Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal fielded questions from journalists in Sokoto on wide range of issues affecting his state and the country. He gave his frank assessment of the measures needed to take Nigeria out of recession.

1. Tambuwal: How Nigeria can get out of recession
Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal fielded questions from journalists in Sokoto on
wide range of issues affecting his state and the country. He gave his frank
assessment of the measures needed to take Nigeria out of recession.
The last administration promised to improve the welfare of religious
and traditional rulers in the state. This includes providing them with
vehicles and modernising their palaces, why haven’t you done much
in that regard?
First of all, this government respects traditional institutions and since we came
on board, we have accorded them the respect they deserve. They play
important roles in efforts to sustain peace and security, and in a larger sense,
they promote religious and communal harmony. Because of their place in our
history, we know we cannot do anything less for them. But you will agree with
me that our financial situation since we came on board has been precarious.
Government has cut back on much expenditure, and has prioritised areas of
needs for the whole state. I am happy that our traditional rulers have
understood clearly what we are faced with and they have not pressured us to
continue with the policy of fixing their palaces when there are more competing
needs in our hospitals, primary healthcare centres, agriculture, education,
youth, women empowerment among others. Similarly, if you look into the
number and importance of projects we met on ground and the pressure to
complete them, what we did is the best for the state. We have inherited about
30 large and important projects from the last administration, and we are
working hard to complete all of them and put them to use for the benefit of
the citizens. These are projects that we have to complete as allowing them rot
away will lead to wastage of funds earlier expended to start these projects.
Our philosophy has been to take these gradually, depending on availability of
funds, and complete them before delving into new ones. That policy has served
us well in the last two years and we are happy to put them to use. What you
may not be aware is that many of those projects for traditional rulers were to
be executed from the joint accounts with the local government councils. But at
the moment, many of those councils cannot carry out any meaningful project
outside payment of salaries. We have severally bailed them out from the state
government to enable them meet their obligations to workers. In such
situations, I don’t think they are buoyant enough to embark on building and
repairs of palaces.

2. You spoke about local government councils, but there are
complaints that many of their workers don’t get their salaries on
time, what is responsible for that?
We have carried out verification exercise to determine the correct number of
workers in each of the 23 local government councils of Sokoto state. What we
met on ground was beyond reason because the strength of the workforce in
our local governments is twice more than that of Kano that has 44 local
government areas. We felt this is not sustainable. We are continuing with the
biometric verification to ensure that only genuine workers remain in the
schedule of payment, and they will be paid according to their levels. We must
do this to sanitise the system and ensure ghost workers or absentee workers
do not find sanctuary in the local government system.
Few days ago, you dissolved the management team of the state
Board of Internal Revenue, why now and secondly what is the
current IGR figure for Sokoto state?
For almost two years, we gave the dissolved team the necessary incentive and
support to improve internal revenue base of the state, but they haven’t done
that. If you recall, I have stated publicly that we would take action to ensure
better performance in revenue generation. After a review of their
performance, we decided to bring in new persons to reposition the board. As
for the figures, since we came on board, the monthly IGR for Sokoto ranges
between N340 to N400 million. When I spoke to the ministry of finance, I was
told that the previous administration received up to N500 million monthly. My
argument is that this figure they are giving us is meager. What we deduct
monthly as PAYE from civil servants alone, should be in the range of this figure,
so what happened to other revenue sources? The new team has been
mandated to put in place a new framework which will boost performance and
improve revenue figures.
With this new target, are we seeing tougher measures against
members of the public who are not paying tax?
We are fully aware of the economic situation in the country, especially survival
of businesses and the harsh conditions they are operating in at the moment.
We will put that in consideration in pursuing what is due for the government. I
am saying this because as leaders, we need to be clear about our intentions.
Whenever we ask people to make sacrifices, we must reassure them that it is
for common good. So we are telling the people that whatever they pay to

