Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna state had an interaction with select journalists in Kaduna weekend where he talked about controversial issues in his 10 months in office such as ethnic and religious colourations, rumoured fisticuffs with his deputy, workers’ verification exercise, religious preaching bill at the state assembly, government land recovery and challenges in office. ABDULRAHEEM AODU reports.
What have been your challenges since you assumed office 10 months ago?
It has been an interesting and successful journey. This is the toughest time in Nigerian history to be a state governor. Taking over from a PDP system that has institutionalised itself in 16 years and trying to change direction is always tough.
We are taking over at the time when the crude oil price has collapsed by 70% and we have inherited structures and machineries of government, an attitude in the public service of a country that has been selling crude oil at $100 per barrel. Expectations remain high while the revenues are very low.
One of the challenges we are facing in this state is that everything seem to be politicised, ‘ethnicised’ or ‘religionised’. There is issue of low revenues. In the first month we got here, we got about N5 billion from federal allocation but in the last two months, we got N2.8billion each.
We reduced the number of commissioners from 24 to 13. We inherited 38 permanent secretaries, now we are operating with 18. We have reduced the length of governor’s convoy from 21 vehicles to six cars. We are also raising revenue. In December 2015, we collected N224 million naira as Internally Generated Revenue, after blocking leakages, we raised N1.2 billion in January and in February, it increased to about N2billion. We are going to be raising about N3-N4 billion a month.
We are verifying workers and have reduced the payroll by about N500million. The state payroll was about N2.7 billion, we brought it down to N2.2 billion last month, with the final round of verification, it could even go lower. We are requesting every employee of the state to open an account with a deposit money bank so that they can have a Bank Verification Number.
You cannot cheat on BVN. We have gone through these verifications over and over again after the verification and the real staff have been separated from the ghost workers, the people in account and personnel will remove the real staff and put back the ghost workers again just to cause confusion. It is a continuous battle because those that created these ghost workers are beneficiaries of huge amounts of money every month.
We have had issues with payment of salaries, because people in the system have been sabotaging our efforts, but we have set strategies to deal with that. One area we have big problems is with the local government pay roll. Their records are much worse. We are doing a census of teachers so that we can know who our teachers are. Before the end of the year, many of these issues will be sorted out and things will begin to work better. We need to hire thousands of teachers because the quality of teachers we have is not up to a scratch.
You say that in Kaduna state, every issue is given religion and ethnic definition. Can you explain further?
Religion and ethnic this is something I find both disturbing and disappointing. In any argument the moment a person introduces religion, I know he is wrong because if you are right, you have facts and you can justify your position. People only revert to religion and ethnicity when they have ran out of convincing arguments. I thought more than any state in Nigeria, Kaduna state has suffered more in terms of religious and ethnic divisions and that should be lesson to us to walk away from that but what I found out is that the elite have one weapon and that is religion and it is sad.
One of the legacies Arch. Barnabas Bala Bantex and I want to leave behind in this state is the complete separation of religion from governance and hypocrisy associated with it. We want everyone to feel that in this state, you can practice your religion without hindrance and your religion and ethnicity would not be a factor in getting government services and appointment. It must be your capacity and competence to deliver.
Your Excellency, is there a time frame of ending the ongoing verification of workers?
As an employer, you need to check the numbers of your employees from time to time and it is normal. It does not mean that after this verification exercise, we will stop. Maybe once or twice in a year we will do it just to check. Our hope is that this verification that we are doing will uncover all the loopholes. We now have a new payment and financial management platform for the state. It is called SIFMIS (State Integrated Financial Management Information System). It is a $2 million project that was financed by the World Bank and completed two years ago. We revived it in October and we have paid our salaries in January using the system for the first time. It is our own people that are using this new platform and they are getting used to it. With the verification we are now doing with BVN, that will make us 99% comfortable. I think as soon as we know with a very high degree of certainty who our employees are, there would not be salary delays. We will be paying salaries between 23rd -25th of each month even before we receive the federation allocation.
TUC and NLC recently expressed worry over a state government form asking workers whether they intend to be members of the unions or not. Why are you making unionism optional in Kaduna state?
