APC’ll Establish Social Democracy In Nigeria – Al-Makura Nasarawa State Governor, Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, in this interview speaks on the mission and vision of the newly-registered All Progressives Congress (APC) for Nigeria, the major challenges facing the party and his stewardship in Nasarawa State. The president visited your state lately, what would you count as the gains and significance of the visit? I think I would rather consider the significance first before the gains because I consider the significance more fundamental. The visit of Mr. President is very significant and fundamental in the life of the state and the country at large because whatever party he belongs to, he is the leader of the country and Mr. President is the symbol and personification of our sovereignty, so his visit to any state is a blessing. This is because it goes to emphasize the total unity that we have in this country under the leadership of the president because as we operate a democracy we must abide by the rules. Whatever party I belong to, whatever state I govern, the president remains the leader of this country. With regard to the gains, Nasarawa State has been around for about 16 years and during all these years one can count the number of times presidents visited Nasarawa and none of such visits was dedicated to the commissioning of any viable project so it came as a very big opportunity for my administration which is in the opposition, to host the president not for an ordinary visit but a visit to commission projects. Initially, the visit was for the commissioning of the Federal High Court and I was consulted and I appealed to the president that it is an opportunity that comes once in a very long while and I requested and the president graciously approved some of my projects for commissioning. We have an array of such projects but because the visit was limited to only about one and a half hours we limited the commissioning to only two projects, those that we consider of great value to the quality of life of the people of Nasarawa State. One is a project on education; a UBE pilot scheme that we want to replicate in every local government so that we will transform the education system not only by rhetoric but by physically bringing about these pilot projects that are first in the history of the state. Second was for the president to commission some of the road networks I have done within the Lafia metropolis as a symbol for other roads that were constructed across the townships in the state and also rural roads. The vice president who eminently represented the president quite appreciated the efforts we have made within this short time with the little resources at our disposal. With the appreciation, the vice president has made certain pronouncements of assistance and collaboration with the state; I think that is what the state has gained by the visit. One, the federal government has accepted to take over the issue of hydro-power generation at the Farin Ruwa. They have also promised to look into the alternative road from Lafia through Doma to the Federal Capital which will be an alternative road to all commuters from the South-South and the South East and above, all President Goodluck Jonathan has graciously been magnanimous to the UBE projects by offering to supply all the books that would be used in the 36 model schools that would be constructed across the state. You can therefore see that it was such a tremendous success where the state would stand to benefit by grace of the president. Another thing, the 330kv substation which will be one stop solution to our power problem because the 331/332kv that passes through Enugu to Jos is the most robust power structure in the country. So with the acceptance of the president to allow for the installation of the substation for which the whole state will benefit from, I am sure by the time it is installed the whole state will benefit from a very efficient power network because that is the best we have in the country at the moment. After a tortuous journey, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been registered, what do you consider your biggest challenge as a party? I think the greatest challenge the party has faced so far is the process towards the merger and ultimately the process towards registration. These are no small issues. First for the first time in the history of this country, three independent parties have come together and coalesced and dissolved completely from their former identities into one united, indivisible party. That is no small effort for us to divest everything we used to know of ourselves and embrace unity and partnership as if we are starting from a fresh beginning. That is a very herculean task and I must praise the effort of the leaders of these parties for this sacrifice and sense of patriotism in not being too selfish, too discriminatory, too self conceited by forgetting all we enjoyed in our former parties to create a brand new value and identity and brand new philosophy and ideals. Secondly, the process for registration was rigorous and seemed insurmountable but in spite of the stringent measures, we were focused because we saw the registration as the only way out for this country. This is because we have a lot of vision and optimism and lots more of hope and faith that once this party is registered, with the commitment and carefulness of all the merging parties, which is the best thing that will ever happen to this country. Now we have a party that is geared and focused towards a vision that our forefathers have always aspired to achieve. The other challenges are on how we can just fuse how we harmonize our activities and have a single entity; we have started and responsibly, we have been able to put together the interim officials of the party without any rancor. Each of the three parties brought people they considered to be our first eleven in this arrangement. What is the main pre-occupation of the APC at this moment? Our major task now is on how to convince our supporters and the whole country that this party has come to enhance and entrench true democracy where the hallmark will be social democracy. Social democracy will be our disposition and values and philosophy. How do you simplify and still put to practice this philosophy or ideal for people to understand what is meant by social democracy, that is the main focus for now, I will not call it a challenge. Our focus is how to get the people to understand what is meant by social justice, hence social democracy. That is the greatest task ahead of us all as the leaders of the APC. APC is a social democratic party and we must get the people to see that it is different from what they use to know of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because it’s