Dutse — Dr Aminu Abdullahi Taura is the Secretary to the Jigawa State Government, who is considered by many as the thinking cap of the government. He has participated in almost all the programmes of the Sule Lamido populist administration. In this interview, he explained how the government is transforming the entire state in its first year in office.

This administration is one year old now, how would you describe the journey?

Well, the story has been good so far. A substantial number of the key programmes and projects of the government have been actualised. So, I would say the journey has been okay so far. So it's so far, so good.

In what way?

The natural starting point would be the innaugural address of the governor. In that address, he outlined the key policy direction of his government as well as the key programmes to be executed by his government. For example, the issue of social security; most people thought it was a pipe dream. But it is now a reality. We are even expanding it by incorporating more people into it. New ideas have also come in. For example, there is the Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme that we have bought into to further expand the frontiers of the social security policy. In the area of education, particularly girls' education, we have recorded tremendous achievements. In the area of meeting the challenges posed by the environment, we have been able to set an agenda even if we have not been able to achieve 100 per cent success because of time constraints. We undertook massive tree planting campaigns in 2007 and we are going to undertake what is probably going to be the largest ever in the history of the state this year. we are addressing the issue of environmental sanitation. We have reformed the health sector in the state; we have adopted the Gunduma Health System. We have also undertaken vital infrastructural rehabilitation projects in hospitals; we have expanded the work force. And, by the middle of 2009, we hope to make safe drinking water available to every household in the state. We are on course with regards to that.

You spoke about using the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Scheme as a means of expanding the frontiers of the social security policy. What is the CCT scheme all about?

The CCT scheme is acutually a federal government initiative. You know that extreme poverty breeds extreme poverty. If you are extremely poor, your children are likely to be extremely poor. This is very simple logic. So, we bought into the federal government's CCT scheme. Under the scheme, the children of the extremely poor would be sponsored to school while their parents enjoy access to a social security package. They are given money so that they can allow their children to go to school. and the children would be fully sponsored in terms of uniforms, textbooks, school bag and so on. Meanwhile, their parents are empowered so that they don't depend on the children's labour to take care of the family. This way, we hope to break the generational circle of poverty. So, we are being very creative in tackling this problem of poverty.

How do you identify beneficiaries of this programme, considering the fact that the poverty level in the state is very high.

Interestingly, the communities are responsible for nominating beneficiaries for this programme. The Guadiance and Councelling Directorate which is in charge of the scheme went round the state about three or four weeks ago to sensitise communities on the scheme. The teams saw the extreme poverty in some of these communities. They saw families which even by Jigawa standards were extremely poor. And, the communities themselves nominated the families that are extremely poor.

From the name CCT, it suggests that there is a condition attached to the scheme.

The condition for benefiting from the scheme is that you allow your child to go to school and we give you money. We give you money on condition that you send your children to school continously for a certain period. The state government has dedicated about N100 million to pilot the programme this year. The federal government is contributing about the same amount.

One of the programmes announced by the Governor in his inaugural address is the Jigawa Development Delivery Intervention Corps (JIDDIC). But one year after the announcement, the programme is yet to take off. What is happening?

There has been a lot of ground work. Initially, it was intended to start with unemployed youths. But after screening local government staff to weed out ghost workers, we realised that there was a need to take care of those caught in the cross fire. We felt it was better to give them an opportunity to enjoy the skills JIDDIC would offer. This, we felt would help them find better means of surviving. But while recruiting for the programme, we discovered some new problems. For example, you know that grade levels one to six in the civil service is often reserved for indigenes. But we started receiving petitions across the state alleging that all the youths recruited for the programme were not from the local governments in which they registered. So, we had to start all over again. These are some of the problems we have been encountering. But we have established a structure, appointed a co-ordinator and other key staff. The administrative structure is in place, the youth to start the programme has been the only hitch.

Agriculture is no doubt one of the ways for transforming the lives of the people of a state like Jigawa where most of them are peasant farmers. What is the government doing to encourage large scale farming in the state.

People have a lot of divergent opinions about large scale farming. It's really a trade-off, you know. On the one hand, those engaged in subsistence farmimg are employed at least during the rainy season; they have a guaranteed means of livelihood. You know what happens when you engage in large scale farming; you know what happens to the environment, the felling of trees and so on. It's really a trade off. There is presently no plans to bring in large scale farmers as such. We want to expand the arable land in Jigawa. I am sure you are aware that we have set up a committee on fadama as part of plans to open up more of the fadama land so that more people can engage in farming.

The Hadejia Jama'are river basin presents great opportunities for all season farming. Unfortunately, the channel is mostly blocked by typha grass, leaving farmers unemployed during the dry season. What are you doing to encourage all season farming?

At the very beginning of the tenure of this administration, we set up a high power committee with experts from JARDA, from the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Water Resources, Hadejia Jama'are River Basin Development Authourity to fashion out a policy on the fadama lands and how to open them up. I know that they are about submitting their report. Going by their interim report, they have really captured what the government needs to do. They went as far as mapping the land, doing soil analysis, geological analysis and I believe by the time the next dry season sets in, you will see a lot of activities.

The Saminu Turaki administration introduced rain harvest technology to boost dry season farming. But it seems the programme has been abandoned. Is this administration not interested in developing that technology?

Where is it? Can you point to any rain harvest reservoir in the state? By and large, we have not seen the technology. It seems to be mostly on paper. If it is truly available, I'm sure you would have seen them working. Jigawa state perhaps has the largest expanse of fadama land in the country. I think developing the fadama land makes more sense than introducing exotic programmes such as rain harvest technology.

The state owns some agricultural companies which seem to have been abandoned. One year after this administration came to power, nothing has been done to resuscitate them.

I think abandoned is the wrong word for some of these companies. For example, I don't think the tomatoe company in Kazaure ever kicked off. At least, I am sure none worked in the last eight years. The story of these companies is the typical story of government owned companies in Nigeria . Most of them always fail. And, I don't think we are so special or extra-ordinary in Jigawa that we can expect to succeed where so many governments have failed. So, when we came in, we realised that if we went into the business of running factories, we would run into trouble. Because, if you pour in government funds and you fail to generate money or employment, then everybody is left feeling unhappy at the end of the day. We feel businesses are better hamdled by the private sector. They may be run wholly by the private sector or in conjunction with the government. The government does not think it is wise to continue to pump money into non-performing ventures.

One of the first actions of this government is the relocation of ministries and government agencies back to Dutse. Some people have criticised the move. They say it would slow down the even development of the state.

This argument is coming from people who are suffering under the delusion that you can develop a state without a capital city. That was the delusion that led to the scattering of the ministries and agencies in the first place. By what ever standard you choose, Dutse cannot be called a state capital. So, the argument is coming from people without the interest in developing Jigawa state. We believe in developing Jigawa state, that was why we insisted that the state must have a capital like every other state in the country. In spite of that, we are not putting everything in Dutse. For example, we are spending a lot of money on the export processing zone in Maigatari. We are developing three international markets; none is in Dutse.

In the next three years, what should the people of Jigawa state expect?

In the next three years, by the end of the tenure of this administration, I expect that most of the critical problems we met on ground would have been addressed. We would have removed Jigawa state from the bottom of the poverty table to one of the pacesetters in the federation. We would have created an enabling environment and opportunities for growth and economic development. We would have transformed agriculture into an all year venture for more people. We would have a healthy well-catered for people by the end of the tenure.