Katsina State governor-elect and former speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Bello Masari, recently spoke on his victory in an interactive session with newsmen in Katsina
"As the new governor of the state, what plans do you have for your people?
"Our project is Restoration 2015 for Katsina. What are we restoring?
"Traditionally, Katsina is known for investment and producing highly educated and technically sound people. So, our main area, our first target, second target and third target is education because today in Katsina, the public schools, based on last year’s performance in WAEC, could not get three percent pass.
If you take the entire Katsina indigenes, whether they live in Lagos, Abuja or anywhere outside the state, 45,800 of them sat for WAEC and only 4,500 of them got five credits and above; in Katsina, where the first middle school in northern Nigeria was established. In Katsina, where the first generation, second generation and third generation, including the president-elect, were products of the Katsina Native Education Authority. We were first to open an education account in the UK for the training of our people but today, from 1999 to 2014, we have presented over 255,000 students for WAEC. What did we get out of that?
Only 32,000 of them got five credits and above in 15 years. During my campaign, I was able to travel to all the local government areas in the state. We have 34 local government areas, I slept in 27 and in each local government, I made sure that I did not follow the tarred road.
We would find a rural road to make sure that we see the inside of the local government. What did we see? 60 percent of our primary schools have either their roofs blown off or the windows are down or the doors are down or no floor. On the average, a classroom is housing about 97 children.
What are we talking about? There is a district where the head told me that in the whole of the district, only one child has gone to senior secondary school. The rest dropped out because there are no teachers, no classrooms. It is a terrible situation. Secondly, Katsina is an agrarian state. Our economy was, until the discovery of oil, dependent on agriculture and livestock.
Where are we today? We can’t feed ourselves. Forget about imported food, if the import stops, how do we feed ourselves? We cannot sit down here and depend on rice from China, rice from India, rice from Thailand, when we have water and the land. Why can’t we do anything for ourselves today? If this money coming from Abuja stops, the state cannot survive for one month.
As the governor of the home state of the president-elect, a lot will be expected from you. Considering the lean resources available to government since the crash of the price of oil, how do you intend to attract funds to run the state?
The problem has always been the fact that we have not always been open, democratic and honest with the people. It is not about resources alone. You think that development depends on money alone, but it is not so. Even the military was building roads, hospitals and others.
Under the colonial administration, the emirate system was building everything. Democracy is about being open with the people. If you have money, let the people know that you have money and let them have a say on how this money is spent. It is not about lean resources but about good management of resources. If you allow the local councils to operate, if you allow a ward to produce a councillor that represents the people and not himself, things will work out well. We don’t have councils now. The needs of the people at the local level may cost you N100,000. If you sit here in Katsina and decide in something of N1 million for them, what if it is not what they need? The key word is not lack of resources, but involving people in decision making.
You contested the party primary with some people. What is your plan for them?
We have done very well and have already passed that stage. Nine of us contested the primary and all of us worked for the success of APC in Katsina State. In the preparation for the presidential and National Assembly election, as well as the governorship election, each of us was involved and all brought in materials and their physical presence into the project. So, we don’t have problem with that, we are saying that we are going to do things differently. Even though APC was announced as the winner of the election in the state, the other parties are from Katsina and we will offer a hand of fellowship to them too. We are going to be magnanimous, we are going to be leaders. We are going to provide leadership and not rulership.
General Muhammadu Buhari is president-elect while you are the governor-elect. What does this mean to you and how do you think that the emergence of Buhari will help your administration?
We are not meeting with Buhari on the platform of political party alone. We have a long standing relationship and now, we have a political relationship. That Buhari is from Katsina State, for us, is a plus and that plus depends on how we manage it. We want Buhari to be a Nigerian leader. We don’t want Buhari to be a regional, zonal or provincial leader. We want him to be a Nigerian leader that will leave a legacy of positive contribution to this country and that is the basis on which people elected him.