A staff complained that N2,000 was deducted for union out of his salary, if all 87,000 employees in the state and local governments have such complain that is a lot of money. When you multiply N2,000 by 87,000, you will be having almost N170 million. We called them and asked why are we collecting check off dues for trade union, are we their collection agent? We asked the Attorney General to check the law and give us an opinion, she said it is a law for every employer to deduct union dues and remit to the union, but she went on to say that the membership of the trade union is not automatic but voluntary. So, we invited the trade union and informed them that we would not be deducting the money of our staff until we know members of the union and those that are not. I believe trade unions are important, they offer services to their members. However, the law is clear; you have to legally declare that you are a member before we can deduct your money and that was how our argument with TUC and NLC started.
It is not that we are against the unions, the unions are very supportive to us. Throughout the verification exercise, they stood by us and we appreciate that but that does not mean we should do what is unlawful. We met with them when they complained about this. They said the law makes membership of the union compulsory. We said they should write us and quote the section of the law that says that because the Attorney General said otherwise and they never came back.
The Trade Union Amendment Act 2005 said not withstanding anything to the contrary in this act, membership of the trade union employees shall be voluntary and no employee shall be forced to join any trade union or be victimised for refusing to join or remain a member.
The religious preaching bill has generated a lot of controversy, what does your government want to achieve when it becomes law?
If you take out the states that have suffered from Boko Haram insurgency, I think Kaduna state has suffered the most from death and destruction of properties, due to misuse and abuse of religion. More people have been killed in Kaduna from the words that people have said. The Maitatsine sect in Kano in the 80s and the Kalakato sect in Borno state in the 90s, which led to many deaths and destruction, all came from people that are not trained in religious matters, people that woke up and started preaching and acquiring followers and inevitably that sect will grow in large number to threaten communities and there will be clash.
That was also how Muhammed Yusuf started. He was a student of Sheikh Ja’afar Adam in Kano. They fell out because Ja’afar felt that some of the views he was expressing were extreme and intolerant. He went and started his own sect we are still dealing with it. When you have such kind of things happening in your country, I think as leaders, we have to sit down and examine ourselves and the society and see what we can do to prevent that. It is the lack of regulation of religion that led to all these circle of death and destructions.
Just recently we had the Shi’ite problem in Zaria, following a similar pattern. I believe that before you start preaching in any religion, you should have gone through a system of education, training and some kind of certification. Even those that deal with the physical life get certified, let alone those that deal with the spiritual life. We initiated this bill from the Kaduna State Security Council, based on reports of new sects emerging in Kaduna state. There is one around Makarfi called Gausiyya, they do their Zuhr prayer around 11am, different from other Muslims. There is a woman in Makarfi, who said Prophet Muhammad (SAW) is speaking to her and sick people started coming to her for their healing. It was the report of two or three of these new sects that compelled us in the Security Council to ask whether there is a law that regulates preaching. Then we are told there is a law; since 1984 after the Maitasine problems. It was subsequently amended several times to increase the fine and the imprisonment term. This is a living problem and we know it.
Christian priests, the ones I know go to seminary and spend so many years there, to study under a more experienced reverend to learn what to say and what not to say. Religious leaders don’t preach hatred; they preach peace, tolerance and love. But today in my religion of Islam, anybody can wake up and start a sect, no control. The logic behind this law is to strengthen the 1984 laws to regulate and ensure that those that are given the opportunity to preach know what they are doing they have a level of responsibility to develop society rather than divide it. This is our goal; we don’t have anything against any religion or anybody.
Some people have argued that there is freedom of religion, of course; section 38 is very clear we must not have a state religion, every Nigerian is allowed to practice his faith or even if he doesn’t have any religion at all. However, those that are quoting section 38 of the constitution, conveniently forget section 45 which says that you can regulate any human right if it would affect the right of others. You can practice your religion but you can’t do it in a way that abuses the right of another. There is nothing in this law that is not in conformity with the Constitution. We sent it to the State Assembly in October 2015 because some people are saying we sent it because of the Shi’ite problem, No! It was the State Assembly that kept on looking at it and saying this one ‘Na hot potato’ until now. We don’t have any ulterior motive other than to put a framework that would ensure that Kaduna state people live in peace with everyone practicing his religion. We have formed two committees that will issue this license. It is a committee of Christians umbrella body (CAN) and Muslims umbrella body (JNI). We will just have an inter-ministerial committee to be checking once in a while and be keeping records because we want to know who is preaching here and who is doing what there.
Some people are saying that it is aimed at stopping the practice of Christianity and Islam in the state.
