By Omeiza Ajayi
Kaduna State governor, Senator Uba Sani, in this interview, speaks on claims of Northern marginalisation by some Northern politicians against the President Bola Tinubu administration, saying most of the region’s woes were self-inflicted.
Sani, who spoke on Arise News monitored in Abuja, also touched on the essence of the recent public engagement by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation in Kaduna and revealed how he has been able to foster peace in the state.
Essence of the 2-day public engagement
What happened in Kaduna a few days ago was what some of us have been calling for since many years.
Recall that the Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation had a meeting (maybe many people might not have known that, about six months ago here in Abuja and some of us who attended the meeting came out openly and criticised the organisation as well as other northern organisations.
The meeting we had a few days ago was a follow-up to the one we did in Abuja six months ago. I was telling them, let us come together. We have a common problem and we must have a common solution to the problem. But what I don’t like, I said at that meeting, was that we cannot be sitting blaming everyone.
But we always take blame all the time to people who are not from our zone. Particularly, I made it clear there, that we cannot sit there and be blaming the current administration of President Bola Tinubu. Let me repeat it here today. I will continue to say that if we want to correct this problem, we must take the blame.
Claims of Northern marginalisation
Can we look at the developmental indices one by one? When you talk of marginalisation, don’t just say marginalisation.
Number one, here in this country, the Minister of Agriculture is from where? Northern Nigeria. The Minister of State for Agriculture is from Northern Nigeria.
Let me give you an example of Kaduna, where I come from. When I came in as governor, the budget to Agriculture was about N1.4 billion. And remember the Malabo Declaration in 2014 was that if we want to really transform Agriculture, no sub-national or national government should budget less than 10% for Agriculture. Today in Kaduna, our budget is about 12% in Agriculture. So that is number one. The reason why we can do this easily is that both the Minister of State and the Minister of Agriculture are from Borno State, and one is from Niger State. They are from northern Nigeria.
The Minister of Livestock is from northern Nigeria. What are the measures when you are talking about human capital development? It is healthcare. The Minister of Health is from where? Bauchi State. We are talking about insecurity in northern Nigeria. Today, the National Security Adviser is from northern Nigeria. The Minister of Defence is from northern Nigeria.
The Minister of State for Defence is from northern Nigeria. The Chief of Defence Staff is from northern Nigeria. If you look at it again, the Chief of the Air Staff is from northern Nigeria.
Peace building
As governor of Kaduna, you need to ask me, how did we addressed the problem of insecurity? When I came in as governor, Kaduna was completely taken over by issues of banditry, insurgency.
Today, in the last two years, we have not experienced a single ethno-religious crisis in Kaduna State. That is not the role of Mr President. It is the role of sub-national governments to do that. Today in Kaduna, in the last two years, we have not had a single farmer -herder crisis. Three weeks ago, I was going to a local government to attend a function. I stopped over at a particular village in a local government that was an epicenter of religious crisis. But I was happy when I saw different tribes as well as farmers living together in the same community, with farms and cows, less than 50 meters away.
I solved that problem because what you need to do is be inclusivity. You need to include everyone. President Tinubu didn’t need to come to the north to tell you how to run your state. We are a diverse state in Kaduna. We have Muslims, Christians, and about 60 ethnic groups in Kaduna state. As a leader, the first thing you need to do is do justice. It is about equity. It is about fairness. When we are talking about justice, equity, and fairness, it is taking development to every part of the state, irrespective of religious, political, or ethnic affiliations.
When I came in as governor, of course, at the beginning, I was elected mostly by people in the northern part of Kaduna, but today, when you go to Kaduna, you see the roads we are constructing. We do not discriminate.
What is more important is for a leader to choose. Are you going to put forward politics as the number one agenda or governance? For us, governance is more important. That is the reason we solved that.
Now, talking about the issue of security, you are asking me what the president done. Before I became governor, I was a senator, chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking but if you go back to my history, you would realise that I was the Senator who sponsored the creation of the State Police.
As of 2014, ask anyone, there was nothing called insurgency or banditry in the northwestern part of Nigeria. It started around 2015. It became worse by 2021 under an APC government. Now, what I am talking about here, because I am a very blunt person, I am not talking as a politician. You need to know my antecedents.
People talk about democracy. Some of us fought for this democracy. I was detained five times by successive military governments in Nigeria. And what were we doing – Fighting for democracy. Fighting for rule of law. Fighting for justice. As a governor, I can now sit before you and start telling you what I don’t believe in.
I am saying the major problem facing northern Nigeria today is the issue of insecurity because it will affect every form of development. Absolutely. When I came as a governor, 162 of our schools were completely abandoned because of insecurity. 192 primary health care centres were closed because of insecurity. If you are familiar with a town called Birnin Gwari, one period we came to Kaduna precisely on the 22nd of December, 2022, for a campaign.
We travelled together with him from Kaduna to Birnin Gwari. We couldn’t reach Birnin Gwari without almost 20 armoured personnel vehicles, provided to us by the late General Lagbaja. He was a GOC 1 Mechanised Division in Kaduna. Today, you can go to Birnin Gwari with your eyes closed. No problem of insecurity. Nobody has been kidnapped there. That is progress for me. The farmers of Birnin Gwari have gone back to the farms.
We have already recovered about 500,000 hectares of farmland that were abandoned previously. So if you sit down with me and tell me there is no progress, I will not believe you because I am sitting as a governor of Kaduna State. Local governments like Igabi, Giwa, Birnin Gwari, Kachia, Zangon Kataf where General Christopher Musa comes from, the Chief of Defence, he can get in there easily. Today, you can get to those local governments. That is progress for me.
Your state doesn’t represent the whole of the northern region, does it? Other states have insecurity too.
Ours is worse. I will tell you why ours is worse than many states. The only difference is you have to study Kaduna model.
Boko Haram in the North East is more of an ideology issue but when you are talking about insurgency in the northwest, it is an economic matter. That was the reason when we came in, we said, look, we cannot resolve that using kinetic approach only.
Firearms Act
You have to go and study the Firearms Acy and you will be shocked. It is obsolete for 22 years now.
It is not aligned with the global best practices. Look at the United Nations report. You will agree with me, about 200 to 250 million illicit, illegal firearms are in circulation in sub-Saharan Africa. Out of that number, about 70% are in Nigeria. Why? Because our institutions are weak.
When I was in the Senate, I wanted to amend the Firearms Act but we lost it and when we lost it, I lost hope that we can be able to address the issue of insecurity using the kinetic approach. Because, number one, the number of the entire military in Nigeria is still less than 400,000. About 250,000 precisely in the whole of Nigeria. Police are still less than 400,000. So put the police and the military together, they are still not up to 700,000.
You can go around, and you will agree with me, we have many ungoverned spaces in Nigeria. Go to the northwest, see the borders.
How we fixed the problem
In my state, I will tell you how I did it because when I realised I had only one option, when I started, a lot of people were criticising me. You are trying to pay bandits. But I told them, a man who fought for justice, a man who fought for freedom of the less privileged and downtrodden, cannot sit down with a bandit and pay him.
So they were surprised. Only two weeks ago, when I came up with my programme, where I gave houses to the victims of insurgency, instead of compensating or giving anything to the bandits. I have not given N1 to bandits, but I built houses for the victims of banditry in Kaduna.
This issue is a matter of using both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches. We opened the markets and right now cows are being moved to other parts of the country. Trade has resumed.
The post Why North can’t blame Tinubu for marginalization — Gov Sani appeared first on Vanguard News.
