HOW TO STOP BOKO HARAM – Gov. Ibrahim Shema

88
Ibrahim Shema
Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State

As Boko Haram insurgents hold the nation by the jugular, spreading tears, sorrow and death particularly in the North-East zone, Governor Ibrahim Shehu Shema of Katsina State has given an insight into how to tackle the menace. He identified five key issues that must be redressed to halt the ugly development. He said unemployment, drug addiction, trans-national crimes and telectoral process must be given serious attention. The task, he reasoned, is for every Nigerian, and it should not be left to government alone.

“Nigerians must come together. The insurgency we are seeing today must be tackled headlong. Our traditional leaders, the clergy, political leaders, and everybody, must put their heads together.”

He also spoke on the plight of the Chibok schoolgirls, Katsina agriculture potentials and the state as a business destination.

 

It is over two months since the Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction. Boko Haram doesn’t want them to go to school. This, completely is against what you have been doing. What do you think?

My understanding of the insurgency we are experiencing in Nigeria today is that it is borne out of the fact that we have about five serious challenges that we must face headlong: electricity, unemployment, drug addiction, transnational crimes and the electoral process which brings about perceived injustice. It is a sad story that a beautiful country like Nigeria with tremendous human and material resources that should be one of the most dynamic business destinations in the world is the one suffering insurgency. Look at how our economy is moving; the largest economy in Africa today, the growth rate is about seven percent, yet we are facing challenges. Insurgency is a recurrent issue in Africa, not just in Nigeria. But here in Nigeria, what the leaders and all of us must do is to work as members of one family.  In Katsina, when I became governor, a group of people came to visit me and called themselves non-indigenes; and this is what Nigerians call themselves in their own land when they don’t live abroad; and I queried them. There is no reason a Nigerian living in any corner of this country should feel like he is not living in his home or country, that nationalistic feeling, that collective feeling should be there in us. Nigerians must come together. The insurgency we are seeing today must be tackled headlong. Our traditional leaders, the clergy, political leaders, and everybody, must put heads together. Look at the enormous support Nigeria is getting from the international community, the world is a common platform now against Boko Haram. No responsible government will sit and watch the Chibok girls kidnapping without doing something. I feel grieved personally; it is inhuman to cart away young girls who are struggling to acquire education, struggling to write their exams. You can see the effect of the wicked act.  The entire world is coming together now to find the kidnappers but Nigeria too must rise to the occasion and do what is right. We must cleanse our institutions; it is not about individuals. Our institutions must work, and work effectively, to ensure that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. We have had crises before in this country; we have had challenges on security, Aguleri/Umuleri, it was crisis between two factions; Ife/Modakeke, it was a crisis between two factions; the Maitatsine crisis, even the Niger Delta militancy. What is critical is that our institutions must be made to work responsibly in order for us to restore peace.

Editor’s Picks  Ex-Brazilian president Bolsonaro indicted for filing false COVID-19 data - Reports

Can you confidently say Katsina State is an investment destination?

Without doubt, Katsina State has grown in leaps and bounds since I came in as governor. We are very focused on the need to open our doors wide. There is no serious economy in the world that can hope to grow and prosper at the pace, which we hope to grow and prosper without partnering with the private sector. That is why Katsina offers tremendous opportunity in the field of agriculture, soil mineral development, livestock development and other critical areas of infrastructure, education and health.

Tell us about the strides you have taken in the agriculture sector.

We have taken giant strides. Absolutely. Agriculture engages about 75 percent of our population. Because of the importance of the sector to our economy, you can’t depend on rain-fed agriculture. We are establishing some kind of synergy between rain-fed agriculture and irrigation. Consequently, you can grow crops from the first day of January to December. When it is chilly winter in Europe, you can come to Katsina and grow practically anything under the sun. We have five major dams. It is yielding result as we have moved from about 1, 000 cultivation per hectare to more than 13, 000 hectares in the last five years. Also, we invested hugely in terms of training, extension services, chemicals, seeds and fertilizer. Of course, we established the Shongai farming initiative, which is a partnership with some farmers in Porto-Novo in Benin Republic. This initiative is aimed at creating young farmers who not only engage in agriculture produce but also in the utilization of the produce to provide employment for teeming youths in the state and to indeed, unbundle the chain of the activities in the agricultural sub-sector and livestock development.  Attached to that closely is the issue of how we can drive production and the agro allied section. We also create market opportunity, market potential for farmers so that at the end of each farming season we buy off their produce. We buy the produce at competitive prices so that the farmer would not lose on the investment he has made that year. We now sell the produce to our consumers at subsidized prices. In that pattern you can see that the farmer does not lose and the consumer equally has access to controlled prices. Besides that, Katsina is the largest reserve for cotton in Nigeria. It is called the Cotton Profession Center of Nigeria. The quality of cotton we produce in Katsina provides raw materials for the textile industry and exportation of cotton related materials.  Side by side with that is the way we move in the direction of livestock development. So, in a nutshell, agriculture remains one of the key fundamental areas for job creation in Nigeria, not only in Katsina State.

