Hamza Idris
27 June 2008
interview
Damaturu — Although the gubernatorial election has been lost and won, the rivalry between Alhaji Adamu Maina Waziri, Peoples Democratic Party's (PDP's) gubernatorial candidate and Governor Mamman Ali of Yobe state still runs deep.
Recently, Waziri's supporters descended on the governor's convoy when Senator Mamman Ali went to Potiskum to flag off fertiliser and grains sales. In this interview, Waziri who is also the minister of state for Agriculture and water resources, clarified his position on which tier of government procured the grains, between the state and federal governments.
He also picked quarrels with the decision to flag off the sale at a political gathering. The minister also explained his role as the national coordinator of NAPEP and sundry issues.
Recently, the Yobe State Independent Elec-toral Commission (SIEC) suspended the conduct of local government election which was slated for November 1. How do feel about that action?
Let me say that on the 3rd or 4th of May 2008, I granted an interview to pressmen and one of the issues we discussed was local government elections. I called on the governor that if he is the democrat that he proposes to be, he should conduct the local government elections without hesitations. For the simple reason that the local government is at the bottom of the pyramid, it is the closest public administration to the generality of people and we have had elections at the national level which have produced leaders who are already exercising their mandate.
We have also had elections at the state level and public officers are also exercising their responsibilities thereof. It will be unethical to continue the situation as it is in Yobe where for almost a year into the administration, the people exercising authority at the local government level were exercising an illegitimate and undemocratic authority. Happily, within seven days or so after the interview I granted in May, the state electoral commission called on the parties to come for a meeting for the purpose of conducting the local government elections.
But very sadly for me, I heard on my arrival yesterday (Friday, June 22) that the state electoral commission had postponed indefinitely, all preparations for the conduct of local government elections in Yobe for reasons that are just known to the government and for reasons of inequities. So I want to call on the governor to be more courageous and conduct local government elections without further delay. That is not saying we are confident that the elections would be free and fair but other states have had local government elections and as imperfect as they were, we need to have one in Yobe so that the administrators at that level would be people that would be exercising their 'legitimate authority'. People in positions of authority can only be leaders when they are duly elected. As far as the PDP is concerned, we are fully prepared. We are ready and we know we are going to win a couple of local governments and would lose a couple of local governments. But the issue is that there would be more enduring benefits if the elections hold because there is an adage which says practise makes perfect. So, if we have elections, with time, we would be perfecting the imperfections of the elections and democracy would be entrenched. Democracy being the best form of government in this modern world would also find a place in Yobe State.
Of recent, there were serious allegations over the supply of grains to Yobe state. You said the grains were supplied by the federal government while the Yobe State governor faulted your claim that the grains were procured by the state government. The latter claim continued up to the Potiskum rally which culminated into some suspected PDP youths attacking the governor's convoy. Who really supplied the grains?
There were publications in the Leadership newspaper of yesterday (Friday 20th June, 2008) and in Daily Trust of Thursday 19th June, 2008 where the federal ministry of agriculture released allocation of grains to affected states. In the release, it was clearly shown that 2,700 metric tonnes of assorted grains were given to Yobe state by the federal ministry of agriculture and water resources. And it is also unfortunate that in the publication it was also shown that the Yobe State government has refused to pay and collect the grains and distribute to the people. Yobe is one of the few states that have not paid for the grains. There is also an additional 750 metric tonnes of assorted grains released to Yobe State for the benefit of organizations who would not benefit from the highly politicised grains being distributed by the Yobe state government. So you can see that records don't lie but individuals can lie and I want to tell you that I have the reputation of not telling lies. The governor lied. Grains were given to Yobe state and he has refused to pay for it. It is still there and we are going to take measures on that.
The second issue is that journalists have an overriding duty to help the entrenchment of democracy in Nigeria because they have the wherewithal to inform and influence public opinion. The governor of Yobe state went to Potiskum on the 19th of May 2008 to accept decampees from PDP and AC into ANPP. That was the primary reason why he went to Potiskum. But in the course of that assignment which is normal in democracy, he also used the occasion which was attended only by ANPP supporters to launch sales of grains and also sales of fertilizer. It is very unfortunate that none of you (the journalists) inform the Nigerian society that it was wrong for the governor of Yobe state to use a political occasion to launch the sales of grains and fertilizer. This is because both the grains and the fertilizer were bought with public funds which means the funds that belong to the PDP, ANPP, AC members and even non politicians. None of you did that.
(Interrupts) It was adequately reported.
