Despite challenges, we’ve recorded huge successes in Taraba –Gov. Ishaku

Arch. Darius Dickson Ishaku, popularly known as DDI, is the Executive Governor of the Nigeria’s eastern State of Taraba since year 2015, twice elected by his people under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Ishaku, a seasoned architect, is also a former Minister of State for Power, Minister of Niger Delta and Minister of Environment on a supervisory role. He, in this exclusive and highly revealing interview with the BusinessDay team led by Bashir Ibrahim Hassan, GM, Northern Operations, explains how his administration has recorded huge successes despite enormous challenges, Darius, as Governor of Taraba State, is generally believed to be an epitome of humility, hardwork and dedication to duties towards effective delivery of good governance to his people. Excerpts

Your Excellency, where was Taraba State in terms of development when you took over and where is it now?

Thank you very much Bashir. First of all, let me start by appreciating you and BusinessDay newspaper for finding time to come and interview me. When journalists come to interview me in Taraba, I know the pains they deliberately undergo to get here. We are stuck in a corner in the northeast part of the country and is not everybody that comes to this place, unless the person deliberately comes to find something here — otherwise, people will prefer to meet you in Abuja or Lagos as the case maybe.

So, let me thank you for coming. I want to appreciate your newspapers’ concept of focusing on business, finance and economy. For your organization to focus on this sector is a well thought out idea. I wish people could have newspapers focused on housing and other sectors. On the whole, economy and finance play a vital role in the act of governance and I must appreciate you for this concept.

See also: Education, healthcare top Lagos N1.1trn in 2020 Budget. 

Coming back to your question on how we found the state, its’ a touching question and I have to take you back to during my campaign days. During the campaigns in 2014/2015, I had a cameraman with me on the team and I instructed him to be taking pictures and he captured the whole state in pictures. In one of our campaign tours to Lau, we saw children sitting under a tree and the teacher hung a cartoon on the tree as a black board and was teaching them and I instructed the cameraman to capture the picture for me. Then there was a time we were going to Zing and we saw people fetching water where pigs were also drinking the water. They were scorching to get the water. They will wait for the water to gather for them to fetch and the pigs were also struggling with them. I directed that they should take the picture and that exposes my thinking of the situation or if you like the reality in the state.

I was in Gembu and I decided to go to the General Hospital and on getting to the hospital it suddenly began to rain. I was in a ward trying to see a patient and the roof was leaking. The patient and all of us were beaten by the rain water from the leaking roof. We took several of such pictures which form my aspiration captured in my Green Book which I compiled shortly after taking over in 2015. I had already known that there were problems in education, water, health and food.  If I have my way I will develop this state to the level that I will not need to go cap in hand in Abuja begging for allocation, because all I need is here — petroleum is here, but we have more gas than even petroleum and the beauty is that the world is moving towards gas, forgetting about petroleum, if you know the development in the world economy now, and we have enough gas. Everything is here. I told Mr. President that Taraba state alone can feed the whole nation with rice. I shocked one of the Local Government Chairmen who came from Wukari recently. I told him that since I became Governor I have not been to my farm in Wukari local government Area, which is over 100 hectares. In that farm, I have a combine harvester and all the machines on the farm. Every year after farming my own, I will farm one square metre round the farm, take proper care of it and give it to the villagers who used to safeguard my farm, so I knew about the potential of the state long before I became the governor.

Of all these, my major challenge was that I inherited a very porous civil service that was disenchanted and not well trained. For the over 20 years, there was no employment in the state. And in governance, an efficient civil service is key in the implementation of government policies and programmes. If you have an efficient civil service, anybody you bring will perform. Look at America, with all the noise Trump has been making, the American economy is growing even better than during the period of his predecessors, because the engine room is working properly. But here we are, a civil service grinding to a halt and when you talk people complain that the Governor stays in the office for too long. That they have not seen a Governor staying in the office up to 11pm. In those days when I was in civil service, people used to take their jobs seriously and in two three days your request is approved or granted and there was efficiency in the system. As I speak to you, by next year three quarters of my civil servants will retire, so I have to do a quick interview, receive reports so as to prepare for the next line of action.

