Mr. Jacob Edi is the Special Adviser to the Kogi State Governor, Captain Idris Wada and a past Chairman of the FCT chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists.
In a telephone interview with DAILY POST’s Timothy Enietan-Matthews, Edi gave a recap of the achievements of the Wada administration, the clamour for power shift, cries of marginalization in the state and the November 21 governorship election, concluding that the people of Kogi State want a leader like Captain Idris Wada and not a flamboyant governor who is not accessible to the people.
Governor Idris Wada recently said he has not decided if he would run for second term or not but there are indications that some campaign publicity materials have surfaced in the state, what’s the official position on this?
The governor has said it consistently that his second term ambition is in the hands of God and when it is ripe for him to make a public declaration, of course, he will. There is no law that forbids him from talking to the public when it is ripe.
Don’t you think that with the heightened political activities in the state, especially with so many aspirants coming out, the governor needs to come out and tell the people of the state his stand?
What makes you win election is not how soon you come out to declare your intention but how you are able to connect with your people, how you are able to deliver the dividends of democracy to your people. It also depends on how much you are loved by your people.
What is happening in Kogi State now is that youths are coming out every day, begging Wada to contest again because, according to them, they like his style of leadership but he, Wada, has not said anything yet. We have had a governor in Kogi whose embroidery on his Agbada scares people but this time, we have a governor you can talk to directly or send a text. We have a governor who sees you like a human being and not an object that can only cast votes and this is what is making the people of Kogi to run over themselves, urging Wada to contest again.
There is this allegation by a senior citizen in the state, specifically Senator Alex Kadiri, that the governor goes to his village every weekend and stations a staff at the gate to dole out five hundred naira to people, what is your reaction to this?
Since you are from Kogi State, you can call your relatives to confirm if it is true or not.
Dr Alex Kadiri is an incurable opposition man; there is no governor in the state he has not opposed, so we are not surprised that he descended so low to start lying. If he goes home to his village and his kinsmen come home to greet him and he gives them something for pure water, is that bad?
Alex, who wants to be governor, if he becomes and he goes home and his people come to greet him, is he telling me that he will not give them something? They should be able to take on Captain Wada on the issue of governance and performance or non-performance and not on mundane issues of whether he gave people one naira or not.
As a sitting governor, if you go to your village and people come to greet you, you should be able to give them water to drink; this is the tradition of Africa. So what has he done that is wrong?
Alex Kadiri should have been able to take us up on the issue of budget; how much was spent and not spent. If he does not have the mental capacity to do this, I am sorry to say he is not fit to be governor of Kogi State. He should have gotten beyond petty issues of the governor giving people one naira or not.
The governor has been in power for more than three years, can you recap some of his achievements?
The governor’s achievements goes beyond the decongesting water, he did this and that. What we are doing now is the sectoral analysis of his allocation in the area of welfare, infrastructure, physical development of the state, delivering goods, health, education, agriculture and these are the areas we are looking at now. And of course, we know that the governor has distinguished himself in terms of agro transformation; for this reason alone, he has been invited to three or four countries in Africa to come and give a talk on agro transformation – the Wada Model.
Roads are being constructed in the state, Lokoja, the state capital is wearing a good look. As I speak to you now, there is an on-going work to ensure that drainage systems are cleared, roads are been worked on, hospitals are being built.
Just on Tuesday, the governor commissioned a high-tech vocational centre where the government spent over 400 million naira in counterpart funding. This centre will provide jobs for the people, improve the revenue base of the state and be a feeder for our technical institutions. The equipment in that place cannot be found anywhere in Nigeria and I stand to be corrected.
There is no community in the state that the Wada government has not provided with water. Schools are been built and at the state university, as I speak now, there is a teaching hospital being built. There is also a modern diagnostic centre going on there.
The development projects of Governor Wada cut across every part of the state. Kogi state does not owe salaries, though that has seemingly become the practice of other state. The state is up to date with the payment of salaries despite operating with very slim resources.
