Audu Sule was the gubernatorial candidate of the Action Congress (AC) in Nasarawa State.

In this interview, he speaks on issues surrounding the development of the state and the way forward.

As gubernatorial candidate in the 2007 general elections and, more importantly, as a stakeholder in Nasarawa State, how would you assess the 13-point agenda set out by the Aliyu Akwe Doma-led administration?

First and foremost, we extend appreciation to the good people of the state who irrespective of the hardships they are going through, have remained peaceful, faithful, calm and law-abiding. I think these are the same qualities that actually warrant a great amount of appreciation not only from individuals like me, but the government of this state and the federation in general.

Now, taking the issues you have raised, at the federal level, we have a 7-point agenda, and the Nasarawa State government has 13-point agenda, all these should be geared around development, creating opportunities, creating the atmosphere and providing services to the people. So, if you look back at them within the state, they centre towards education, agriculture, employment, empowerment of youths and women and the rest.

Taking them one at a time, you will see that in the field of development, for instance, or creating opportunities for employment, what has the government done towards that direction? That is the way to analyse the remaining points.

On employment, I think the state government has not started on that agenda. The reason is, you create employment by creating the atmosphere since the government cannot be the employer of everybody and even if it becomes an employer of everybody, these employees are not going to be empowered because government is not known to be a good remunerator.

You will find directors, permanent secretaries earning far less than workers of much lower cadre in the private sector. So, if government say it will create employment, it is supposed to create the atmosphere for the private sector to play effectively in order to employ the people. No government says it is going to create employment by opening more schools and employing teachers or opening more farms and employing more farmers. So in truth, we have not started in Nasarawa State because since the government came in, we have not actually attracted one major industrial sector to come to the state and set up an industry and so, we are yet to get there.

On the aspect of development, we read in the newspapers and we saw the governor commissioning one road project or the other and awarding contracts. For me, when government does well, I will not be afraid to say it has done well, and where it fails, I will be one of the first people to say that it has not done well because people like us have very little to lose by telling the government the truth. We must be able to tell the government the truth and praise it if it does well.

In the area of roads, during our campaign, we travelled throughout the state including Toto, Umasha, Gadabuke and the rest of that zone. And after the road projects were awarded, which also included Toto-Umasha road, I traveled there and I was impressed with what the government did in the first month. Now, more than one year later, when that road should have been completed, the road is not even half way completed. Although I have not gone round the whole state to see what obtained on the other roads which make me incompetent to comment on them, from the information I received from other people, it showed that Toto-Umasha road has gone further than the others and if that is the case, then it means government has to come in again.

Education is one area that is very easy to measure because you can see it through the performance of students, the enrolment level and any other thing you will require is there as public information. But probably the government has not made up its mind to start making impact in the sector.

The state government recently gave 50 vehicles to security agencies in the state as a major step towards stamping out crime and improving security. What's your take on that?

The question of giving vehicles to security agencies may be one thing, setting up our state priorities will certainly be another. There is nothing wrong if all our priorities are in order to give even 200 vehicles to security agencies, but we don't go giving vehicles to security agencies without looking at the causes of insecurity. Is our priority taking people to prison or stopping the causes of crime in the first place? You have to look at the underlying issues properly. Why are there more and more criminals? Is it because people are not educated, or because they are not empowered, or because they are not employed or have nothing to eat and so on. Yes I will agree if you say some people will still steal or be criminals even when you provide all these, but majority of the people do what they do as a result of poverty and this must be addressed properly for us to move as a state or a nation.

More importantly, the government should come forward and tell us why it did what and how much it cost the tax payer's money to do what. When government does that, then it can be said to be accountable. But when it will just say it has donated 50 vehicles and when you ask this official and he says one costs N3 million and another tells you a different amount, I think there are more questions to be asked. I think government should come out and say all those people are lying, and that this is the true amount of what we purchased.

How will you assess the role of the state House of Assembly in matters relating to its oversight funtions in issues such as this?

In fact, the state House of Assembly is supposed to be the first to ask questions. It is its job and that is why it is there representing us. The executive cannot usurp the responsibility of the legislature. If that happens, then the assembly actually becomes a window dressing. That is why we have the three arms of government, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

So if any of them is not up to its responsibility, then of course, we are at liberty, if the time comes for election, to vote them out and bring people who are going to be more responsible to our needs. Before some of these things are done, they must be endorsed by the assembly and that is why we say government must be accountable. So we will now take it the other way by asking the legislators, if they actually passed a certain matter, and if it is with their consent. Then we believe that they did it in the interest of our state and people, and at this point, we can make our own judgment on whether it is the right thing or not and then praise or criticise it.