These were all done before the end of last year. Very soon we have to do some employment and see how we can reposition the civil service. When I took over, we were highly indebted, Fortunately I was not alone that probably no one would listen to at the center. That is why the President had to do Paris club, salary bailout because we were crying. Worse than that, I was paying salaries and remember I told you there was no output, so it took me a time to discover that there were ghost workers and I blocked them. The ghost workers were a canker worm that had eaten deep into the entire fabric of the state. I remember the local government chairman from my LGA once approached me with a request to get 20 individuals employed into the local government service. I asked him if there was space and he answered in the affirmative. But mind you there was an outstanding salary arrears running up to 11to 12 months being owed the local government staff and we had no money to pay, so I had to be subsidizing from the state.

Meanwhile, I was still scratching my head as to how I will tackle the payment of arrears. As if that was not enough, another council chairman approached my wife with the same request for employment of local council staff. She enquired why the council chairman was interested in only the names not even the forms they applied with and interviewed. He told my wife not to bother as all the salary of the names approved will be for her. She had to rebuke him and reported the issue to me. Thereafter, we conducted rigorous investigation and I discovered that banks, account officers and a whole lot including retired civil servants and highly placed individuals were involved in the ghost workers’ scheme and this led to me firing successively three consultants I hired to make payments of local council staff.

These canker worm that I’m telling you about included both religious leaders and traditional rulers. It was so bad. A particular case in time was of a certain old man living in Ardo-Kola local government who sent his son every month to 10 different banks to make salary withdrawals. So, one day the young man returned to the father and told him that he was only able to withdraw from one bank. The old man’s remark was that this government is not cooperating but my reply to him was that there is a different government in place. We made arrests and prosecutions. So many were charged . In fact a whole lot took place. I wouldn’t say we’ve achieved a hundred percent tightening the noose, but we have made significant progress in that regards by reducing the menace. I think I can beat my chest and proudly say I’m one of the few Governors in the country who is up to date with the payment of salaries of civil servants. When the American ambassador visited Taraba, I remember we were at an event and he whispered to me that he was going to talk about salary payments because he has noticed that payments of salaries in this country is a big deal and my reply to him was that he can go ahead and talk about it because as at then I had already paid the previous month’s salary and preparing for the next. I heard states like Kogi are owing over or about thirty-eight months. I remember once telling Aregbesola (former governor of Osun state and now Minister of Interior) that I will shave his beard for owning about 20 months’ wages of his civil servants (joke). Since I came here in 2015, I’ve been up to date with my salaries, except those two months that I refused to pay. We were able to build on the gains we’ve made.

What about international investors coming in to work with you?

International investors are very-very scared of coming in to invest in Nigeria. I will give you the example of a friend I have in Germany; he is a multi-billionaire; he has shares in Mercedes.

When I was in Germany and was talking about bio-gas, he took me to his farm with over 7000 cows. The feed is being taken by a conveyor belt into bio-gas. It is processed into electricity to power the farm and the excess goes to the grid. So, every month they come to his gate to drop a check of the electricity he sold to the national grid. Meanwhile, he has his cows; they milk them every day and when they get old they slaughter them and the meat is sold. So, he came here and I gave him a Hilux. He went to Mambilla, but when he was coming he was warned not to go to the north east because of Boko-Haram.   He fell in love with the place, but unfortunately, two weeks after he left, the crisis on the Mambilla started and that kill his investment plans. He left and invested in southeast Asia. No investor from Europe or America will come here to invest because they don’t see us as serious people. They see us barbaric and that we don’t know what we are doing. That you are going somebody will stop you and rob you or even kill you because he has gun, why? All these are happening because people kill in this country and get away with it, but over there, if you kill somebody today, tomorrow they will get you. So, why will somebody who is already very rich go to suffer himself by investing in such a place? Look, I was in Germany in 2016 for a mining show and the guy was telling us how they go 8000 feet down the ground to mine silver and how many metres they go to get gold. You know this specimen bottle they give you in the hospital to get urine and stool for test? That was what they put the silver and gold in and I had a feel of all of them. And when it was my turn to talk I asked for the man who said they go down thousands of metres of to get silver and gold. I opened my containers and showed him: “Does this look like what you go down thousands of metres to get?” and he jumped at it and asked: “Where did you get this?” And I told him it was scooped from the surface. He asked again: “Surface of the earth? Where?” I told him Nigeria. He opened his laptop. “Where in Nigeria?” I said Taraba in the Northeast. He checked and said: “Aahh! Boko haram. No No No, my country will not even give me permit to go to Nigeria.” He said: “Oh my God! On the surface?”