There are people who say local government workers only collect half of their monthly salaries…
First of all, the workers at the local government level are not supposed to collect their pay from the state government. The local governments take their allocation directly from the Federal allocation, so if the federal allocation is not much, how do you expect their pay to be much. The state government workers are being paid and they are taking the same amount federal workers collect. It should be noted that Kogi State is one of the few states paying the real minimum wage. Some people are ignorant; all they say is that Wada is not paying salaries but have forgotten that there are three tiers of government. Local government is one of the tiers and the money for local governments comes from the federal allocation.
Don’t the state run joint account with the local government?
There are areas where the state and local government areas operate joint accounts but in the area of salary, there is no collaboration.
It is just like the state and the federal governments; we have areas the state and the local governments cooperate. In the issue of payment of salaries, the government of Kogi State is autonomous and I can tell you that Captain Idris Wada does not interfere with the money of local government and I stand to be corrected.
There has been serious clamour for power shift from the people of Kogi Central and West basically because of what they call marginalization of their people in the areas of appointments and allocation of resources; what is the position of government on this?
I cannot tell you the position of government on this, because that will be as discussed at the state executive counsel level but what I can tell you is that the psychology of Captain Idris Wada is that, one, he believes in power shift, two, he believes that power is not the monopoly of any particular tribe.
Also he believes that the issue of power shift is belittled when it is allowed to always come up when there is an election or you use it around a particular candidate. The issue of power shift is a more serious issue that should be looked at politically, economically and socially. And then, let leaders of the respective ethnic groups sit down and discuss things thoroughly, because they are talking about the fate of the people. They should agree and come up with a working pact.
Though power is all about the people and the majority always has their way but we are talking about political correctness here, hence there are technicalities that should have been worked out over a long period of time. We need a proper approach to understanding the issues involved in power rotation or power shift.
So what happens to the issue of marginalization?
The issue of marginalization is neither here nor there; every ethnic group cries about marginalization, so it is tricky but marginalization has become a song that people want to hear.
Appointments are done on the basis of the ethnic groups that are in the state. If your community has five million votes and another has two thousand votes, there is no way, in all honesty, you will share things equally. President Buhari said recently that people who gave him 97 percent votes should be expected to be treated the same way with those who gave him 5 percent. That is the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria talking, so where will you start the cry of marginalization from.
Here in Kogi State, Governor Wada has done what is very fair compared to what it was before. May be those talking about marginalization are still leaving in those old days. Things have changed and I can assure you there is no marginalization. The statistics of appointments, employment and what goes to where in the state are available for all to see.
Looking at the November governorship election, you have quite some formidable aspirants from the opposition party, especially the former governor of the state, Abubakar Audu, who claims to be a friend to Captain Wada. How do you think the election will go, bearing on mind the last presidential and legislative elections in the state?
If you use the result of the last presidential and national elections, you should also remember that after the result of the presidential and National Assembly elections, we had the state election and today, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has majority of members in the State House of Assembly. That tells you that the psychology of state election was not the same as that of national elections.
That we were able to wake up and get majority in the House of Assembly should tell you that we know what we are doing. We made mistakes and we amended the mistakes made.
All is set for the emergence of Wada for a second term in office except he does not want to contest. He is what the people of Kogi State are looking for; the people of the state are looking for a leader and not just a governor. Wada is not just a governor, he is a leader. Others that are in the contest just want to be governors but a governor that is often too flamboyant and you cannot even go close to, a governor that people are afraid of is not what people are looking for. We are talking about a governor whose carriage and personality is inviting; who is fatherly. The bottom line is that Captain Idris Wada is a governor and a leader. These other people just want to be governors and that makes a lot of difference.
Just yesterday, an indigene of the state, Hon. Jubril Buba, emerged as the Deputy Majority Leader of the House of Representative; how does it feel like for the state government?
Any good thing that happens to any citizen of Kogi State comes to the government as a thing of joy. Wherever you find a Kogi man, he is distinguished. I am happy with his emergence because he is an indigene of the state. The state is happy, the people are happy and it is a good progress for the state.
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