Date: 2010-07-04

Address delivered by H.E. Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, Executive Governor of Kwara State, Nigeria KSANG 2010 Convention, Seattle, United States of America, July 4th.


As I look around this room this evening, just like yesterday, I cannot but feel a great pride to be the Governor of such a wonderful collection of highly resourceful and talented people like you all. Permit me to again congratulate the leadership of KSANG for the tenacity and the vision that has made this event possible. My wife and I thank you all for the honour of this invitation.

If you organize a similar event for this time next year, I would only be attending as your former Governor. Our gathering here tonight therefore, provides an important opportunity to reflect on the successes and the challenges of the last seven years and more; as well as the opportunities ahead.

As many of you are well aware, the theme of my campaign almost eight years ago is ‘Mandate.’ Embedded in this idea of ‘mandate’ is the realization that the people of Kwara State were being asked to authorise me to serve in their best interests. This they did in 2003, and again in 2007. On both occasions, what the people were ‘mandating’ me to do was to help solve their problems and to provide opportunities for them to live a decent and meaningful life.

In a State such as we inherited in 2003, my job could not have been more clearly defined. And my inaugural address reflected a keen awareness of the challenges that we faced. As I took office on that fateful Thursday morning I made clear of my intentions to tackle the most important challenges that we faced in education, in health, in agriculture and industry, in water and sanitation, in rural development, women empowerment, youth development, unpaid salaries and pensions and many more.

I also declared however that I would not pretend to have quick fix to all the problems or intend to work on them alone. I asked you not to expect miracles of me. I asked you not to expect answers to all problems from me; even though you expect me to lead the way. I only asked you to join hands with me to be the best we can be, and together lay the foundation for a future that is more secure and certain for our children and generations to come.


Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, almost eight years after we started this journey together, not all the problems have been solved. And they will probably not be all solved in our life time. It is however important for us not to forget where we were coming from so that we can appreciate how far we have come.

This is necessary, not because we want to indulge in the vainglory of self-celebration, but so we can all realise that real changes are possible; so we can understand that the challenges we face may be difficult, but they are not insurmountable. Because it is with this realisation; with this understanding, that we can stay determined on the same path on the path that has brought us brought us so far, even when we find that the road ahead is still long and still difficult.

No matter what we have achieved; successive generations of leadership in our State will continue to have important problems to solve. What is important however is that the batons that we pass on should be more glorious, and the torch that we hand over should shine ever brighter from generation to generation.


Road

In 2003, the road network in our capital city and other parts of our State were not only in very deplorable condition, but they were no longer able to cope with the demands of a State that seeks to achieve rapid economic growth. In 2003, the road that comes to Ilorin from Ogbomoso through Asa Dam Road all the way to Offa Garage was a single lane, today it is not only dualised, but it is currently being expanded further, to even make vehicle traffic easier. In 2003, we had only two roads that link up to the Jebba Mokwa Road from the Ilorin metropolis. Today, we have four. The road from Tanke to the University, the Tipper Garage end of the Pipeline Road; the road networks around Gaa Akanbi and Tanke Area and so many more, were dusty roads. Today, they are all tarred.

But perhaps, the signature road project in the capital city is the new fly over around the General Post Office designed to take care of emerging traffic congestion in that area due to the increased economic activities in the metropolis in the last couple of years. Perhaps, a major testimony to this increased economy activity is that in 2003, there were only a few commercial banks in Ilorin, today there is hardly any bank in Nigeria that does not have a presence in our State.

Any one of us here who is familiar with the north of our State would recollect that the Chikanda-Kosubosu Road in Baruten Local Government leading up to the Republic of Benin had been abandoned since the 1960s, bringing perennial hardship to a significant population of our State living in that part of the State. It is our government that undertook the completion of that project. Today, a journey that would last several hours because of bad roads, especially in rainy season, now lasts for less than one hour.