3. government as tax, will be applied judiciously for the benefit of all the people
of the state.
How will you review the performance of the state’s 2016 budget?
I’ve spoken about this during the presentation of this year’s budget, and in fact
when I assented to the budget law a few days ago. Taking a holistic view of the
performance of the budget, I feel we can do more. That is why we started this
year by making necessary changes in the personnel that drive the budget
process, as can be seen from what we did at the board of internal revenue.
We will continue to improve the system because time is not on our side.
What I’m promising the people is that the performance of the 2017 budget will
be better than that of 2016 in terms of implementation, while even distribution
of resources will be ensured. We will start new projects across the state, with
much emphasis placed on rural areas.
At the meeting of the Northern Governors Forum recently, you
agreed to improve the security situation in your states, how far have
you gone in that regard?
We discussed many areas of cooperation, for example agriculture, education
and the likes. As for security, we agreed to share intelligence and this has been
paying off. Take for instance issues of castle rustling; because of renewed
onslaught by security agencies and the inter-state collaboration among all the
states, this problem has reduced. We still have few scattered instances, but we
are working to tackle that as well. This cooperation is extending to cases of
kidnapping, armed robbery, civil unrest and the likes. So the more we
collaborate the better for us as states, and the better for our citizens.
Your Excellency, the government has done marvelously well in
containing the fuel situation which was getting out of hand in the last
few weeks, what are you doing with regards to prices of
commodities in the market?
We read from the news that the federal government has set up a committee
to ensure commodities are not priced out of the reach of the common man. In
Sokoto, we’ve already establish the state commodity board which will work to
give our farmers and citizens a fair deal. The board will buy grains from farmers
and store them. We hope to intervene when situation is getting out of hand as
you have stated. We are already taking to the Federal Government and Flour
Mill in Nigeria Plc for effective utilization of the Silos here in Sokoto by buying

4. and storing grains so as to do some intervention when the situation arises. We
intend to use the commodity board as a platform whereby we can always off-
take excess produce from our farmers.
Who or what is responsible for the current economic situation in
Nigeria and secondly, what’s the way out of recession for the
country?
Experts have called on the Federal Government to inject more money into the
system. Personally, I believe creating job opportunities, especially through the
construction industry, and injection of more money into the economy, remain
a sure way out of the current recession in the country. Ask any Economist
about the way out of recession, and I am sure they will inform you that
massive construction efforts, backed by release of funds, will create jobs whose
multiplier effects will jumpstart the economic barometer. As Speaker of the
House of Representatives, I’ve had reasons to disagree with many of the
policies of the last administration of President Goodluck Jonathan which we
felt were inimical to the overall development and well-being of the people.
Many thought we were raising the alarm because we had personal hatred for
him. That is not the case. I had nothing personal against the former President.
The recession we are currently facing was as a result of the way the economy
was mismanaged, largely, by the Jonathan administration. What is the way out?
I’ve said we need to inject money into the system and create employment
opportunities for the people. And one way to do that is to engage in massive
construction projects. It is part of the reason why we encouraged the Federal
Government to disburse the funds from the debt relief for states to kick-start
activities at regional level. Similarly, we’ve read how immediate-past President
of the United States of America, Barack Obama, used this strategy of massive
construction works to take America out of economic challenges. So
construction projects alone will create a lot of jobs which will benefit the
economy. We all know that Nigerians are not happy and are running out of
patience, but they should be more patient. It is very easy to destroy but to
rebuild the economy takes time.
You have announced an incentive that will benefit some 25,000
women across the state, can you shed more light on this?
What we are doing with the women groups is part of our overall strategy to
assist small and medium scale entities to boost their operations. We’ve asked
the Sokoto State Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Agency

5. (SOSMEDA) to create a data base of all small business run by women in the
state. As a starting point, we decided to empower 25,000 of these women who
are in the rural areas with a soft loan of N10,000 each. That amounts to N250
million. We plan to expand it as time goes on but we are starting with the first
set who are getting the N10,000 each very soon.