Editor’s Picks  IWD: NPA boss advocates women inclusiveness for better economy

What are you doing in the areas of storage and preservation?

Preservation is critical in dairy and dairy products because without preservation the entire agricultural process would be in trouble. We have to teach farmers how to preserve their produce and large crop growers and developers, how to process and preserve milk. That is what the Shongai initiative is all about. And we are trying to get into partnership with a foreign firm to re-energize what we used to have in Ronki grazing field where we have a diary facility to see how we can make it an effective facility for use by our cattle rearers because the market for diary products in Nigeria is quite large. All our cattle rearers need to do is to be assisted, redirected and be guided on how best to manage their cattle and how to engage with other entrepreneurs who have the skill and capacity to grow this critical sector of the economy in our state and our nation.

The farmers complain of high cost of transportation. Are you doing anything about it?

Transportation of agriculture produce poses a challenge because our means of transportation remains the roads and the cost of petroleum products keeps going up. But with the ongoing development of the railway by the Federal Government to move goods in large quantities, in the next couple of years when the railway system is very well established, the cost of transportation of goods will simply come down. But in Katsina State, what we have tried to do is to have infrastructure on a massive scale so that the farmer can have access to road to take his produce to the market. At the moment, we have done over 52 roads and rural feeder roads spanning over 2000 kilometres to enable people move their produce from the hinterland to the mainland or to the central market. And we are reaching out to some Chinese companies to see how we can establish a local rail in Katsina State.

 In which other ways are you encouraging farmers?

We have centres in Katsina since 2007 where we have facilities for meat processing and freezing of meat and dairy products. We also have a large grain centre. In addition, we have established a committee headed by former President of Court of Appeal to look into the possibility of bringing back the marketing board, like we had in the days of old so that farmers don’t just produce but are assisted to access market within Katsina, Nigeria or outside Nigeria.  Nigeria should come together and address this issue of establishing or reenergizing the market structure for farmers and their produce and how we can process and even export.  Nigeria is a beautiful country; our land is cultivatable from the first day of January to the last day of December. There is no excuse, Nigeria can feed the rest of Africa.

Editor’s Picks  Illegal parking: LASTMA impounds 123 vehicles, arrests 19

For a lot of intending farmers, access to land and credit facilities is a challenge. How are you encouraging people to go into farming?

All the young boys and girls we are training under Shongai in the three senatorial locations in Katsina will be given pieces of land after their graduation.

Enrollment at primary school has risen from about one million in 2005 to almost two million. What is the formula?

Education is number one tool for breaking the cycle of poverty. When I came into office in 2007, I left no one in doubt that my number one priority was education. Without education, no nation can progress; no nation can hope to move to the level of development or success it needs to be. That is why we unbundled the problems around education and ensured it is free from primary to secondary and that government pays WAEC, NECO, NAPTEC, SSCE fees. And we felt there is a challenged group- young girls in northern Nigeria have little or no opportunity to go to school and when they do, poverty remains an issue for their parents. So, we set up a special department called the Girl-Child Education and Development Department. I appointed a Special Adviser who is doing a great job. We went out to establish one girl-child school per LGA, which of course, attracted young girls in the 34 LGAs of the state who are doing pretty well. And then, we introduced the conditional cash transfer grants. We are working with donor agencies like UNICEF, USAID and others and this conditional cash transfer grants are meant to assist mothers and the kids to stay in school. Stipends are given to the mother every term and the same stipends are given to the girl to stay in school.

Why is it conditional?

They have to remain in school to receive the stipend from government and donor agencies. Of course, the apparent increase in the number of children that go to school in Katsina is not only because of free education but also as a result of the additional facilities. We built over 200 new secondary schools, expanded our primary schools, hired more teachers, bought more teaching aids and equipment and introduced bus services in some of the LG headquarters to convey our students at N10 per drop.  We improved the salary of our teachers because you know they say you can afford to have a school without a classroom but you can’t afford to have a school without a teacher. You cannot run away from giving quality education to the people. The nation, not only Katsina, needs to put together strategic education development plans for the next 40 years in order for us to unshackle our people from the cycle of poverty.

 

Source: The Sun, Story by Philips Ojo