Anyone from Oke-Ero would appreciate how terrible the Idofin-Odo-Ade Ase Road has been over the years. The contract for that road was awarded about three months ago. Now, I am proud to announce here that no Local Government in our State has not benefitted from construction, renovation or upgrading of one major road or the other.

Aviation

Even though we have had an international airport in Ilorin since the 70’s, we must not forget that in 2003 when we assumed office, this airport was being put to little or no use. Since 2004, we have managed to provide the necessary leadership that opened up the airport to commercial flight operation. A journey to Abuja that would take a minimum of six hours of driving on the very hazardous roads is now reduced to less than one hour, Lagos is now 45 minutes away from Ilorin.

Not many people can remember today that less than seven years ago, this was almost a pipe dream. With the commencement of commercial flight operation has come increased influx of businesses and people who are taking advantage of the new accessibility to do business in our State. More people are also now willing to settle their families in our State because of the very peaceful environment that we have continued to provide and flying out to work elsewhere.


Along with the commercial flight operation, another important development around the aviation sector in our State is the construction of the Cargo Terminal at the Ilorin International Airport. The implication of this is that Cargoes from Europe and America destined for the Northern part of the country do not need to go to Lagos first. This also ties directly to the commercial agriculture initiative as it will enable direct export of produce from Ilorin airport. The huge economic potential in this cannot be over emphasized.


Power

As you know, unstable power supply remains one of the major challenges of our country. Several efforts have been made over the years with little or nothing to show for it. One of the recent initiatives was the Federal Government initiated National Independent Power Project (NIPP). Unfortunately, these projects were abandoned across the country. The only of such project that was not abandoned, and has been duly completed and commissioned is the Step-down Station at Ganmo, Kwara State. Even though this is a Federal Government project, we realised that our various efforts at achieving economic growth for our State can only achieve desired results if we are able to provide the necessary infrastructural support, especially electricity. With the completion of this project, we are now enable us to evacuate power from the 2 x 150 MVA; 330/132KV transformers; and 2 x 60 MVA, 132/33KVA transformers from the new substation and this has tremendously improved power supply in our State. It would delight you to know that many businesses and industries have experienced up to 80% drop in their expenditure on deasel since this project was commissioned.


Agriculture

When we took office in 2003, our state was most commonly referred to as the Civil Service State, often in a derisive way. In less than eight years, we have changed that perception.

Through our commercial agriculture initiative in Shonga, which remains one of the most ambitious agriculture projects anywhere in Nigeria, we are now widely known across the world as the number one agriculture State in Nigeria.

In 2008, we recorded the largest single movement of cattle in the world when we successfully imported all the cattle required for diary production into the country without a single fatality. Consequently, we were able to kickoff the diary plant with installed capacity for 80, 000 litres of milk per day, which is the largest of such plant in Nigeria. No doubt, the best story that came out of Shonga in 2008 is that the first set of milk and yoghurt rolled out of the diary farm, and can now be found in the open markets of our State and other parts of the country, thereby establishing that important linkage between commerce and agriculture, which we envisioned when the project started.

I am delighted to report that the Shonga Dairy Factory now delivers 10, 000 litres of fresh milk per day, out of its installed capacity of 80, 000 litres per day, and has generated up to 4000 employments to our people.

There are so much more developing around the commercial agriculture initiative. One of these is the poultry plant with an installed capacity to deliver 3.2 million broiler chickens per day.


Water

Again, one of the most pressing challenges that the people of Kwara State in both rural and urban areas wanted the government to address in 2003 was lack of access to clean water. Over the years, we have tried different approaches with varying results. However, we are delighted to note that when we resumed office in 2003, Asa Dam Water works, which is the major source of water to the capital city was only pumping a 4.3 million gallons per day. As a result of our intervention, we can now pump 25.5 million gallons of water per day. We are now ready to upgrade the distribution capacity so that water can now begin to run in every home in the metropolis just as it used to happen in the 1980s.