Well, I have not seen anyone talking about Islam actually. Most of the people that say I would die are people who call themselves Christian clergies. Of course, I will die. If that apostle is truly an apostle, he should mention the day I will die. There is nothing in that law that prevents or infringes the practice of religion. It seeks to ensure that those that preach religion are qualified, trained and certified by their peers to do it.
During your campaigns, you had promised that you were not going to demolish, but we are having issues of land recovery exercise in schools and lately at the Millennium City and Gbagyi Villa. What went wrong?
We want to recover school land for obvious reasons. Our population is growing and we need more land for schools. Every year, Nigeria population increases by six million people and already the schools we have are congested because the lands earmarked for them have been encroached upon by communities largely because of our carelessness. If you fence up a school land, it would be more difficult to encroach upon but the previous governments have not done that and now we are doing that. We started with the Alhudahuda College, Zaria. Zaria is my father’s hometown. Those that are living in Alhudahuda College are mostly Hausa-Fulani and Muslims like me. We started there because the college exhibited the most serious form of abuse and impunity. Now, the college is clean, we are fencing the school and moving to Rimi College. We saw that most of the people living on the land of Rimi College are title holders. Alhudahuda College cost us nothing because the Land Use Act and the Nigeria Urban and Regional Planning Act say you are only entitled to compensation if you have Certificate of Occupancy and development permit. So, if you have C of O and no permission to build from KASUPDA, it will be taken down as illegal building. You need both.
We moved to Rimi College and found out that they all have certificates of occupancy. So, recovering the land in Rimi College cost us N380 million for compensation and we had to give them alternative land. In Rimi College, it was land recovery, most of the buildings in Rimi College will be used as staff housing or hostels and that would make Rimi College a boarding school again. The Kaduna Polytechnic and Gbagyi Villa, that is not in our programme because Kaduna Polytechnic is not a state institution. The Rector of Kaduna Polytechnic complained that land earmarked for the polytechnic has been encroached upon. He gave us the details and we checked and realised that, the land was properly acquired, compensation was paid, we have the records and the name of those that collected the compensation and it is polytechnic land. When they gave us the report, we say we will go and mark the buildings that have encroached poly land.
During the tenure of late Governor Yakowa, this issue had come up. Kaduna Polytechnic had complained and he said let me go and see the extent of the encroachment. He went, he saw and said okay, stop it here. He drew a line and a fence was built. He said he will appeal with the Kaduna Polytechnic to live with the encroachment since the remaining land is still significant. So that kind of interim agreement was made. The polytechnic did not quite accept and there was nothing in writing but of course they can’t look at the governor and say we don’t agree particularly, since they are neighbours. Then Yakowa left, the Gbagyi Villa occupants broke the fence and continue building.
Millennium City is slightly different. The land was acquired by the state government. Compensation was duly paid to some of the customary titleholders and there are some sections where compensation was not paid because they refused to accept it. Because of the lacuna, all the villagers, including those that collected the compensation and pocketed it, used the opportunity to chase out developers on the ground that compensation was not paid. We have the plan to built 20,000 housing capacity in Kaduna in the next four years. We brought some developers that would build at their own cost in the Millennium City, we took them to the part where compensation has been paid and gave them title, the villagers chased them away. I went to the village head, what he wants is to have a buffer zone and I said they would not have that. I said we should go back to the village and plan it otherwise, it will be like Obalende and Ikoyi, Garki village and Garki. You just create a slum within the city. The income inequality and disparity would lead to other problems because all the thieves attacking the GRA would be from that slum.
Stories are filtering out that you have engaged in fisticuffs with your deputy, what happened?
I have known Architect Bala Bantex since 1976 in our days at the Ahmadu Bello University and we have never even argued once, because to a large extent we think alike and act alike. Some people think that we are getting along too well in a state where deputy governors are supposed to be spare tyres. They don’t chair executive council meetings, don’t act when the governor is absent. We have been informed that no deputy governor has ever chaired an executive meeting. Bantex and I operate as partners and some people don’t like it. They want to create division between us and you know today with the internet you can manufacture any story and it can get traction because people like this kind of thing. I had a story that we had an argument concerning the retrenchment of the state workers. Bantex and I have never discussed the retrenchment of workers in Kaduna state. I think that people are just mischievous and I don’t know what their motives are but we leave everything to God but I want to assure you that Architect Bantex and I have never had an argument since 1976. And I have never slapped anyone in my life. I am not a physical person. I fight with words.
