Masari: A New Katsina is Emerging
Though currently isolated from the scourge of insurgency, ravaging the North-east of the country, Katsina had all the conditions needed for it to slip into a social crisis of unimaginable proportions. Bubbling with a high population of idle uneducated and unskilled youths who had easy access to illicit drugs pouring in through its porous border with Niger Republic, any one could see that the state was a disaster waiting to happen. The glimpses were emerging from the spate of violence masquerading as cattle rustling until Aminu Masari came. Elected governor of the state in 2015, he tells Bolaji Adebiyi, Peter Ishaka, Charles Ajunwa and Ibrahim Shuaib in this interview, his efforts to redirect Katsina to the path of growth and development
We could see a number projects have been completed and some others ongoing. Given the economic meltdown in the country, how did you cope? I think it has proved that paucity of funds is not the only problem. The problem in this country has been poor leadership. From what we met on the ground and from what we have discovered, we believe that with good leadership, all these things are possible and they are doable. Really, there is no magic other than prudence on our part. Pricing is equally important, in terms of costing of projects and the insistence on doing good quality job. For example, we met on the ground single coat roads. Once a stone goes out and rain falls, the road starts to develop pot holes. We decided to double coat, expand the shoulders from 7.3 to 10.3 and tarred them so that ordinary parking will not cause the roads to start breaking. We believe, that in the next two, three years we can do the asphalting comfortably because by then the road would be properly settled. Meanwhile, we did not put pressure on any contractor so that the contractor has no reason to compromise either the standard or quality of the work. From my little experience, with a small amount of money you can achieve a lot once you are determined and there is prudence in the use of those resources. So, I think we didn’t play any magic. It’s not about magic. There is no magic in it. My understanding is that the problem is that of leadership.
Katsina State, is among the four states in the federation that pays salaries as at when due without waiting for the release of federal allocation. What has been your strategy?
Well, my strategy has been to always safe one month salary in the treasury. So, don’t wait for the federal allocation, I pay before the federal allocation comes. Then whenever the federal allocation comes, I safe for the following month and whatever is left is what we use it for our developmental projects.
But your state is not rich. How do you balance the recurrent and capital expenditure?
You see, the revenue base is very poor. It is among the poorest in the country because the structures that would bring us revenue were not developed. This is an agrarian state. It has been so even when it was a province in Northern Nigeria. It was dependent on agriculture and livestock. So, the main sector that sustained the state when it was a province was neglected. Where can you then get revenue? Our revenue, therefore, became dependent on the monthly federal allocation. You know in 1979, the PRP (Peoples Redemption Party) government abolished the poll tax. When (Gen. Muhammadu) Buhari came he introduced development levy. But when (General Ibrahim) Babangida came, he abandoned it. Nothing else really, except those who go for direct assessment, probably when they are looking for contract or they are looking for one opportunity or the other that requires tax clearance certificate. The only people who pay tax regularly are civil servants and public office holders, who earn salaries, and a few government contractors. This is the only source of revenue because the structures that could broaden the revenue base were neglected. That’s why we are trying as much as possible to develop the agricultural sector. We believe if we do that, we will start to see an increase in revenue because there will be much money in the hands of people and once there is money in the hands of people the quality of lives will improve. And we can make money from other sources. By developing agriculture, we are developing businesses that could be taxed. We have attracted so many investors, especially in the agriculture business sector. When they start, we believe that a lot of money will come in by way of taxes. Really, unless you develop the infrastructure that will bring in revenue, it would be difficult to raise money. It’s now that we are developing infrastructures that will make the state less dependent on federal allocation. There was a time we were totally dependent on agriculture. But we can re-enact it. It’s not difficult. What it requires is determination and understanding of the people and it’s doable.
In specific terms, to what extent have you been able to develop the agricultural sector in such a way that it could yield revenue for all?
We covered a lot of areas during the dry season farming through the Anchor Borrower programme, which over 9,000 of our farmers participated. During the rainy season Anchor Borrower programme, over 6,000 farmers also participated. In both, we made fertiliser and improved seeds available to the farmers. You would notice that there was no fertilizer selling ceremony this year. This is because we believe it’s unnecessary. Fertiliser should be available at all times in any shop and in any farm centre. Today, I can comfortably tell you that I have sufficient fertiliser, over 26,000 metric tonnes that will take care of 2018 farming season. I have it, I have paid for it. It’s here in my store. Today we have over four companies that are interested in establishing agro-based industries. OLAM has come, they want to establish a farm and poultry business here in Katsina. We are also developing an Economic Park along Lakagi corridor to Jibia. We are paying the consultant over N200 million and by this time next year, we are going to start the infrastructure along that route. That road takes you to all the countries in West Africa, and it’s an economic corridor identified by the World Bank. It has even attracted certain funding from the World Bank for those companies that are interested in it. We are also talking to BUA, they are also interested in building a textile park along this route because we are all eying this West African market through Jibia which is the nearest to any part of West Africa. We believe that in the next five years, God willing and with all the structures in place, I think we will start to depend less to the federation account.
