Governor Simon Bako Lalong of Plateau State and Chairman Northern Governors Forum had a media interaction with newsmen recently on the state of affairs on the Plateau, Insecurity in the North and why Plateau is backing creation of State Police to help checkmate cases of attacks and killings in rural communities. ONOJA AUDU brings the excerpts:

Having gone mid- way into your second term as Governor of Plateau state, what are you doing towards completing the ongoing legacy projects in all the 17 local government areas of the State?

I have seen a situation where a Governor put up a high structure, when another government came on board, he said that was not his priority and those projects were abandoned and they begin new projects that he may not even finish before another administration will come to takeover . I see that as a complete waste of resources. In our own case, we don’t care about who started the projects and if those projects are viable and very useful, we would complete them and that is what we are doing now. When you see abandoned project, try and complete them, we have completed a lot of such projects and others yet to be touched will be given attention when resources are available. Initially the legacy project was conceived to cost about N50 billion but along the line I realized that it was not going the way we wanted and I said I will not start a project when my plan was to complete abandoned projects and leave huge abandoned project again, it will not make sense. So we went back to the drawing board and review the projects within our limit, we were able to review the project from N50 billion to about N30 billion. Again, in order to ensure that we finish the projects, we went to the capital market for funds and the money is there. As a result of this, we told the contractors that the projects must be finished on time but we discovered that the contractor was slow, to cut the matter short we have given him a letter of termination. I want to assure the people of Plateau State that we will finish all the legacy projects before the end of our administration.

The legacy project is about education and health; if we can finish these we would also touch other areas before the end of our administration. If you are building schools without manpower you are wasting your time, we would soon start pivotal training to get more qualified teachers into our schools, many people want to teach but they don’t have the skills and methods of teaching is very important.

Let me say that within the period that the Service Chiefs were changed, I think a lot have been put on ground because it is only a fool that will continue to do the same thing and expect different result. In collaboration with the Northern Governors Forum, the president gave them a deadline of three months; we are also working within the deadline. They also need support of the journalists writing good reports that would encourage them, so if we are doing well please help us report the truth.

What is the Plateau state government doing to fortify its schools against kidnappers?

We are trying to ensure adequate security around our schools, some people told us to close down our schools but we said no. The intention of these kidnappers is to interrupt the system, by the time we start closing they would be happy. As students proceed on holiday more will be done before they come back. We are trying to create school security awareness; it is now that we are abandoning certain security tips. Before there were Boy Scouts, Cadet, Man O war etc and in some of the schools, there were students Police, I recall I was one of them. They were the students protecting the school overnight; it even helped many to join the military and the police then. It is better we start them again, if you have this kind of arrangement in place and functional, they would be able to protect the schools and alert the entire school when kidnappers are approaching. During our time, military do come around to train us and took us to the bush for training or camping. With whistle only, you can communicate and inform that the enemies are moving this way. We must reintroduce this into our schools again, security is no longer security agencies business alone; it is everybody’s business. We are getting into a situation whereby before anyone finished Secondary School you must have security knowledge, we didn’t know that banditry, and kidnapping will come like this.

Plateau is known as the Home of Peace and Tourism and also for its abundance mineral resources, what is the government doing to uplift the sector as means of boosting the State Internal Generated Revenue?

I think we have gone very far, Plateau State is back to the business of real mining, we are talking of how to acquire our mining sites, investors are already coming in to take part in this sector. Tourism is one of our areas of comparative advantage, by now we would have done Plateau Economy Summit but because of covid-19 pandemic we could not do it last year, if we have done it a lot would have happened in this sector, including agriculture. Agriculture and mining are areas of our comparative advantages, so we are not relenting on these aspects. Tourism also requires that there must be peace, if there’s insecurity, there would be no tourism. If you want to promote tourism you must also invest in security, most of the sites and hotels owned by the State government will be put in shape. Don’t forget that we hosted NIFEST even when other states were running away from it and no report that anyone contracted covid-19 from the festival. In term of rating they said the NIFEST we hosted was one of the best festival so far in the country.

You have been at the forefront of those championing the implementation of National Livestock Transformation Plan NLTP, what does your state stands to gain from this?

We have carried out a lot of sensitization exercises on National Livestock Transformation Plan to ensure that people know what it entails and the benefits. Plateau State was selected by the federal government as one of the three pilot states for the program, . We are only waiting for the federal government to provide the fund and we provide the counterparts fund. Even now as it is all eyes are on Plateau for the implementation of NLTP, we have already earmark a portion of our land, a portion of land at the Wase grazing reserve and Kanam for the pilot scheme. Initially some states were saying they don’t want to key into it, but I want to tell you now that all most all the 36 states have keyed into it. The difference is that some of them do not have the land, nobody is forcing you if don’t have the land but if you have the land you can release it for the benefit of your people, government will fund the project. In the North, may be from next year there would be no open grazing, so if you want open grazing and you want to eat meat you must key into NLTP. The scheme is all comprehensive, Plateau is number one for the implementation, if we are able to implement that it will go a long way in addressing most the farmers and herders clashes, the program is meant to protect the farmers and the herdsmen as well. The final stage is always the implementation of the law because without the law you cannot implement the NLTP perfectly. Some state enacted anti-grazing law but implementation was very difficult for them but in our own case we have sent the law to the State House of Assembly, they would soon start public hearing on this so that when they pass the law we would go into full implementation without any hindrance. It would be good investment for everyone including the journalists.

One of your colleagues, the Governor of Kogi state Alhaji Yahaya Bello posited that he doesn’t believe in the existence of covid-19, don’t you think his position negate the fight against the pandemic?

Some of our colleagues said they don’t believe in existence of covid-19 that is personal. I am a member of PTF. In Kogi State, they said the hospital earmarked for covid-19 was burnt along with equipment by the ENDSARS protesters but NCDC said they are ready; they are going to replace the burnt equipment and start the vaccination, that is why Kogi is relaxed. But for the governor, like we said it is voluntary, nobody can force him to take it, he said he doesn’t believe in it. He said he is not going to take it but for his people he is making arrangements for them to be vaccinated, that is the real picture there. So, Kogi state is not left out of the vaccination exercise. (Daily INDEPENDENT)

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