...And I want to say that this gives us the right to say that your silence was procured that was why you kept quiet. What you only reported was that there were fracas in Potiskum. But the governor is politicizing hunger. He is also politicizing agriculture because the grains which he is distributing were not meant for ANPP supporters only. What about PDP supporters who are also inde-genes of Yobe state but did not attend the rally in Potis-kum? Does that mean they would not have fertilizer for their farms this year? Does that mean that hunger would kill them in their houses. This is unfortunate. Whenever I meet the press in Yobe, I always challenge you that you have an overriding interest to report and your report must be constructive, meaning the reports should enrich the capacity of leaders to make proper decisions and also conduct themselves properly. Let me also say that if any politician comes to Potiskum and calls me by name and abuses me and thinks that he is not committing suicidal tendencies, he is a fool.
What do you mean?
What I mean is that Potiskum is my place, I have an overwhelming support and you can not come there whoever you are- whether a governor or a minister or a party leader and go on and lambast me and think that people would not react. It is not possible. And if you are a governor, you are exercising an authority and they said in any authority, there is also a sense of responsibility attached to it. I always do my things with some sense of responsibility. There are certain things that as a minister, I am not expected to do. My freedom to express myself is curtailed by the weight of my office. If I were not a minister, I assure you that the reaction would have been different but above all, I want to tell you that the president of Nigeria, all governors and ministers in Nigeria swore to what is called oath of office which means you swear by the Holy Book to discharge your duties without favour, without discrimination based on tribe or religion or gender. So anybody who now abuses that trust is not doing well.
The governor alleged that you diverted Keke NAPEP meant for Yobe state when you were the National Coordinator of the programme.
It is true that sometime in 2001 and 2002 when I was the National Coordinator of the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), I conceived the idea of the Keke NAPEP. Two thousand (machines) were scheduled to be procured and distributed to all the states and the FCT. The launching of the distribution was done sometime around September and October 2002, that is the national launching. I resigned slightly after that because it was required that I must resign my position if I were to contest an election. So I resigned from my position to seek Yobe gubernatorial nomination for the PDP.
I remember that the former president (Obasanjo) invited me to join him in launching the Keke NAPEP in Lagos state sometimes at the heat of the campaign. So by the time that I resigned, the allocations to some states including Yobe were not made. So I don't know how the Yobe state allocation did not come. And I think the allocations were made in alphabetical order and as they were being delivered...probably the then coordinator would say what happened to the allocations for Yobe or former Governor Bukar Abba Ibrahim can explain.
But I remember that part of the criteria used for the allocation is that states were given allocation, members of the National Assembly were given allocation, and ministers were also allocated certain quantities. Since Mamman Ali was a Senator then, he was also the chairman of the public accounts committee, so you need to ask him where he took those allocated to him because he didn't resign his senatorial position to contest for the election, he was on seat. When I was there (NAPEP), I also gave him allocation for what was called Capacity Acquisition Programme and the Mandatory Attachment Prog-ramme which was the training of graduates and secondary school leavers. In Yobe, we trained about 3,800 and each senator and member of the House of Representative from Yobe as well as the minister from Yobe were given.
Having said so, I am aware that now there is the third phase of the distribution of the Keke NAPEP and some quantities have been allocated to Yobe state but even though I am a minister, nobody has given me even a single one.
While you were addressing members of the PDP, you made mention that what Yobe state got as allocations from both the federation and the excess crude oil accounts is greater than what accrued to the state from 1999 to 2003 and that there are no tangible results on ground. We want you to shed more light?
I would ask my SA to send you the figures of allocation between 1999 and 2003 and the money given was not only for Yobe but all the states in Nigeria. In fact (former president) Obasanjo refused to release the allocation of May 2007 to outgoing administration. It was after the new set of governors have taken over that he released the mon-ey in the first week of June 2007. So the allocations from May 2007 to May 2008 in all states in Nigeria are more than the allocations between June 1st 1999 and May 29th 2003.
This is for two reasons one of which was that in the last one year, two releases were made from the excess crude oil account which was not made between 1999 and 2003 because at that time the account was not existent. Secondly, in 1999, the price of the crude oil was just about $30 per barrel while throughout last year; the average price of crude oil per barrel was $100, so there was much money released to the states. There is excess money in all the states in the federation but what concerns me is my state. What is this money being used for?
What I have seen is that there is a hospital, there is a hotel and this are all projects funded from budgets of 2007 and that of 2008 but the excess money that is coming is not part of the budget and therefore where is it? We have also got some money because some ghost workers have been identified in the state civil service. You should ask the governor who are the ghost workers. There are some people who have been collecting the salaries of the ghost workers but no one has been prosecuted. We need to know because some of them are commissioners now; some of them are permanent secretaries while some of them are sole administrators in the present government. The governor has stopped half way in his fight against the ghost workers because he didn't tell us how much he recovered.
The culprits should be prosecuted because it is a criminal offence so that we would know that what he (the governor) is doing is not mere politics... that it is very real. I would not clap for him now because I still have some questions for him and if he answered them, I would commend him. If he does something good, I would commend him in equal measure as I would condemn him if he does something bad because he needs the two to be able to succeed because he is a human being.
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