When we visited Daura and Katsina General Hospitals, we saw a lot of upgrading and expansion taking place there. What really do you intend to achieve with these?
Well, when we came on board we found out that our healthcare system had completely collapsed. There was no trace of the huge money that was said to have been spent on the sector. So we resolved to bring our premier hospitals, namely Katsina General Hospital, Daura General Hospital and Funtua General Hospital, to a level that they will provide minimum requirement of a general hospital, which they were not providing before. We are upgrading their infrastructure and equipment. We employed about 690 new staff, including doctors, nurses and midwives, medical laboratory scientists, technicians and others. We also engaged 12 consultants to visit the hospitals. We have spent over N700 million on hospital equipment for the three hospitals. Now we have bought MRI Scanner for the three hospitals so that nobody goes to Kano for scanning again. So our plan, is to make sure that in the next few years any person who leaves Katsina for medical vacation, is doing it by choice. But the majority of the local people now have access to good Medicare. We are also upgrading
three more general hospitals: Tankia, Musawa and Malunfashi. Tankia is about 70 per cent done now, Musawa is about 50 per cent and Malunfashi that just started is about 20 per cent completed. In 2018, we are bringing in three more general hospitals- Dunsuma, Kpare and Jibia into the renewal programme. We intend to have 11 comprehensive general hospitals. We are now establishing a medical school and NUC has come, they have made their first visit. This year we will start construction and we believe our students will start enrolment next academic year. We are working with the Islamic Development Bank, they are financing about 103 healthcare centres in 34 local governments. Our intention is to have one in each of the 361 wards in the state. I think if we are able to provide education, health, water, agriculture, it with enhance the limitless capacity of our people.
Talking about education, we see you tend to prioritise girl education. Are you leaving the boys out?
No. You know here, you have to address the culture, tradition and religion of each locality. And here, segregation is an issue. The moment the children start to grow, at certain age, you have to separate the boys from the girls, particularly in the boarding schools. The first task we identified, which we are doing, is the renovation, upgrading and rehabilitating of all our boarding schools for boys and girls. We have priority for the girls because of their nature. I think of all the boarding schools for girls only Rugogo and Kofi are yet to be completed. Others have been done them. In terms of standard boarding school in this country, we are proud to say, we have provided the basic requirements and we are still doing more to decongest the classes and to decongest the dormitories. When we came on board, we discovered that dormitories that were designed for 72 students accommodate 150. I want you to imagine grown up girls of 15 to 18 cramped on a bed, which is not more than a metre width. You know these are school girls, some of these vices start from boarding schools. Why? Because they are cramped into one place each one holding another the same for the boys. That was what we met on the ground. Some of the schools you cannot take your child into them. Why? Because the people who were supposed to be looking after most of these institutions, their children are attending private schools either in faraway Kaduna or even out of the country. We met a situation where even headmasters’ children do not attend the schools they head. We had deficiency of 1, 376 classes when we came and we need more than 15,000 teachers to bridge the gap. So, we are not discriminating between the boys and the girls but we are more sensitive to the girls because of their nature and we want to promote girl-child education. You know, the participation of women here is very low, so we have deliberate policy to increase girl education because demographically in Katsina, the females are more in number than the males.
You have this policy where public officers and officials send their children to public schools. How successful has that policy been?
Well, I know all our officers who are residents of Katsina with their families have their children are in public schools. So far, it has been very successful because everybody is now focused on making sure that the public schools their children are attending are given attention. This way, other children also benefit. When we were growing up, we attended the school with the children of the Emirs, district heads and the few ministers we had in Northern Nigeria. They were all in public schools and if you were better than them at that time you were better. So nobody discriminated against you, whether you were the son of a farmer or a local trader. I think the policy is working.
Katsina had a high crime rate, particularly among the youths. Are you in a position to say that has gone down?