I then stretch my hand and said: “This is Gold.” He asked: “Where did you get it? “I told him some people got it from the surface of the water. He said: “Oh my God!” And I took another one and he said: “This is Sapphire” and I said yes. He was marveled. I became a bride of the conference. Everybody in the conference was all over me, trying to enquire more about the Gold, Silver and the Sapphire. So, what we have here in abundance too is mining, agriculture and tourism and the biggest of it all is tourism, but it is the most difficult thing to explore because tourism is connectivity. Tourism needs security, tourism needs peace. It was when I resumed here that I opened the airport in Jalingo. Tomorrow you can fly from here to Abuja. But before now, connecting Taraba through air was only via Yola international Airport. All roads connecting Taraba from both ends are bad. I cannot fix the roads because even the internal federal roads that I have built I have not been refunded by the federal government.

Your Excellency, there have been a clamor for a paradigm shift from youth empowerment to youth investment. How much have you done in the area of youth investment?

I will start by saying I started youth investment from day one when I resumed. That has been captured in my Green Book which I showed you earlier. Taraba is an impoverished state. Check page 240 of this book, the picture here is my best picture. I am still looking for the person who took this picture to give him an award. Look at the caption of the picture. It was written by some journalists who came to interact with me over my achievements in the water sector. The first caption, the journalists wrote was “Excited mother and child: could this truly be clean water, Allah laa!” Another caption was: “Children in jubilation: at last here comes clean water. No more going to the stream, no more sickness, no more waking up in the morning to look for water.” The pictures have said it all. We sank over 300 boreholes across the state in towns and villages. The ponds you have seen there no longer exist. I got the water man award of the year 2017. Some United Nations staff came by road to Jalingo from Abuja and we were having a ceremony in the hall, but the first thing the woman asked me was that when she got to Taraba she was stopping in every village fetching water and she wanted to know if that is in every part of the state. I picked this book and gave it to her. By the grace of God, we have solved that problem long time ago and the people are no longer struggling for water with pigs. We have sunk over 300 boreholes and before I leave, I intend that it should be more than a thousand. Here in this town I have spent the largest amount of money in water, amounting to over N7 billion. When we came in there was problem of water for over one year. Electricity in this town is more than what you can find in Abuja, courtesy of my being a former Minister, and then I have bought and installed transformers and transmission sub-stations, just name them. In Jalingo today, we have ATM for water, the first ever in this country. Look at the picture on page 176. This man (water seller) used to go to the stream to fetch water and sell to people, but today, all he need do is to go to any of the water kiosks dotted all over the town using his water ATM, slot it and punch and fill his jerry cans; depending on the amount prepaid on his ATM card, it is immediately registered in the Water Board headquarters and the bank that so-so-so amount of money has been deposited. I sent 166 personnel of water board to Kenya under the World Bank to train and they are already back. They are waiting for the large commissioning of our water works. Other states are coming here to learn the technology. We are the first in the country with this innovation not even Lagos.

