Imam Imam
19 November 2008
interview
Lagos — Niger State Governor, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, who is Chairman of Northern Governors' Forum, visited his Zamfara State counterpart, Alhaji Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi in Gusau, recently. He spoke with newsmen during the visit.
How would you describe the significance of your two days visit to Zamfara?
First of all, let me say that the people of Niger and Zamfara states are one people that cannot be divided. We relate as one family not only at the individual level but also at the governmental level. You can see that in our relationship, particularly in the Northern states where we share common history, common aspirations and common problems.
We need to come together to understand one another and to pick from the best practices among us. I am very delighted that I have visited my brother Governor Mahmud Aliyu Shinkafi and I have noticed the difference. I have also noticed the excellent work he is doing which I will go back and add value to in what I am already doing, particularly in the field of agriculture. I have also noticed that we share a common problem in terms of our inheritance of what the two of us met on the ground.
Probably because of illiteracy, because the larger population do not know their rights, you members of the press must help us to galvanise, mobilise and indeed radicalise the people so that whoever comes and asks for their votes, must be somebody they can trust. Some body that can serve them, somebody that can be held accountable and somebody that can respect them, otherwise, they can find out that somebody will come and steal their money and use that money to oppress them again. In my state I had a time when an illiterate was saying to professors that even though he has not been to school, he can make them kneel down in front of them. If you look at the two holy books, the Quran and the Bible, you will discover that the basis of all beliefs and knowledge of God is education.
Now if an illiterate is downgrading education, we must not allow it. The people who don't know what governance is all about, we should not allow them to come to the fold. Many of you were in Zamfara in the last eight years and you were doing what our people call follow-follow. Sometimes if they throw things at you, you all move and sing their praises. In fact you may even like the former governor (Ahmed Sani Yarima) better than the new one if the new one is not giving you much money, which is rather unfortunate. I therefore challenge you as Nigerians, I challenge you as people who will want progress of this country, I challenge you as members of the Black race, that we must grow up, we must do all we can to develop our country because nobody can do it for us.
Some reports indicate that you faced so much intimidation upon assumption of office last year, how did you handle that?
It is true I faced lots of intimidation from the people I took over from. In fact, I am still facing that intimidation. They were the people who benefited from the old order and are resisting change. People who enjoy from a system will usually resist any attempt to check that system. So these are the people who never in their imagination thought a change would come from even within the PDP. Those who were enjoying the free lunch were suddenly told they have to pay for the lunch like every body else, and they were the ones who went underground to see whether they could fight us. At first they said, rather comically, that I was a new come to politics.
The fact is when I played politics; many of them were still in secondary schools. When I was a student leader or a labour leader, many of them were still in schools, when I ran for a seat in the House of Reps in 1983 and went to Lagos, many of them were still in school, and you cannot be a federal permanent secretary for nine years and claim not to know politics. But I was happy they underrated me, because that gave me a chance to redefine what government is all about and what a governor and his cabinet should be doing.
I also redefined how government should mobilise the people in order for them to support him and his programmes. When we were to hold the party congresses, they said they were going to take over the party, they never came near it. When we had the local government elections, they said they will fight me there but we had all the 25 local government chairmen, which is actually the first by any party since the creation of Niger state.
So that tells you if the people understand the direction you are going, they will go with you, but if they don't understand, then they begin to give up. I am glad you asked the question, the good thing is that they are becoming fewer by the day, the only intimidation we are having is seeing some going to court, which to me is a normal democratic process. In my approach to governance, I believe that the people's mandate is a God-given mandate and that the God that has given me this seat can decide to take it away today or tomorrow, if that happens, I am ready to thank Him for what he already did to me.
You are famous in the area of propagating the concept of servant-leadership, what are you doing to ensure all leaders adopt it in their various areas of influence?
By coincidence, the very day the president addressed himself as servant-leader, was the very day I asked the people of Niger state not to call me Your Excellency, but Chief Servant, because they gave me a job, and by implication, they are my masters. We went to the villages and begged people to vote for us. In Niger State, I contested against 11 other candidates and out of 12 of us, the people decided to give me the votes.
