The post defeat trauma of the PDP which lost control of power at the center seems not to finish as the inglorious exit of its national chairman Adamu Muazu and boss of the Board Trustees Tony Anenih has added to the pains resulting from woeful loss at the 2015 general elections and further tears the party apart. Analyzing the turn of event, SAMUEL OGIDAN writes that the party since 1999, having had 11 chairmen is finally interred.
How do you look at your success in the April11 poll?
The people of Bauchi state have through the card reader expressed their zero tolerance to the unprecedented betrayal of our collective trust, they have shown their steadfastness to the advocacy of ‘Sak’ that even inducement with ill-gotten money did not work let alone buy their conscience.
They have not only voted but peacefully protected their votes with ‘A Kasa – A Tsare – A Raka – A Jira’ that even the wanton provocation by the abuse of instruments of power did not scare them from punishing those that have abused our trust in governance. I salute their courage, I salute their determination, I salute their collective resolve and it is with deep emotions that I wish to appreciate our compatriots that lost their lives in an effort for the betterment of their tomorrow over a horrific yesterday.
Those who kept vigil while the process came under threats of abuse through the dead of night will be remembered in our history as the facilitators of change.
Admittedly, the rot we are facing is enormous but with our collective resolve “to do something” we certainly, will triumph.
They have kick-started the process by this mandate and with Allah’s grace and guidance, we shall strive to ensure that equity in governance is sacrosanct where every section of our State, sex, religion and, indeed, well-meaning individuals are equally important and relevant. Our leadership will be all embracing. It is a leadership for the people of Bauchi state.
It is a leadership for those ‘who voted for us, those who did not vote for us and, indeed, those who did not vote at all’ to quote our President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari. It is indeed my wish to express immeasurable gratitude to the Almighty Allah (SWT) particularly for the peaceful conduct of the elections in most parts of our great state.
I won’t get tired of thanking the people for their massive votes translating to a huge reposition of trust in our commitment and in the promises we made.
I hasten to also thank our great political party the APC for keeping together a compact team across all levels and in ensuring a smooth campaign and electioneering vigilante process. I also wish to express and recognize my colleagues whom we aspired for this position together in the party, (some of whom may be with us here), for their understanding and support. They are indeed great men. The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, needs special mention and commendation for rekindling the hopes and aspirations of the Nigerian electorates, through the rare innovation of the PVC and Card Reader.
They made our votes count. Our gratitude also goes to our security agencies for supervising the entire process and portraying a large degree of neutrality and the people of the press for their wide coverage of the process even in the face of growing intimidation, as well as leaders of our revered traditional institutions and religious groups for ceaseless prayers and communal security.
How relevant is the blueprint you talked about in one of your interview have you discarded it?
I do not wish to discard any of the things I have discussed. I have earlier on told you that our plans include what we call ‘Quick Win’ Project, the moment we take over power, with whatever little money we find in the treasury, there are certain aspects of societal problems that we are going to attack and embark upon, and those have to do with social and health well-beings of the citizens of Bauchi state.
I wouldn’t want to divulge these immediately because the out-going government will wake up from its slumber, these areas even in this state capital that you take a drive, you will notice certain things. Indeed, the President-elect while we were driving from the Emir’s Palace to Multi-purpose Sports Hall, he noticed some of those things and he drew my attention to that.
And I told him, I promised that probably one of the first things we will start with is to take care of those aspects. And the issue of broadening of the Internally Generated Revenue base of the state is sine-quo-non, we must do it because as it is now, we general almost zero IGR, we generate about 5% which cannot even take care of the generating sets in the Government House. So we have to broaden the revenue base, and in order to broaden the revenue base, we must begin to think out of the box. We are endowed, thanks to the Almighty Allah, this state is endowed, is blessed with a lot of solid minerals and if one harnesses them, and one can be able to move the state forward.
What other sectors of the economy will your administration give priority?
Tourism is another sector; the tourism sector is virtually not developed, because people make the mistake of thinking, because we have the Yankari Game Reserve that our tourism sector is developed. Tourism involves much more than that, your tourism begin at your point of entry, you have to take care of the problems of the point of entry into Nigeria.
It is only in Nigerian airports that you find about 10 different outfits operating, each one wearing one colour of uniform or the other, and each one trying to make a quick naira out of the visitors. This is counter-productive as far as tourism is concern, you have to be able to attack that area and streamline it so that your visitor, the moment he drop either in Abuja, Lagos or wherever or Bauchi, he can be able to gain entry into Nigeria in so far he has his visa without any hustle, without anybody looking for bribe from him because that is counter-productive especially to Europeans and Americans, they hate that, they hate the menace to stop them for clarification, so we have to take care of that aspect first before we now think in terms of Yankari Game Reserve.
Thank God, I worked for good two years and I knew quite a bit about Yankari Game Reserve, I have good ideas that I will use to develop Yankari Game Reserve and repositioning it in such a way the fortnightly we can be able to bring about 300 foreigners who will come into Nigeria, come to Bauchi and spend their good dollars. And the Zaranda Hotel in Nigeria’s parlance, we call it 5-Star Hotel. Internally, Zaranda Hotel will not rank as one-star hotel as it is now especially after this government has debt in it in the so-called renovation of the hotel.