Now skills acquisition. Go to page 167.When I resumed here, we had 168 electoral Wards in the state and for every ward I would take people and train them. Aiahatu Ali from Gashaka was trained. She went and trained a widow and her daughter and opened another shop for them and bought them machines. Aishatu herself is doing well. Aishatu is over-worked today. All the schools in the local government now come to her to sew their uniforms and others. Aishatu is a success story in our skills acquisition programme. We have so many people who were idle before now that we have trained and are now doing very well. We have taken many youth off the streets, which have helped in addressing the issue of youth restiveness.

My wife has also done a lot in the area of empowerment and her own yields more result. Like the Koma people who were discovered in Adamawa state sometime in 1970, she equally discovered the Ngada people here in the state, courtesy of her visit to the area and consequently we gave them a development area — see the pictures on page 102. During her visit they went with cars, parked and boarded motorcycles and ended up trekking to access the village. The interesting thing about this is that it took them two days and two nights. Because of the pains she took to access the place, a woman of over 100 years followed her down to see her off and when she got to where they parked their cars. The woman curiously asked what they were doing with the big  things. She had never seen a car in her entire life of over 100 years. The woman was told that it was used for mobility carrying people from one point to another. The old woman was marveled and asked: “So what are they doing with the God given legs?” But four years down the line, you can’t believe that we have schools and hospitals there and the place is now totally open. My wife left this place and for two days. There was no communication because there was no network there. I was so worried, but they had all the security they needed, but truly it was disturbing. When she came back, the news was all over and we needed to do something about the plight of the people. 

Your Excellency, what legacy would you like to leave behind when you leave office and who do you have in mind as your successor?

I am working assiduously to see an end to insecurity in the state. We have not been lucky. When I came in here there was cattle rustling and it degenerated to herder/farmer crisis. I worked hard to bring it to a halt and suddenly the Mambilla/ Fulani crisis erupted. What looked like a minor thing became a national issue, and later died down. Then came the herder/farmer conflict in Lau and the neighbouring villages of Adamawa State. To the glory of God, we brought it under control and we were able to do all the elections and just when we finished the election, a quarrel between a Jukun boy and a Tiv boy suddenly brought us into another mess. We are trying to tidy it up now. We have sent security personnel to the affected places. We have also sent a delegation to Tor-Tiv to settle issues amicably. I have bought relief materials for the IDPs because it is not good that in 2015 the same person you sang hallelujah song for him in 2019 you are saying crucify him. All these we are doing are meant to down play it and I have asked all my people not to reply anybody even when I am insulted. We are working and gradually, for the past two weeks I have not heard of any incident apart from the incident in Jootar in Benue state where a Jukun man was slaughtered. We are hoping that finally it will come to a stop. My slogan is give me peace and I will give you development and I am still on it.

On the legacy I would like to leave behind and whom to hand over the state to,  these are totally in the hands of God. I don’t have anybody in human nature to endorse. I have seen in this country, people using their human sense to endorse others. But I will rather pray for God to bring somebody after his own heart, someone who thinks about people first to take over from me. That is the time that one needs to pray even more that God should give him somebody with equal or better vision, somebody with a heart for the people; somebody who thinks about the people first before himself. All these are attributes that are accumulated. Above all, you need somebody who is humble and willing to learn. When you are humble, people will be willing to teach you. You also need somebody who can build on what he has seen. When I came in I was advised to probe my predecessors, including those who hurt me, but I said no. so it’s an act of God for you to have someone who will inherit you with discipline, decency and carry on with the projects of development. We will also look around, shop around and pray to God to give us that kind of person. I have seen all the godfathers who put people after them. The first one year, quarrel will break up. I was the one who told Akpabio in Japan that for the work he had done, he need to start training a successor. He said: “I have started” and I said: “God bless you”, and when he handed over I met him in the Governors forum and I congratulated him, but less than two years later, problem set in. So, one needs to pray to God for a good successor and if he is humble you will be filtering in your advice based on your past experience in office. But in Nigerian politics, we are premature and when people come, they see it as a do or die thing. It’s now that we are gradually bringing in some sanity into it. So, again prayer is the ultimate thing.