So to me, the people of Niger State are my masters, I have told them what I will should I be elected, so I have to behave like a servant and deliver the services that I have promised them, and to account to them every kobo I get either through the internally-generated revenue, or through the federation account. The concept of servant leadership is what we want our colleagues to understand.
Whether you are holding an elective or appointive position, we are all servants of the people. So at the end of the day when you are finished, you will be able to tell the society what you did in your time in office. Many who claimed they were masters while in office could not enter their villages because they have now discovered they should have been masters in the first place. That is what we are trying to preach through meetings and lectures and so on. But it doesn't matter what title you call yourself, what matters is the service you will render and what you believe inside you.
You made some critical statements regarding some aspects in the implementation of the Sharia legal system in the country; can you please speak further on that?
Now, you have asked a very fundamental question because there seems to be confusion (on what Sharia should be to us Nigerians). Even those saying they were implementing Sharia are wrong. To Muslims, Sharia is a way of life that you cannot say you will implement it today. It is a whole belief system of a Muslim, his way of life. So the Quran becomes your constitution of behaviour, the Hadith becomes the explanation of what you should be doing. You see, many countries have found a way to do it so that it does not appear like a medieval or old or archaic thing. If you read the Quran you will discover that all the things that are happening today have already been predicted, so Sharia is a daily living thing. But some people seem to make it as if it is an old thing.
When the penal code was created, it involved all the principles of Sharia; that is why we have alkali courts. Now if for any reason things were not being done, the thing to do is to reform it, not to come out and make it look like you are just rediscovering Islam today. So when former President Olusegun Obasanjo said all those doing Sharia for political purposes will wither away we thought he was wrong, but today he has been proven to be right.
Many places announced it politically but did not go down to do the things they were supposed to do. In Sharia, you cannot do certain things without training the right people to handle them, you need the people to appreciate what is being expected, not somebody stealing a goat and you want to cut his arm that is not the issue. So we need to be wiser, we should not use Allah's name to dupe people, and that is what I said.
Both Zamfara and Niger states are known to be leaders in the development of agric sector in their two states. What are you doing to further enhance the sector for the overall development of the country?
First of all, it is my hope and prayer that Niger State will be among the three best states in the federation in the year 2020. That is a target I want to achieve. Today, Niger is leading the country in rice farming, while in terms of arable land, Niger has 10% of the total productive land of Nigeria. We equally have many natural resources that aid our farming process, consider rivers Kaduna, Gurara, Niger and others have all passed through Niger.
We are doing every thing to develop the sector. But personally, we are giving education more priority because if you develop education, you are building the foundation. Even in agriculture, farmers need to be better educated especially in areas of modern farming techniques. So it is my hope that Niger and Zamfara will be among the best three states in Nigeria. And considering the way the present administration has started in Zamfara, I am optimistic that will be achieved. I only hope you will allow him to continue by giving him good advices and criticising him constructively.
Apart from my desire to have a good relationship with Zamfara, I am also advocating the strengthening of ties between Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara and Niger states. Those four states made up the North western states before we were divided. I have already opened discussion with Governors Dakingari and Wamakko on the need to establish micro-finance banks for the four states.
It will afford our people the opportunity of accessing cheap loans without much difficulties. What is happening now is that our poor populace do not have the means to access loans from bigger banks or even privately-owned micro-finance banks. By states like ours coming in and having those banks on ground, we will empower our people and boost their businesses.
In Niger state, I gave all the local councils N50m soft loans to encourage their indigenes to establish micro finance banks. By the end of this year, I will ensure that there is one micro-finance bank in each of the 25 local government areas of the state. We already have 10 of such banks owned by private individuals, so if we have 35, it will be enough to enable us move ahead with our development plans because we would have succeeded in ensuring that large percentage of our people have access to cash, which they will use to boost their small scale businesses. So, if we should replicate that at regional level, we will tackle poverty in huge scale, and our economies will be better for it.
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