Taking you back to the issue of education, we are aware that your party has a policy on education. Are you going to follow that or you intend to initiate your own?
The first item on the agenda of the APC manifesto is human resource development. How can you develop human resources without education?
Fundamentally, the position of APC in education is known. In Katsina, the figures not produced by me, but in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education, gives Katsina about 20 percent enrolment rate while some states had 80 percent enrolment rate. So, their approach and mine will be different, but the goal remains the same. Here in Katsina, we will design a road that will lead us to success on the basis of the basket provided by our political party in the area of education. We will take roads that will lead us, that will lead Katsina to salvage itself, restore the honour, dignity and integrity of the people of Katsina State. We cannot do that outside education.
The road that other states will take to reach the destination will be different from ours but the objective remains the same.
You were speaker of the House of Representatives for four years and that means your politics spans beyond Katsina. What kind of leadership will you suggest for the 8th Assembly to assist Gen. Buhari in piloting the affairs of this nation?
Luckily, we are going to have a comfortable majority in the National Assembly. What I have seen as a former member of the House of Representatives is that because of patronage system by the governors, they have destroyed the institution. Patronage system in the sense that for you to become a senator, you must be in the right books of the governor.
For you to be a member, you start lobbying the governor to make you a candidate; not because the governor believes or you believe that you have something to offer other than being attracted by the package and the limelight. Definitely, at the National Assembly, if you play your card well, it is an opportunity to come into limelight.
Really, we deviate from why we wanted to go to the National Assembly. If we go there, what interest do we represent? How do we subsume our local interest into national interest? If you are making an Act, it is for the entire country. If you are participating in the budget, you have to find a way of subsuming your interest into national interest. As long as the interest you represent is of your community, it cannot find its way into the national development agenda which is the budget, and you are no longer providing representation.
The reality of the situation is that we should allow the system to work. In determining the leadership, it has to be focused on why we need the change. So, we must get leaders that understand why we need the change in Nigeria. It is not about changing faces or names. It is about changing how we conduct businesses of government at any l
"As the new governor of the state, what plans do you have for your people?
"Our project is Restoration 2015 for Katsina. What are we restoring?
"Traditionally, Katsina is known for investment and producing highly educated and technically sound people. So, our main area, our first target, second target and third target is education because today in Katsina, the public schools, based on last year’s performance in WAEC, could not get three percent pass.
If you take the entire Katsina indigenes, whether they live in Lagos, Abuja or anywhere outside the state, 45,800 of them sat for WAEC and only 4,500 of them got five credits and above; in Katsina, where the first middle school in northern Nigeria was established. In Katsina, where the first generation, second generation and third generation, including the president-elect, were products of the Katsina Native Education Authority. We were first to open an education account in the UK for the training of our people but today, from 1999 to 2014, we have presented over 255,000 students for WAEC. What did we get out of that?
Only 32,000 of them got five credits and above in 15 years. During my campaign, I was able to travel to all the local government areas in the state. We have 34 local government areas, I slept in 27 and in each local government, I made sure that I did not follow the tarred road.
We would find a rural road to make sure that we see the inside of the local government. What did we see? 60 percent of our primary schools have either their roofs blown off or the windows are down or the doors are down or no floor. On the average, a classroom is housing about 97 children.
What are we talking about? There is a district where the head told me that in the whole of the district, only one child has gone to senior secondary school. The rest dropped out because there are no teachers, no classrooms. It is a terrible situation. Secondly, Katsina is an agrarian state. Our economy was, until the discovery of oil, dependent on agriculture and livestock.
Where are we today? We can’t feed ourselves. Forget about imported food, if the import stops, how do we feed ourselves? We cannot sit down here and depend on rice from China, rice from India, rice from Thailand, when we have water and the land. Why can’t we do anything for ourselves today? If this money coming from Abuja stops, the state cannot survive for one month.