a world of difference because this is a committee of progressives. A faction of the ACN in the state has accused APC under your leadership for not carrying it along in the merger process, is that not an ominous sign for the party from this early stage? No, I think this is news to me, as far as I am concerned, I have not known or heard any inkling of what you are talking about what I have always known is that the ACN practice true democracy and everybody has ample opportunity to express himself. Yes I know they have factions which were created through the process of democracy and you can’t blame them, we are in a period where everybody has the freedom of speech, opinion, association and many others so long as it doesn’t impede another person’s freedom. So they have been having this faction but the good thing about it is the opposite of what you are saying. Through the instrumentality of this merger and registration, I as the leader of the party in the state by virtue of being the governor called the merging parties where we had enriching deliberations and the members of the two factions embraced themselves and buried their hatchet. In fact, the consummation of the registration of the merger provided us the best avenue for total reconciliation since everyone has now dissolved into the APC. We are one harmonious party in the state and our mission now is how to replace the PDP with that of APC where the people of this country would have a sigh of relief of having a truly transparent democratic dispensation when APC takes over power. Lately, the issue of local government autonomy has dominated public discourse and governors are accused of working against its passage in the ongoing constitution review for fear of losing grip and control of the third tier, why is it so? I think this is an insinuation or aspersion that cannot be justified; as far as I am concerned I have not in any way impeded or stood between the local governments and their independence. If anything, as far as I am concerned in Nasarawa State, our local governments are independent; the only area where they have certain semblance of being superintendent upon is because we do not have democratically elected local government executives in place and the tenure of the Transition Management Committee (TMC) we put in place has expired. Right now, I am not disposed to creating another TMC; I would rather embark on a democratic process to elect local government officials. We have since asked the state electoral body to commence the process of election at the local government level but suffice it to say that since I came my local governments, even while the TMCs were on and now that we have the Directors of Personnel Management (DPMs), the local governments have financial independence. The state government doesn’t have anything to do with their funds, since I came into this office I have no course whatsoever to have anything to do with their fund, so as far as I am concerned they are financially independent. However, we have to guide them towards making sure whatever policies they espouse keys into the vision of the administration. So to say that state governors have interfered with the independence of the local government is not correct because I can vouch that since we came the local government system has been enjoying tremendous independence. The problem we have is only one; with the payment of the minimum wage a lot local governments don’t even have enough resources to stay afloat sometimes the state government has to augment what they receive from the federation account. So our relationship is the other way round being that they are even encroaching into the independence of the state. Given your scorecard in the areas of education, road construction, land policy administration; what is the focal point of your administration in the coming half of your administration? I think you have asked a very pertinent question. I have always said Nasarawa State is a state in a hurry. This state was created about 16 years ago and you can see by the time I came on stream I had nothing to show that Nasarawa was like anything close to its peers. Take for instance Lafia the state capital which people used to say is only a glorified local government. We don’t have infrastructure, both physical and social, we don’t have things that will spice the town to convince any visitor that this is the seat of power of a state. So when I came, I tried to analyze and assess what has deprived the state from growth and discovered that it was dearth of infrastructure. There was not a single road in the state capital apart from the federal road passing through the capital; local governments were cut off from one another, the issues of water and power were nothing to write home about even in the state capital, so I realized that if we must call the state and its capital worth their salt, something needed to be done in a haste. And what are these?; we quickly embarked on the construction of roads, boosting power supply through purchase and installation of transformers in various communities across the state because power is the fulcrum, the foundation for effective development that is why we are being so much in a hurry to put these things together so that it will give us a platform on which other benefits of expansion, improving the living standards of our people will hinge. That is why is say we are in a hurry to make sure we compete against time so as to avail our people the benefits people in other states have been enjoying for quite a long time now. What we intend to see in the next two years is the provision of social infrastructure; better hospitals, schools, utilities that would add up in sustaining the state and making it open to more sophisticated transaction and that is why within the angle of the Federal Capital corridor, we have decided to computerize our land policy where the haphazard land development that had taken place before I came has turned that place into a slum or a ghetto because of lack of proper planning. Now we have gone past that with the setting up of the Nasarawa Geographical Information System (NAGIS) where we have sanitized our land development policy, where we would ensure what we call urban renewal in the places that have already been converted into slums. So in the next two years Nasarawa State by God’s grace, with all these infrastructure in place, will start taking shape because those basic infrastructure that were neglected by the previous administration because of their capital intensive nature have now been handled; so the state is now set for effective and more sophisticated development that will make Nasarawa a state to reckon with.
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 20:49:35 +0000
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