Our policy for rural water is that no one in any part of our State should go beyond 500 metres to get water. Pursuant to this policy, we have continued to sink boreholes in villages throughout the State. 


Health

The core challenge in the health sector is how to improve access to healthcare delivery, especially at the Primary level. This required us to change the way we approach health policy intervention.

A remarkable breakthrough for us in this direction was in 2005 when we launched the first ever Rural Health Insurance Policy in Nigeria with the support of the Dutch Government. Under this initiative, poor people in the rural areas can subscribe with as little as N200 and have access to a broad range of medicare support, including some minor surgical operations. This has caused a dramatic upsurge in hospital attendance in the pilot community and provided important lessons for us in scaling up to other parts of the State.

However, even as we continue to rehabilitate existing hospital facilities, at all levels of healthcare delivery, it is also clear that a major step change was necessary that would even deal with another important gap in healthcare system in Nigeria generally. I mentioned yesterday the establishment of the establishment of the International Diagnostic Centre, which serve both public and private hospitals not only in Kwara but in the entire country. Because the Centre will be operating as a Private Public Partnership initiative, the economic viability and the values it would bring to healthcare delivery in our country is indeed enormous. 


Education and Human Resource Development

What has become so evident in recent times is that the future belongs to those countries and people who have taken the education of their children seriously. A country will grow and prosper because it has invested in knowledge and others will stagnate and fall back because they have not.

Unfortunately, one of the major tragedies of our country is that we are one of those coutries in the world where parents got better education than their children. The public primary and secondary schools that many years ago produced some of our country’s all-time best have long disappeared. Universities and other tertiary institutions hardly serve any purpose beyond that of a ceremonial rite of passage.

Indeed, the connection between education, poverty and development can hardly be over-emphasised. This is why education is naturally at the heart of any development planning.

However, development as a consequence of education is a function of deliberate investment and careful planning: It just doesn’t happen.

I am keenly aware of the desperate condition of our education. This is why barely three months into my administration in August 2003, we convened the first ever Kwara State Education Summit. And rising from that summit, the framework that emerged is that education as a tool of development must be anchored on one simple question: what do we want our children to be able to do when we put them in school?

In response to this, we launched in 2008, the Kwara State Education Reform Agenda, Every Child Counts, which seeks to put children at the heart of education delivery in our State and introduced a series of radical measures directed at improving learning outcomes in schools.

Our efforts has, again brought Kwara State into both national and international reckoning and has made our State, not only a role model but also, the single most preferred State by international development agencies like the World Bank and British DFID for education support interventions.

Perhaps, the single most important achievement we recorded for education in 2008 was the Teacher Needs Assessment, which made us the first State in Nigeria to ever conduct that kind of assessment, which has been widely acknowledged as a pioneer effort even by international standard.

We are delighted to note that even within the short time that we have embarked on the reform in the education sector, we are beginning to see real results in the abilities of children, especially at the basic education level. 

One of the key components of our education reform is the reform of the Colleges of Education. It is only natural that in seeking to improve the quality of teaching in schools, institutions for teacher training has to be improved as well. In this regards, we have repositioned the College of Education in Oro to play this important role. It may interest you to know that the National Commission for Colleges of Education in Nigeria (NCCE) has identified Oro College of Education as a model for the reform of all Nigerian Colleges of Education during an international conference on “teacher education in Africa” held in Accra, Ghana in 2009.

We recognize that basic education is only a very important foundation for the great task of developing skills and capacities in our State. Therefore, we have also focused on other levels of education as well.

a. KWASU: I believe that during this conference you must have heard so much about the new Kwara State University, which has its main campus in Malete, Moro Local Government of kwara State, with subsidiary campuses in Kosubosu, Baruten Local Government; and Osi in Ekiti Local Government. It must be recalled that the first attempt to respond to the desire of our people to have a State University started way back in 1990, that is about 13 years before our administration. We are however proud to be the government that has been able to fulfill this desire of our people. The Kwara State University, as the motto reflects, is conceived as a university for community development. Its core mandate therefore, is to produce high quality work force and research that will directly have an impact on the development of our State.