There was a time in 2014 when over 140 persons were killed in two local governments in the southern part of the state by cattle rustlers. This occurred on a day former President Goodluck Jonathan was visiting the state. It was that bad. We took concrete measures to stem the drift to anarchy. First, we had to open up some of our villages by constructing roads to them so that the security agencies could access them if help is needed. But we realised that the security problem could not be solved by Katsina alone because of the vast forests on its boarders with Zamfara, Kebbi, Kaduna and Niger Republic. We had to liaise with my brother governors to bring the criminality under control. We are grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari who ordered the military and other security agencies to give us maximum support. We formed a security team consisting, the Army, the Airforce, the Police, the Civil Defence and the Customs who jointly patrolled our over 220km-forest boarder. As you know, it came at a huge cost to us. Then, we interacted with the leaders of Miyetti Allah Fulani Breeders Association. We were lucky that the person who was elected their chairman was a civil servant, a graduate and an assistant director. So through him we were able to reach the Fulani for discussions. I was surprised that 95 per cent of them living in the forest were not criminals but were forced to live there because at a time they being killed. So no Fulani could to town and farmer to venture into the forest. I directed my SSG (Secretary to the State Government) to meet with security chiefs and go into the forest to meet with the Fulani. They were eventually able to persuade to come to Katsina for discussions. And they finally agreed last January that they would hand over their arms and ammunitions and embrace peace. They said they wanted that their children and their people who were in detention without trial released. We said those who serving sentence should complete their sentence and that they should also return all the cattle they stole. In return, we agreed to release all their motor cycles that had been confiscated. So, we held ceremonies here and there where they handed over 350 guns, bullets and other ammunitions. After we formed committees and instituted more permanent structures that we are servicing every month for the purpose of policing the state. We have not reached 100 per cent success but definitely we have achieved 80 per cent if not more because all the farms that were not being cultivated before are now being cultivated.
Related to the security challenge is the issue of illicit drug trafficking and use across the border into the state. Would you say this too has been curbed?
From NDLEA (National Drug Law Enforcement Agency) reports, Katsina State’s involvement is as a result of its porous land border with Niger Republic. We have more official routes than any other state and all the land border is an open land you can cross with motor cycle, four-wheel drives, bicycles and donkeys. Drug abuse had become rampant. The worse part of it was that some of the drugs were normal drugs that were not prohibited but when you take overdose they become prohibited. So what we did was to form six committees and a task force to tackle the problem. We also reinforced our intelligence system and luckily one of the dealers in Katsina State was arrested along with his brothers. Our task force on a continuous basis raid and close down illegal patent medicines stores and pharmacies. We have been able to reduce the problem but you know there is a major drug market in Kano. Most of the people dealing with illicit drugs from Katsina end up in Kano, which is a much larger market with a larger population, a bigger market serving not only Nigeria but most parts of North and West Africa. What we have appealed to traditional rulers and religious leaders to preach in their mosques and places of worship about the dangers of illicit drug use.
So, how have you been able to engage the youths?
I think there are three types of youths that we are dealing with. There are those who have the basic education who can easily be more trained to do certain things. There are those who are looking for opportunities to further their education and there are those who don’t have any form of education either Islamic or western type of education. But all of them are Katsina State indigenes they are Nigerians and they have rights that must be protected. For those that have requirement for higher education, the government is willing to support them provided they gain admission within the local institutions. We have no money to finance people going abroad. We have, however, empowered thousands of youths through training in skills acquisition and start up capital. We are still doing that, especially, for our local women who live in the rural area, who N5,000 can start a business for them. The hardest ones are those who have not gotten any form of education but luckily enough we realised that and we are trying to help them in the area of agriculture. At least, if you don’t know anything, coming from a rural community, your father must have a farm, so at least that is one trade that is common to everybody. Now, we are sending them back to our irrigation schemes. Three days ago our desk officer on empowerment came and told me that the Work Bank now has a programme for those who were not able to go to school. Really, they are in majority because if you look at the percentage of those who go to school and you look at the percentage of those who haven’t gone to school, you find out that those who haven’t gone to school are more and you will find out that some of them will end up in urban centres and become a societal problem.
You know politicians will always be politicians so when politicians are doing their politics it shouldn’t surprise you. It’s not only in Katsina, all over the places you go to you see people campaigning for one politician or the other. For us, it’s normal and we are used to it. So, the best person to ask is the person that put up the billboards.
A lot of discussions are going on the 2019 presidential election, what is your take on this?
Well, not only will I support President Buhari for 2019, I’m also working on it to make sure that he runs for 2019. I believe in him and I believe in his commitment to this country. I want you to imagine this country after 2015 elections without somebody like Buhari. Where will the country have been? Because the treasury was empty and insurgency of Boko Haram was frightening, nobody was sure of 2015 elections. Before the 2015 elections, most of the people I knew that had the means had left this country. Those who had not left the country had sent their families outside Nigeria because of the fear of violence. They knew what would have happened. But where are we today? Today, we have people who are running here to invest. Today, we have a Nigerian Customs that is beating its chest that it realised over N1 trillion, which has never happened in the history of this country. So, we need to secure and stabilise the nation. May be somebody is there, I don’t know him. But I trust Buhari to do the job. So there is need for continuity for him to secure and stabilise this country. Unless, God forbid, we don’t want to go back to the dark days of uncertainties. People like us who have no place to go but Nigeria, were wondering what would happen to us. I have no single kobo outside Nigeria and no piece of land or property outside Nigeria, not even here in Niger Republic which is are our neighbour. So for people like us we have nowhere to go but here.