Edo is in dire need of a prudent resource manager –  Ize-Iyamu  

For now, I believe that the atmosphere in the state is peaceful and I don’t think there is really any political tension even though it is going to be governorship election year, hopefully around July we will have the opportunity of voting in a new government. The present governor has done over seven years and he will be handing over on November 12; so the election will be around July. He of the APC and I am of the PDP. Our people are not too happy with the performance of the present government. I am not talking from the partisan view point but just telling you what is on the streets because seven years is enough time for any serious-minded government to put its act together. After seven years there are lots of critical sectors that have been totally neglected. So, a lot of people are very disenchanted and they see the election coming as an opportunity to effect change in the governance of the state.

Governance should provide certain basic amenities, and for me any time I look at government I think that three things are very critical. They are security of life and property, development of the state and empowerment of local populace. If you look at it in these three perspectives, our people have the right to actually be disgruntled because insecurity has been the major problem in the past seven years. Even though kidnapping is not peculiar to Edo State but while many states took proactive steps to deal with the situation, our government here has not been very forthcoming. I know for instance, that many of the South-South states invested in technologies especially tracking machines to track down kidnappers when they called asking for ransom from their victim family members. This will enable security agencies to locate them almost immediately and able to move in. Edo State is one of the very few states that don’t have those tracking devices as a lot of people have had to leave the state, especially businessmen and women thereby compounding already bad situation.

In terms of development, this government has made no efforts at all to develop our economy. I don’t know how a government can survive strictly on handouts from Abuja. Government has a duty to create wealth but this government has not done that at all to the extent that all its resources is depended on what comes in from Abuja and even the Internally Generated Revenue is more or less also tied to what comes in from Abuja because the bulk of it comes in through Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and the moment we started having this shortfall in allocations you can see through the adverse effects it has had on the economy. I think government should be a bit more creative. There are so many areas that the state government ought to have looked at. For example, I think it is ridiculous for a government not to make any attempt to industrialise its state. You can do it directly or indirectly. If you do it directly you also have the option of inviting private investors to take them over later but if you don’t want to do it directly then you must not only create the enabling environment for business to thrive but must also take concrete steps to invite reputable investors to come to your state because the world has become a very competitive global market. You have to market and package your state. For a governor who travels as frequently as our own governor, one would have thought that the major reason why he has been travelling all the time would be to expose our state, try and bring in foreign investors but this has not come.

Also, in terms of growing the economy, which of course, is key to good governance that is not there. If the economy is not growing then the state cannot be seen to be growing. So, the focus should have been on agriculture. If you look at the industries, agriculture, and tourism among others what you get is complete neglect and that is why we believe that it appears that these people do not have any vision about what the government should be.

Again, if you look at the area of empowerment, empowerment is not just giving handouts to your local people; it is far more than that. Empowerment means patronising, encouraging, enlightening your people on areas where they can compete effectively. Again, this is an area where government has neglected completely. So, if you are looking at government from the perspective of development, security, empowerment among others what you see is complete neglect and for me, the incoming government must refocus completely the way governance is being run. Our people must begin to think out of the box. We can no longer just rely on allocation from the Federation Account. We need to ask ourselves even if no allocation comes, does it mean that Edo State can no longer survive? In looking inwards, it is not just about taxation, taxation and taxation. Before a man is made to pay tax you must have created an enabling environment for the man’s business to thrive. A man who is not doing anything how is he going to pay tax? That is why I talk of patronage. Government is the biggest spender and if government does not spend money and does not patronise its local people that means there is capital flight. Jobs that should have been done by the local people you are outsourcing them to outsiders; the government will not thrive, the society will not thrive. Government has to engage the local populace. Local contractors should be used and not those outside the state. We should think on how we can begin to build and capitalise on our resources.

