuring there is straight test for people within the informal sector, the government is going to be big on that in the year to come.

It’s also interesting to note that our commitment to ensuring the development of businesses in all sector of the State has just gained some kind of traction with the recent approval by the Governor to ensure that about 10,000 businesses owned by people in Kogi State are registered with the CAC.

What this will do is that, we want more people to be able to access Government contracts, so that, it’s not just a few companies that are used in the State. We want them to come together and form some kind of School of resources, so they can get the Government contracts.

Areas where they ask you to have businesses worth 10M or 100M before you can get a particular contract, if we have up to 10,000 businesses that are registered, we can make them come together like a joint venture and approach the Government for contracts which ordinarily, one of the companies wouldn’t have been able to access.

Right now, we are building a major international market in Lokoja which has about 12 different markets including its ultramodern market but we are now moving the market to a more spacious space, over 15 hectares of land have been allocated for that project and this will help us to aggregate all our market resources in the State.

The market will be built with hotel facilities, cleaning, police post, an abattoir, a shopping mall and everything one can think about in a modern market arena will be there. Right now, the contractors are already on site and they are working already.

We are also building a brand new audit house which will house all the government finance teams and that would be the first government building in the State that will have an elevator facility. So, we are doing a lot in terms of infrastructure, and in terms of our investment in human capital development.

Just last week, the Government approved about 1.2B to pay for all external examination of over 74,000 students and pupils in the State and they are already getting registered for WAEC, those registering for JAMB are also preparing.

Kogi State is also the first State in Northern Nigeria, from what I heard, to have an updated education law which ensures that we are not only capturing our schools in the data base but the law ensures that our students and pupils are also captured in the data base.

We are told that most of our States in the North are still using the 1959 education law but I’m told that about two or three States in the North now are trying to learn from what Kogi has done with its education law which has informed education in the State and ensured that we do not go below the minimum bench mark of 26 percent of the UNESCO requirement as budgetary allocation for education.

Qns: How about women and youth program?

Ans: In terms of taking governance to the people, Kogi is the only State under this administration that has allocated up to four councillorship positions for women in the State. So, we have gone beyond the affirmative action of 35% by giving women 40% affirmative action in terms of elective positions at the Local Government level.

Women are not just Councillors, we are also trying to ensure that leadership positions for the Local Government Council; the position we call Council leader is an equivalent of the Speaker of the House of Assembly, is allocated for women.

We are also ensuring that women also produce the vice Chairmanship position for all the 21 LGAs in the State except one, Ogori-mangogo LGA where we have a female Chairman for the first time in the history of the State.

So, we are doing a lot to ensure that our youth and women inclusion is not just a slogan but we are matching it with actions and even going beyond what we say. That’s why today, we have a lot of inclusion that we can be proud about when we go out to speak about what we are doing to mainstream all voices and ensure representation for all group of people in the governance of the State.

ENDS