The first thing they did was to defaced the hotel completely, those window-unit ACs are horrible, they are horrible, no right thinking person will abandon a central Air Conditioner and use these window-units. So one of the first things you do is to remove those things and draw them out, and you have to now then renovate Zaranda Hotel along with the expertise of well-known Hotel Management outfit, International Hotel Management Outfit. What I intend to do is, without a fantastic Golf Course in Bauchi, a lot of people don’t know, one of the first thing I will do is to make that Golf Course a standard one.
People do not know, the Japanese worked very hard, they have a lot of money, they don’t have land to make Golf Courses, so the Japanese, if you give him a fantastic Golf and you give him a good hotel, he is prepared to leave Tokyo and come to Bauchi for a weekend and spend dollars. So you have to be able to think out of the box, the opportunities are there, but you have to have the commitment, and then you have to have the ability to think out of the box before you can be able to develop these sectors.
Will you sustain some policies of the out-going administration such as the BAYWARD and Spider Web Security that keeps some youth in employment? Also, during your campaigns period you talked about the debt burden on PDP administration, will you probe the out-going administration’ financial recklessness towards settling the debts?
I’m not going to waste time embarking on probes just like the one this regime had at the beginning, which is very wasteful, at the end of the day they were not able to collect even a kobo.
But what I’m going to assure the good people of Bauchi state is that we are going to embark on all efforts to trace the huge resources that have been frittered away from this state, we will definitely do that. And the issue of palliative measures you talked about, as if it is not the government of PDP that engendered poverty in the polity.
It is the PDP, they have used poverty as a weapon, they spread poverty because it is the only way they can rule for their ‘so-called 60 years’. When you are impoverished, you do not even think straight, when it comes to time for elections, N500 means a lot to a lot of people and they used it, and you know you press men you have gone round, you have seen where they have been using that N500 especially with women. They stole their money, they turned round to bribe them with this thing. Thank God, the people were sensible enough to collect their money back and then vote for change, and that is why today we are here. So our policies are going to be real policies.
The palliative measures you are talking about, when this administration cames in, a full-blown programme of action was drawn for them, how to give tat supposed palliative measures, but they chose a few out of the entire package that was given to them, and those few that they have chosen are areas where a lot of monies are going to be pumped in and then siphon out.
All these BAYWARD and that’s, go and check, they will now tell you that they are going to take care of x amount of boys or youth, and at the end of the day, why some amount of money is going to be voted but only Z amount of money is going to get to this point, a lot of things are frittered away. So this is not the way to give palliative measures, palliative measures have to come from the heart, it has to have a commitment to the state first and foremost, and to the youth particularly, and I have said it so many times that the issue of the youth and women are very dear to me, they are dear to my heart and I intend to address them, and I’m not going to do it the way this Government has done it.
As it is now, I have set up a body that is called Bauchi State Re-branding Project. This Bauchi State Re-branding Project involves the use of Bauchi state indigenes in the academia, Bauchi state indigenes who are retired civil servants, technocrats that have something to contribute, Bauchi state indigenes who are in the organized private sector, at the end of the day we are going to come up with a Blue Print, you know it is traditional in government, for us now as the elected political party to set up a transition committee. The transition committee will work hand-in hand with the current government and tell us at the end of the day, what this government has done, either positive or negative.
Then side by side with that, we are going to have a Blue Print. The Re-branding Project is going to give us the Blue Print. We are using professors from the universities who are Bauchi state indigenes, we are using retired civil servants who are well experienced who are willing to contribute, we are using private businessmen, and we are using technocrats who will bring out the Blue Print for us. That BluePrint is what we are going to use in the future development of Bauchi state.
If you place it side by side with the report of your transition committee, the transition committee will tell you the amount of rots in the system. Yes, don’t laugh, I’m not laughing, this is a very serious matter, you know, the amount of rots will make clear, and then what I intend to do is immediately after we take-over, I’m going to assemble a Summit of Bauchi state indigenes, wherever you are if you have something to contribute, I will call them, devoid of any party consideration, I will call everybody, sit everybody down, I will take these two documents before them. This is the report of the transition committee, take a look at it. This on the other hand, is my Blue Print. This is what I intend to do for the good people of Bauchi state. You study and tell me the way forward, and I intend to abide by whatever decision I arrive at that Summit.
During your campaigns you faced a lot of oppositions even within your party, and even the government of the day was said to be opposing your candidature. Now that you have won the election, do you intend to continue with the fight or extend hands of friendship to all those who opposed you?
In reality, I have not been fighting anybody. And to be very honest, I have not been fighting anybody.
In sensible climate, when you win elections, the people you contested with are supposed to come and congratulate you, but in Nigeria, I was the one who went to the houses of each and of the people I aspired with to beg them to come back so that we can join hands together in driving this party to success. So, I’m not fighting anybody, so there is no fight to continue with.
If I’m fighting anybody, it is the government of PDP, and the government of PDP you know, when you suit them, they will tell you I’m a Yuguda accolade. And when it does not suit them, they will tell you that I’m not a good man so let nobody vote for me. So with these you know that my candidature is from God the Almighty and I will never forget that, and I’m going to use that in running the government of Bauchi state so that we can endanger development in our state.
