"I STILL SEEK ADVICE FROM MY PREDECESSOR" SAID NASARAWA STATE GOVERNOR ABDULAHI SULE

                                                                                                                 

Nasarawa State governor, Abdullahi Sule, addressed select journalists in Lagos recently, and spoke on a range of issues which cut across governance, food security, industrialisation, amongst others. Deputy Editor, Olayinka Oyegbile and Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf met him. Excerpts

Nasarawa is a home of solid minerals, which has great potential in terms of revenue generation. What have you done in that space since you came on board?

There are some companies that are doing solid minerals operations in Nasarawa State that have not paid any taxes or tenement rate whatsoever since their inception. That’s the truth. The biggest solid minerals conference that takes place in Africa is called ‘Mining Indaba.’ It takes place in Capetown, South Africa. I was the only governor that attended the event last year. It’s all because I’m interested in solid minerals. The Minister of Solid Minerals was there and so many miners and finance houses were there. That is one step.

Secondly, we took the case of solid minerals to the National Executive Council (NEC) because you see the solid minerals belong to the federal government but the land belongs to the state government. So what the companies have done in order to exploit is to obtain what they call consent letter. They just go to one community, bribe their way here and there and obtain their consent letter and come and start operating there. The state government would not even be aware of what is happening anywhere. So we took this matter to NEC. Our chairman at NEC is Vice President Yemi Osibajo. Thankfully, the Vice President, as a lawyer, understands these legal issues and he said such can’t stand; that it’s not within the purview of the community to stand in place of the state government. So, he sets up a committee to review how mining licenses would be given and I’m a member of that committee. We are working on that. One of the things we achieved is that no new licenses would be given until an original landowner gives consent. Because some other people, for instance, somebody who just bought a land and then doesn’t have any document for the land says it’s his land. But by law he doesn’t have access to the land. So by extension, no licences are being given presently until the state government gets involved. So that’s what we achieved. Also, we have been going round the state to see things for ourselves. Thankfully, I have a very experienced Commissioner for Environment who has been going to mining sites for inspection across the state. The moment the commissioner arrives for inspection at a site, they (companies),  tell him, oh, we’re just getting ready to go to Lafia today. In fact, we have N15million that we have set aside for the tenement rate we have not paid in the past seven years and all that. So we’re going to pay now. The commissioner would say, no wait, I want to even see what exactly it is you’re doing here and all that. Some people, once they hear he is coming, will rush and come and pay. So that’s what we have been going through. But that’s not the end of it. Because for me, a license for mining activities in the state I’m not just looking at the revenue that is coming to the state from the industry, I’m trying to see the entire business plan. How would you want to reclaim the area after the mining activity is done? How many people are being employed? What is your development plan? How much corporate social responsible (CSR) are you willing to do for the local community? What are you giving to schools? Are you giving them scholarships? Are you providing borehole water for them because you have already contaminated their water and all? What are you doing to protect the environment in case of any environment hazards? What is the protection against the people, against some diseases and what have you come 15-20years from now? So that is what we are checking rather than just collecting tenement rates and taxes from them.

You must have been following the story about how COVID 19 is impacting businesses globally. Imagine crude oil now trading at less than $30, which is by the way below the oil benchmark by the federal government. Having played in the business environment for this long, what other areas are you looking at in view of the massive potential for real estate development in Nasarawa State because there is near absence of government presence of any kind of infrastructure to warrant tenement rate or land charges. Do you have any plans to look into these areas as a way of creating alternative and viable sustainable revenue streams of income for the state so that you gradually move away from these global activities that prevent the states from meeting up its obligations?

In fact, the civil servants in the state negatively call me a revenue collecting governor because they strongly believe I’m trying to make the state independent by generating its own revenue. Nasarawa State is so lucky that if you have revenue income of anywhere between N3-4billion in a month, the state can survive on it. That’s how lucky we are. So, I keep telling them that my aim now is to see how we can be generating that. Like you have mentioned, every area from Nyanya, Masaka, and the border towns, you will see all kinds of businesses; somebody is generating revenue from them and pocketing it.

It’s not that revenue is not being generated. Most of those markets generate anywhere between N15-20milion in a day. People are generating that revenue and pocketing it. So the first thing we did on assumption is to ensure that we consolidate all our revenue sources. We appointed a commissioner responsible for revenue and we set up a committee which is chaired by that commissioner. The aim is to ensure we generate revenue. He went to identify new buildings across the state that were not paying tenement rate to find out if they had their documents and C of O. We asked the Nasarawa Geographic Information Service (NAGIS) the agency to go ahead to process these documents; we signed and we gave to them. So today, we have actually grown and even overtaken five states in terms of revenue generation. Our revenue has grown twice more than what we used to generate. We used to be No. 33-34 or somewhere there. But today, we’re around 27-28 position. Our revenue generation has gone almost twice to what we used to generate. That’s where we are. But by the next two-three years, my target is to see that we are actually the top 10 states in revenue generation. For me, then I’ll be comfortable and say we’re now generating revenue. The moment we begin to generate about N3-4billion, we will be among the top 10. That is the direction we are going. Apart from the collection, we are blocking all the leakages we have seen and constructing other structures that are revenue generating streams. So, if you go from Masaka to the border, you will notice that we have about 22 motor parks. As they’re generating the revenue, we don’t know where it goes to. So, we now have a site, about 70 hectares which we cleared and we are constructing a mega terminal already and by December this year, it will be ready. It will have about 900 vehicles there. So all those motor parks are now going to be relocated to this terminal. That way, the government is in a position to now collect revenue. In there, you’re going to have banks, restaurants, and all kinds of business.