One of the things we must do urgently is to build the economy of the state and that has not been done at all. Whatever is being spent here is the money coming from Abuja. We have to build our local economy, build local businesses and see how we can support them so that this state can become a business hub, so that people who want to buy furniture, yams, pineapples, cassava, all agricultural produce among others, will be coming here in numbers and Edo State should be the hub. We should also create a film industry in the state. Billions of naira is coming in now through Nollywood, and Edo State is not gaining anything from it. But this was a state that was renowned as a place of culture. These are the things we ought to have capitalised on because we have abundant of talents. We want to have sports academy so that we can export talents who will in turn eventually begin to remit money to us. We are very strong in human capital and again we are not making good use of it. Our people in the Diaspora from example their remittance to this state is huge and I think we should go beyond remittance to their families, we have to structure it I such a way that it can turn the fortunes of the state around. We go down there for jamborees every year without trying to set up agenda or roadmap of what can be achieved. I believe many of them apart from having the capital they have the technological wherewithal to be able to take over businesses and sustain them. So my problem is that you have a government that is not focused, no vision all they do is that they just wait, you give them money and they spend it but how to create their own money they are not talking about it. How to invest in areas that can bring in more funds they are not talking about it. The public service is not delivering because they are totally demoralised, disillusioned, nobody listens to them and nobody reads memos anymore, nobody is asking for blueprints about what should be done and one man thinks that he has all the answers. So, if you see the situation that we are in, it is quite pathetic but not irreparable. It is something that once you have a focused government that has the fear of God, a lot of things can be amended, changed and then we can begin to do things in their right perspectives.

The first thing we must do is to cut the wastages. There is too much wastage. All these monies being voted for frivolous parties, champagne and wines have to go. All those monies being used to charter helicopters and private jets for journeys that commercial plane can take you to or go by road have to stop. All those inflated contracts whereby something that can be done for N2billion to N3 billion you do it for N15billion has to stop. All those collecting state revenues and putting in private pockets and sharing it has to stop. By the time you do all these things you will find out that even without taxing people any how your IGR will go up because it is now being done by people who are sincere and honest. Your cost of governance will reduce drastically. Where they were spending N10 billion monthly you will find out that you don’t need to spend more than N2billion. So, if they were getting N10 billion before and they were spending recklessly, and now is N5billion and they are complaining that the money is now halve you will find out that what they were spending N10billion for before you are spending N2billion. Even the N5billion that shouldn’t have been enough you have a surplus of N3billion to do things that are meaningful. What Edo needs is the prudent manager of resources, a man who means well. If we are privileged and God answers our prayers and we get to Government House we must streamline the ways things are being done.

The security vote in my opinion is being mismanaged. If the money was being well utilised I don’t think that anybody would have quarreled so much about its used. For example, the least amount of security vote being collected by the state governor monthly is N500million. How much do you give to the state police command just N5million. That is ridiculous. That means you are giving them just one percent of the security vote. The real people who have the personnel and who by law should deal with security matters collect one percent of the money budgeted for security. That to me is corruption because I cannot understand what you are doing with the remaining 99 percent. Our vigilantes who are supposed to handle communal policing should be encouraged. If they are encouraged and motivated they will be able to fish out criminals in their various localities. But when strangers whom the policemen are, who will now have to come to the place of crime to investigate they can get away with all kinds of impunity, but when the local people are involved things will change.

We must invest in technology. Government should be thinking about technology in security matters. Again, security vote should not only be in terms of crime prevention. How about social security? How about the vulnerable in our midst? I know everyday how people come to me that they are homeless, can’t pay school fees, hospital fees among others. Government must create some form of social nets for these kinds of vulnerable people. If you tell me that part of the security vote will be allocated to a social security system and not the ones that will be abused and corrupted but well defined and transparent fine. But in the past seven years if you add all that has been collected through security votes we are aiming at over N50 billion. If we were to ask what was done with that money it will be another ‘Dasukigate’ or even worse.

I think that whatever is budgeted for security vote should be managed in a transparent and credible manner that will bring maximum result.

This present government came to power in a not disadvantaged situation because to the best of my knowledge they met funds. There were lots of funds in the coffers and the debts were minimal. The debt you talk about were on ongoing projects and because government is a continue process that is to be expected but in terms of serious debt liabilities they were not there. Like I said, the kind of money the government has received in the past seven years is huge and unprecedented. So, they needed to get their priorities right. Any man who gets that kind of money, the first thing you do is to lay a solid economic foundation for the state so that future government will be able to build on what you have done. Now, this government prides itself in two areas. The areas are education and roads. But in the area of education I have serious concerns. How can you talk of education when you don’t even have teachers? Is education the colour of your roof because they keep talking about red roofs but I know that in most of these schools there are no teachers, science laboratories, libraries even the cost of the education is getting higher and higher which means it is even becoming prohibiting.

