Mrs Justina Dolapo Abanida, the candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the November 16, 2019 governorship election in Kogi State, former Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General, and former Secretary to the Government of Kogi State (SSG), in this interview by YEKINI JIMOH, speaks on her plans.
WHAT are your programmes for the state, if elected governor?
My dream is to turn Kogi State into the commercial nerve centre of the country and by the grace of God, if the people of the state can see the truthfulness in me, the honesty in me, the focus in me, I believe I will win the election. Now, you asked me what are my programmes. To start with, the road network in the state is simply appalling and because of this a lot of rural and urban businesses have been affected. The movement of goods and services have been made difficult. I intend to ensure that our roads, within three years will be passable. It is achievable if done in stages. In the health sector, tackling infant mortality will be our focus. We will concentrate on free medical services to pregnant women. I also intend to encourage immunisation. A lot of diseases that often lead to premature death can be prevented through immunisation. Many of our rural women take immunisation for granted. I intend to enforce it by legislation. Presently, most of our do not rural hospitalshave doctors. We will see to the employment of doctors, and not just nurses, for early diagnosis and effective treatment of patients. In the education sector we will encourage rehabilitation of existing classrooms and build new blocks of classrooms where needed.
Presently, the provision of education facilities are lopsided. You go to some communities you see excess classrooms built through political patronage but not used, but you see some communities that are in need but they don’t even have access to one classroom. I intend to correct that. Not only that, the we will employ teachers and post them to rural areas. In some of the rural areas you will see one teacher teaching three classes. Again, the teachers are not motivated because they are not paid regularly. I intend to correct that by ensuring that all teachers are paid as and when due. Security will be top priority.
Kogi State shares borders with many states and is the gateway to the south west, the south east and the north. That is why you see that kidnapping is so rampant around the confluence. As a result of this, Kogi State needs serious policing. Security cannot be toiled with. We will ensure that Kogi State is well policed including the use of helicopters for rapid response and apprehension of criminals. No investor will come to a state where there is no security.
How do you intend to fund your programmes despite the fact that the state is indebted to N50.8b bailout loan?
My idea of turning the state to a commercial nerve centre will be within the available resources of the state. I intend to do this through promoting Public Private Partnership initiative. The government has a responsibility to create jobs while also creating enabling environment for small scale businesses to thrive. We will encourage small capital based industries such as production of roofing sheets, tomato production, furniture production, even soap making industries among others. Government can invest 20 percent and push 80 percent ownership to the private sector thereby promoting commercialization of the communities. We will do this in every local government tax free for two years. After two years and the company is standing you can begin to generate IGR from that company. Such companies can employ not less than 50 youths in a local government. We have 21 local government areas in the state. Multiply 50 by 21, what did that give you? Isn’t it a good number to start with? It will go a long way to reduce unemployment, reduce the burden of parents and it will also improve their skills. Intellectually, they will be occupied. By the time these industries are functioning in every local government you will see that state will become a commercial nerve centre. That is my dream and my plan and my focus for the state.
There is the issue of debt burden?
Coming to that question, how do I intend to get the fund? I will say it has to take the sacrifices of everybody. The state economy has been basterdised. For it to be sanitised we will have to look inward, and not depending on the monthly allocations from the federation account. I also know of states that did not collect bailout loans yet they are paying salaries, paying pensions, doing projects, running health programmes, education programmes like previous governments in the state did. I don’t see the need for bailout. It is peculiar to APC government. We started hearing of bailout in 2015 and it has come to encourage corruption and laziness.
The money is being collected and spent recklessly by the governors putting their states in debt. These are loans that will be paid by generations yet unborn. In this coming election if anybody in government approaches you, gives you five or two million naira to get your support, try to realise that he is giving you money from loans collected in Kogi’s name. A state government that cannot pay salaries cannot tell me that they have one or two million naira to give to an individual for votes. If they bring you money, they are only giving you loans that will be paid by your children in the very hard way. Our children and the generations unborn are the ones owing N50.8 billion bailout loan. The money will be deducted from source which translates to more problems for Kogi, unless the incoming government come and make sacrifices, block leakages. Definitely any government taking over from the present government cannot afford to be wasteful. It is going to be very hard on the citizens. Then, you focus on developmental policies that can boost internally generate revenue. That is why I talked about turning the state to a commercial nerve centre earlier, where people are actively involved. By the time people are actively involved in businesses, when this bailout is being deducted from source we will not feel the impact too deeply.