When we come there we will get some real business people and say you know what, help us collect at least N70-N100million on a monthly. We will charge him just 80 per cent of that, which is N80million. Then after three years, we review if we see that you’re making over N200million. That’s what we did with our hotel in Abuja. People said we should run it but I know if we run it as a Nasarawa State government, it may be subjected to all kinds of abuse. So, we got an hotelier who understands how the business is run who gave us money for two years and he is running it professionally. So what it means is that if the wife of the governor goes there, she pays. That’s the way we want it. We’re building one in Karu the same bus terminal, and we’re building another one in Lafia. We’re building markets. What we are trying to do is so transparent so nobody will blame anybody. So that’s how we’re generating our various revenues.

On assumption of office, you promised to pursue industrialisation as a state policy. How far have you gone with that promise?

Well, since I came in, I met a lot of other ongoing projects. So, we were able to brainstorm. For instance, let me start with the agriculture. The moment I came in, people were greeting and congratulating me; I met the chairman of Azman Group, who said it will be nice to come to Nasarawa State and set up some kind of business. I said agriculture will be ideal and he said yes; he is into agriculture and he said he would like to do rice. And I said rice will be perfect so come to Nasarawa State; I will give you land. Of course, he came in and we started discussing, we identified an area, we checked their soil, checked their topography, checked their water level and the rest of that. Today, they are getting ready to mobilise. They have paid the compensation to the people for 14,000 acres of land and that project is about to take off. So, they are just mobilising the people to site.

So that is the green one that we started from zero.

We met some other ones on ground, like Dangote Sugar, about 600 acres of land that had already being cleared and about 150 acres of land had already been planted. Since we came, we went massively to work with the Dangote project. Today, over 5000 acres of land has been cleared and they are employing people massively to the farm. They have mobilised lots of equipment to the site and getting ready to start working on the construction of the factory itself.

We have also met the other company, Olams that has been working. Olams had roughly about 3000/acres for rice production and they employed roughly about 2000 rice out growers so we came also and joined hands with them. They are now working on about 10,000 acres of land and in the process planted in the whole area and employed more people so that is on the agriculture side.

There are lots of other companies. For instance in Keffi, there is a company called Novum. The company came in with the intention of processing agro products so again we work with them. I commissioned the project so today they are processing corn and they have employed some people and they are on the process more. We are working with Flourmills of Nigeria. They have about 20,000/acres of land for cassava. They came in and they have already gone to site. They have acquired most of the other areas, they are getting ready. Right now, they have done their final survey of the land so they can identify which areas they will plant and construct, etc. In the nutshell, those are the major areas we have worked within the agriculture and agro-allied sector. But then we are still attracting some companies that will come into that space.

From the government side we have worked very hard and we are now lucky, Nasarawa is one of the most peaceful states in the federation that is going to be one of the pilot states for the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP). The National Economic Council has already approved and we are now working on the getting the NEC to approve for the release of the fund so that we can now go to the three sites that have been identified in the state.

What project did you inherit from the previous administration and what project are you doing now?

We inherited a lot of projects. One of such projects is actually the airport itself.

What is the relationship between you and your predecessor in this age when we see governors and their predecessor always at loggerheads even in the same party?

I think in my own case I have been lucky in two areas; number 1 is that my predecessor is somebody I knew long before we went into politics; so he is somebody I knew far back, secondly, he doesn’t interfere in what happens in Nasarawa State. Even I being a JJC in politics, I am the one that most of the time ask him what is it I ought to do in this area so that’s the kind of person he is and he is in Abuja and he also has a position as a senator; so he is busy with his senatorial thing and he is also a business man so he doesn’t too much ask questions or come into this, so we have a relationship before this and even with that recently somebody went and publish something some document that something and he said he left some department and it nearly created, what you are afraid of. The moment I saw it I went to him and I called all the press there and we carried out a press conference. I said if I have said anything like that because those kind of things so if we see anything like that going on, he and I will address the issue so because sometime, there are certain people of his who were used to getting certain things when he was there today, probably they will not be getting them because he is not there, those kind of people will create problems because they will come in. I also have my own people that I brought so you can’t say that you have to be getting what you were getting just like that so I think most of these states where these kind of thing happens is because of the way the actors themselves manage the issue because it starts with the followers.

How are you tackling power challenge in the state?

Power is one of the areas that we have worked very strongly well. There is the major 330 MVA power station that we came and met so we are working with the Niger Delta Power Company. The project itself is almost 95% completed. Once completed, it will have six lights; two of them will be dedicated to Lafia.

So, that is the only aspect of the contract that has not been completed so the main project itself has been completed so once that is done then there will be regular power supply in Lafia but some of these projects you have mentioned don’t even require much power. Take the sugar project of Dangote for instance that is going to be within that area. That project is going to now generate its own power through the gas that they have, you know with sugarcane, once you take the cane itself, and extract the watery part, take out the sucrose, the solid part of it becomes fuel that you can actually use to generate power. Dangote project, once completed we will generate 98megawatts power on its own. They don’t need 98 so what they will do is that they will use maybe about half of that then the remaining half they will send it to the national grid or they will draw lines that will. But there are no major projects in the areas that will take another 40 megawatts of power so it has to go to the national grid because some of the villages one megawatts or some two megawatts could be enough for most of th