As the governor of the home state of the president-elect, a lot will be expected from you. Considering the lean resources available to government since the crash of the price of oil, how do you intend to attract funds to run the state?
The problem has always been the fact that we have not always been open, democratic and honest with the people. It is not about resources alone. You think that development depends on money alone, but it is not so. Even the military was building roads, hospitals and others.
Under the colonial administration, the emirate system was building everything. Democracy is about being open with the people. If you have money, let the people know that you have money and let them have a say on how this money is spent. It is not about lean resources but about good management of resources. If you allow the local councils to operate, if you allow a ward to produce a councillor that represents the people and not himself, things will work out well. We don’t have councils now. The needs of the people at the local level may cost you N100,000. If you sit here in Katsina and decide in something of N1 million for them, what if it is not what they need? The key word is not lack of resources, but involving people in decision making.
You contested the party primary with some people. What is your plan for them?
We have done very well and have already passed that stage. Nine of us contested the primary and all of us worked for the success of APC in Katsina State. In the preparation for the presidential and National Assembly election, as well as the governorship election, each of us was involved and all brought in materials and their physical presence into the project. So, we don’t have problem with that, we are saying that we are going to do things differently. Even though APC was announced as the winner of the election in the state, the other parties are from Katsina and we will offer a hand of fellowship to them too. We are going to be magnanimous, we are going to be leaders. We are going to provide leadership and not rulership.
General Muhammadu Buhari is president-elect while you are the governor-elect. What does this mean to you and how do you think that the emergence of Buhari will help your administration?
We are not meeting with Buhari on the platform of political party alone. We have a long standing relationship and now, we have a political relationship. That Buhari is from Katsina State, for us, is a plus and that plus depends on how we manage it. We want Buhari to be a Nigerian leader. We don’t want Buhari to be a regional, zonal or provincial leader. We want him to be a Nigerian leader that will leave a legacy of positive contribution to this country and that is the basis on which people elected him.
Taking you back to the issue of education, we are aware that your party has a policy on education. Are you going to follow that or you intend to initiate your own?
The first item on the agenda of the APC manifesto is human resource development. How can you develop human resources without education?
Fundamentally, the position of APC in education is known. In Katsina, the figures not produced by me, but in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education, gives Katsina about 20 percent enrolment rate while some states had 80 percent enrolment rate. So, their approach and mine will be different, but the goal remains the same. Here in Katsina, we will design a road that will lead us to success on the basis of the basket provided by our political party in the area of education. We will take roads that will lead us, that will lead Katsina to salvage itself, restore the honour, dignity and integrity of the people of Katsina State. We cannot do that outside education.
The road that other states will take to reach the destination will be different from ours but the objective remains the same.
You were speaker of the House of Representatives for four years and that means your politics spans beyond Katsina. What kind of leadership will you suggest for the 8th Assembly to assist Gen. Buhari in piloting the affairs of this nation?
Luckily, we are going to have a comfortable majority in the National Assembly. What I have seen as a former member of the House of Representatives is that because of patronage system by the governors, they have destroyed the institution. Patronage system in the sense that for you to become a senator, you must be in the right books of the governor.
For you to be a member, you start lobbying the governor to make you a candidate; not because the governor believes or you believe that you have something to offer other than being attracted by the package and the limelight. Definitely, at the National Assembly, if you play your card well, it is an opportunity to come into limelight.
Really, we deviate from why we wanted to go to the National Assembly. If we go there, what interest do we represent? How do we subsume our local interest into national interest? If you are making an Act, it is for the entire country. If you are participating in the budget, you have to find a way of subsuming your interest into national interest. As long as the interest you represent is of your community, it cannot find its way into the national development agenda which is the budget, and you are no longer providing representation.
The reality of the situation is that we should allow the system to work. In determining the leadership, it has to be focused on why we need the change. So, we must get leaders that understand why we need the change in Nigeria. It is not about changing faces or names. It is about changing how we conduct businesses of government at any l
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