At this age, when we are talking about a technology age you will expect that our educational curriculum will now focus on special areas. Our technical college at Ugbowo has not received any attention. What we should be thinking about now is an educational system that will be able to put our children at a competitive advantage over others whether in ICT or technical education among others. That is not there. So, what is the content of your educational policy? What you are talking about is the structures. Education is far more than that.

They are also talking about roads, they have only scratched the surface and the reason why it is like that is because the level of corruption in road contracts and award is too high. If there was prudence and due process the money they spent on one road in Edo State can actually do at least twenty (20) other roads. So, for one road you can say that has been done now there are over a hundred begging for attention. These are the only two areas. But I can point to so many areas unattended to. How are you going to praise a government that has so much money and all they could do was to attend skeletally to education? Because of greed and corruption did very few roads when the resources available could have done so many. And the critical areas like security, industries, agriculture, housing, tourism, sports, employment, and human capital development among others have been left unattended.

For the uninformed, the man (governor) has done well but for those who know how much funds came and those who know what government is they cannot give a pass mark. The uninformed can clap for you because you are able to tar a road that passes through their houses but by the time you start to enlighten them to find out how the road has affected the economy of their environment, they will begin to lament lack of job, too much taxation, I can’t pay school fees, etc.

So, it is difficult to begin to praise the government when we know that the resources that has come since the past seven years was more than enough to put this state on a very solid economic foundation- a foundation that would have brought industries, commerce and trade to the state. A military government was the one that built the Oba market because he realized that Edo State should have a modern market. When you build good market you attract people from other parts of the country to the state. When our government is complaining about street trading common sense would have told them that the lack of market space was responsible for the street trading.

What would a PDP government do differently if you win the gubernatorial election to fix the Edo economy?  

Recently, I learnt that the state government wants to employ five thousand teachers. The first question that comes to mind is, is this a new state? Does it mean it has no teachers before? Even by that mere mention that they want to employ new teachers you are actually confirming that there is a crisis in the educational sector. If for seven years you could not employ 200 teachers, is it in the last year when the resources have gone down that you want to employ five thousand teachers? The truth is that there have been too many deceits. This government has not shown any genuine concern for the problems of the state.

A government that is coming in has to be a government that is sincere, a government that has clear vision on how governance should be, a government that thinks Edo, breaths Edo, sleeps Edo and have confidence in the local people, patronises, empowers and brings out the best in them. We will employ people not because we want to sympathise with them but because we need them. We will stimulate the economics of the state. We will encourage businesses because when you employ about two people because of the patronage and other government incentives from two you will be able to employ about ten persons. That is how you create employment. So, we are going to employ people and these people will be able to give us value for money. We will not be doing them a favour instead we will utilise their talents to better our state. The IGR will increase because right now a lot of the money being collected goes into private pockets. We will plug all the loopholes. What we need is a serious-minded government. Not a government that spends billions on teas and champagne. We need a government that will make people know that Government House is a serious place and not a place for drinking champagne but a place to deliberate on the affairs of the state and to offer practical, prudent solutions to issues affecting our people. I can assure you that we will be saving millions weekly by the way we intend to run government. The present time is reckless, corrupt and certainly lacked direction and no focus at all. It is just a government that consumes without attempting to even create wealth.

Nigerians should brace up. The situation we are in now is not insurmountable. We must understand that in life there are good times and bad times. Even bad times can become good times if you are able to surmount the challenges of that period and turn it to advantage. This period is an opportunity for Nigeria to now diversify our economy, look beyond oil and gas to other areas where we can engage our people and compete at the international level. With little or no backing we have been able to come out strongly in films production. That tells you about the resilient and the enterprising spirit of the Nigeria people. So we need to identify more areas like that, more areas where our people can be supported to be able to move in strong. India is supplying all the personnel now for Silicon Valley and all the technology companies. That is one area Nigeria can excel. All these ideas about 419 if you look at it on the positive side it only tells you that this is one country where we have smart people. Why don’t you convert their smartness to legitimate channels that can bring in so much? All we need to do is to identify them, create the environment and support them.

For me, I think that Nigeria will come out stronger if we have the right leadership. If the leadership wants to spend all the time lamenting the past then the future is in trouble. But if they can look at the future and begin to confront the challenges then I can bet you we are on the road to greatness.