ARE you expecting an automatic ticket from your party for the governorship election given that past incumbent governors were given?
Automatic ticket has no place in the PDP. From my experience, the only person who got it in the PDP was the immediate past president of the country, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
It was automatic in the sense that he was the sole candidate during the primary. The others withdrew before the day of the primaries. That to an extent was the only semblance of automatic ticket. Normally, in the contest for leadership of the state, people show interest. Those who show interest see the incumbent as a challenge?
And because you are incumbent, your second run for office is not as free. You are restrained until you are in office again. So, you don’t have the same space like those outside.
Issuing of statements
You don’t have the same opportunities, as those who are outside, in terms of issuing statements. You are restrained, you have a lot of restriction because of the position you are occupying.
That is why you see lots of people coming out to contest. But, all must go through a primary, even when nobody shows interest, you must go through primaries.
It is a yes vote or no vote, that determines whether you get the ticket or not. I don’t know of any position in the PDP constitution that gives automatic ticket to anyone. We are not at that point yet, you will hear from me when we get there.
Is it true as it was reported that the NWC of the party demanded N1 billion from you for the ticket?
On the issue of the PDP and the National Working Committee demanding money from me, that is a matter to ponder about.
Whoever is insinuating that the sum of N1 billion was demanded from me is evil, it is a lie. It is part of this evil machination by people who don’t want progress. In Kogi State, we don’t have N1 billion to give to anybody, I can assure you.
Having paid our workers up to date and embarking on infrastructure development, I can tell you that we don’t have N1 billion to give to anybody. And nobody has ever asked me for N1 billion.
What will I get from the chairman to invest N1 billion just to earn a ticket? So, let us be realistic, when some of these things are said, we should question the logic in them. So, it is just a figment of the people’s imagination. There is no basis or foundation for that kind of statement.
How are you prepared to face the opposition in your state during election?
With regard to the Presidential election, won by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi State, it was basically because of Buharimania. It is a movement which many people boarded the train. That is why we are where we are today.
It is not because the PDP is not doing well in the state. The PDP is on ground, it is a solid party and has added value to the lives of the people. We have structure in every local government, we have structure in every ward and we are confident we will win by the grace of God, in the next election.
And if I will correct another wrong impression, the PDP won major of the seats in the Kogi State House of Assembly election. That is a reflection of the fact that once you remove the Buharimania out of the equation, PDP is solidly on ground, we will win the next election.
As regards to performance, of course, you will not expect my opponents to praise me.
They will always find something wrong. What we do as a sitting governor, our opponents will always see something bad in them.
Your administration has been accused of not performing…
If you look at the money that has come into the state during my tenure, you will agree that we have performed in term of development of the state. We have done well with the fund available to us.
The projects are there for you to verify. These are comments from our opponents, and you will remember the contest of my coming on board, that people who lost out despite our effort at reconciliation, have continued to hammer us.
Reality on the ground
Some went to court, with two of them ending up at the Supreme Court level. Some of them are still in the court despite the fact that we are approaching another election. In such an environment, they only look at what you have done wrong, but the reality on ground, is that we have performed.
We have tried to follow due process; we have done well within the resources made available.
What is the debt profile of the state and how are you reducing the cost of governance?
In the effort to reduce the cost of governance, we have reduced many areas of waste as you can see. We are focused on ensuring, that government business is done transparently well and in a competitive way.
We are ensuring that government gets value on whatever money we spend on projects. We are ensuring the completion of projects being executed and prompt delivery. On labour matters, we are very sensitive to the nature of our state; it is a civil service state. We ensure that the issue of down-sizing does not arise, trying to accommodate as many workers as we can within the resources available.
We are blocking leakages and ensuring prudent management of resources available. For any project that we embark on, we properly cost them and award them to competent and reliable contractors to execute for us.
We are also trying as much as possible to improve our IGR.
Financial system
Our financial system is now computerised, reducing the use of papers work. These are efforts to reduce waste. The money to be accrued from this will go a long way, to for the benefit of the state.
On the debt profile, we have very low debt profile. We have overdraft of N1 billion, we have about N1.5 billion in term of money that is taken as counterpart funding for primary education.
We have a bond that we subscribed to in the capital market amounting to N20 billion, from which we have drawn N8 billion so far. We are using the bond money for the tourist projects, most of the projects are in the degree of 40 percent completion. We still have close to N12 billion to draw. We are in the process of doing that.
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