There is still so much to do in making KWASU the university of our dreams, but we have demonstrated our commitment by the actions and investments we have made and continue to make as well as the quality of scholars that we have been able to attract from all over the world, especially from the United States.

a. Aviation College: Yesterday also I mentioned the International Aviation College. Again, this is another major step in making our State the hub for education and skills acquisition in Nigeria. Along with the training of commercial pilots, the establishment of this college is also providing an important linkage with the Kwara State University college of Aeronautical Sciences, which is currently being planned as part of the University’s Faculty of Engineering in collaboration with Princeton University Engineering Faculty.
b. Vocation Centre: As we seek to develop high level work force resource, we also consider it imperative to develop a core of technicians, artisans and skilled workers industrial welders and plumbers, automobile technicians and electricians, bricklayers and caterers, etc. The International Vocation Centre will be sited in Ajase Ipo in Oyun Local Government Area, it will award City and Guild Certification with technical support and direction from the Trade and Technical Enterprise (TTE) in the United Kingdom.

Governance

Since 2003, we have labored to project our State as a place where the business of government is conducted in a responsible and transparent manner; where government is not only accountable but also operates in accordance with the rule of law and due process, which we believe are necessary precondition for building the right kind of profile that will attract national and international partnership and investments that are crucial in achieving economic growth for our State.

It is pursuant to this that we invited the world’s foremost credit rating agency, Fitch to our State in 2008 to do an assessment of our credit rating, which involves a critical analysis of those indices that show how well the business of government is conducted in our State. We are proud to note that we are the only State in Nigeria to have submitted itself to this level of scrutiny. And we are proud to report that at the end of the exercise we were awarded a Foreign and Local currency rating of B+ and a National Long-term rating of AA-. More than anything else, this rating confirms the steady progress we have recorded in the last 7 years and a measure of our commitment to making kwara State one of the leading States in Nigeria.

Apart from the overall positive image that the Fitch rating has brought to our State, one other important benefit is that it projects us as a responsible credit worthy entity. The direct fallout of this achievement is our ability to raise an N18 Billion Bond to embark on key capital projects like the Medical Diagnostic Centre, the Kwara State University, the International Aviation College and the Vocation Centre, among others.

Certainly, given our parlous revenue profile, there is no way we would have funded these projects if we were not able to access this bond.

Fellow Kwarans, distinguished ladies and gentlemen the last seven years has been the most challenging of my life, but I must also say the most exciting. I doubt if there can be a greater honour conferred on a man than an opportunity to serve his people and improve their lot. I feel particularly honoured that I am the first Executive Governor in the history of our State that would serve for two terms. I must say that even though we were determined from the very first day of our administration to do the best we could for our State, I believe the opportunity we have had for sustainability and continuity is a crucial factor in most of the successes we have recorded.

It is for this reason therefore that I want to assure all of you in this room tonight, that even as my mandate as the Governor draws to a close, I do not intend to relinquish my leadership of our State and our people; the leadership that you all in this room and so many of our people in diverse parts of the world and back home must continue to provide; the kind of leadership that is not bound by political office but can be positively represented by it.

One of the questions that I get asked quite often these day is ‘so, what happens to all that we have done and all that we are still doing if they are not sustained by the next administration?’ My simple answer is this: we should ask the people of kwara State if the progress we have made in the last in the last seven years is worth protecting. If the answer is yes, then they must all join me in ensuring that whoever becomes the next Governor is someone who would not set us back to square one; someone who would be primarily loyal to the people of Kwara State and the progress we have made together in the recent past. This, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, is probably going to be the most difficult battle we have ever fought for our State. I pray to God to guide us aright.

Thank you all and God bless.