Nura Mahmoud Dantsoho is a member of the All Progressives Congress and aspirant gunning for legislative seat of the Taraba State House of Assembly, representing Jalingo 1 Constituency. In this interview with a group of journalists in Abuja, Dantsoho bares his mind on the current fight for the governorship of Taraba State ahead of the 2015 general elections, his plans and sundry issues.
What is happening in Taraba State at the moment, with the State yet to have a substantive Governor in almost two years?
In my view, the new deputy Governor should be sworn in immediately as substantive governor so that our Danbaba Suntai can focus squarely on his health rather than being used like a ball, kicked around by many players. Governor Suntai can be a Devil to some people but to us in Jalingo he is an angel of some sort, because he gave so much to us in terms of infrastructure. No Governor has developed Jalingo like Suntai. As someone that is passionate about Jalingo, my concern is what is on ground for the people of our constituency, nothing more or less. So, I think handlers of Suntai should have accepted that Suntai had done his part, it was God’s destiny for his tenure to be short-lived; they should have simply work for the new acting Governor to be sworn-in as substantive Governor.
General T.Y Danjuma is said to have endorsed someone. How does your party, the APC come in here ahead of the 2015 elections?
The APC will be coming in to provide the right leadership to Taraba State. Majority of those in the drama about PDP Governorship tussles with endorsements and counter aspirations have been largely men, I am afraid to say that some of these our very senior men have failed to provide the right leadership that should inspire those of us in the younger generation, some of them have proved to be extremely concerned mainly about themselves and if you look at all the indices of backwardness, Taraba State has been a leader in the northeast whether in terms of maternal and infant mortality, poverty, poor access to water, education and what have you and in the final analysis, women and the youths have been at the receiving end, this is why we need a strong woman with a strong character, someone like Senator Jummai Alhassan to be elected Governor of Taraba State under the APC by 2015. Senator Jummai combines the knowledge of working under the judiciary and legislature and this will make her create a robust inter functional relationships among the three tiers of Government when she leads the executive arm and this is what we need, we need functional and patriotic cooperation for Taraba State to move forward.
The beauty of women is that they are generally very passionate about what they do; this is why they are among the best human and material resources managers in the world. It takes a lot of efficiency for a woman of 35 years to manage ten children in some cases added to her husband, inlaws and extended family. As a mother, Senator Jummai has gone through the difficulties of child birth, she knows the problem of women of Taraba State who are dying of child birth due to prolonged labour that arises from poor access to affordable and quality ante natal health care; she knows what infant mortality means and how painful it is when a woman carries pregnancy for months and looses the child merely due to poor access to ante natal and post natal healthcare; poor access to neo-natal health and child diseases management.
As a wife, she knows the problems of men who toil day and night under harsh welfare conditions to meet the needs of their families; she knows how men toil to get money to take their children to private schools because public schools are simply no go areas for anyone that seeks good future for his children in Taraba State; we need Senator Jummai and I think the APC has got that tradition of giving women a chance. In the whole of Nigeria, the South-West is about the only geo-political zone where women are largely deputy governors and it is the APC that currently provide that unique platform in the South-West and the APC will be making history when it spreads that revolution to the northeast by making Senator Jummai Alhassan the candidate of the APC ahead of the Governorship elections in Taraba State and I can assure you that the rest will be history, Senator Jummai will be Nigeria’s first elected female Governor and she will be a wonderful leader that Taraba people deserve.
You seem passionate about having a woman as candidate for the Governorship, wouldn’t that be strange given culture and religion for instance or rather, the dominance of men in the scheme of things in Nigeria?
APC is about change, our slogan is change for the better. I am passionate about the welfare of every citizen of Taraba State but I am particular about women and youths because they are weak members of the society, they are at the receiving end, they are the poorest. If you want to change a society, educate and empower women. There is a saying that if you educate a man you educate one person but if you educate a woman, you educate the world, the reason is because women share transmit anything to their children and families. Women are determined and very consistent. When you give a woman N20, 000, she can use that money to achieve a lot for her children and even her husband; women support their husbands, children, parents and the society. Women hold the key to our retail economy. If you go to most markets, women control the retail outlets of day to food stuff, they are the people under the sun and in the rain while men control the shops whereas the women earn less and in many cases, they feed their husbands and children. An average woman is a slave to her extended family, whatever she gets is extended to her parents, younger ones and many men and women in her extended family, so there is always a multiplier effect when women are educated and empowered but this is not to say we should ignore the men, not at all but let’s empower women.
You are aspiring to be a member of the Taraba State House of Assembly, if you are elected, how do you intend to support women through your office?
If I am elected insha Allah, one of the first legislative duties I intend discharge is to strongly lobby my colleagues and the executive to put in place Taraba State Community-Based Commission for Protection of Education, Health and Economic Rights of Women. The commission will have offices in all the wards across the 16 local government areas and the offices will be operated by carefully selected women the wards and not from outside; the offices will be responsible for documenting women who are denied access to education and economic opportunities in every ward and work them to have it; the commission will have desk offices in Ministries of Education, Poverty Alleviation, Local Government Affairs, Health, Agriculture, Commerce and relevant public institutions like major schools, hospitals, agency for poverty eradication, council secretariats etc.
They also would be trained on how to monitor and ensure that the right women benefit in terms of access to education, healthcare and economic empowerment. They will supervise every allocation to women and document beneficiaries, undertake needs assessment to identify the needs of women in every ward and follow up with relevant Ministries for budgetary allocations which I will work tirelessly to ensure. The major problem in our public services in Nigeria is basically lack of lack of transparent supervision and lack of proper needs assessment and documentation. When we have a commission with women tasked with supervision, the right people will benefit from public programmes and by having respected women who are residents of their wards as supervisors, the beneficiaries know who to hold responsible when things go wrong. In our oversight as lawmakers we will also ensure that only credible women are allowed to manage such commission and desk offices because there will always be feedback when you have a public institution that is community-based.