Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State, in an interview with select journalists, speaks on the finances of the state, the alleged rift with his predecessor and sundry issues in the state's politics. Biola Azeez brings Excerpts:

The land policy of your administration has generated many controversies. What could have been the cause?

Issues have been raised for quite a while on the Urbanisation Law which was passed in 2009 and which has also been signed and remains effective. The first issues were raised by the Ilorin Emirate Development Progressive Union (IEDPU) on the justification of the law and so much has come to the fore that requires some levels of clarifications.

First, as a government, we have to recognise the fact that we have the responsibility of delivering service to the people because we are only custodians of public resources and part of our responsibilities is to ensure that we harness all the resources available. You are not unaware that generating resources and running of government resources come in mainly from revenue allocation, centrally allocated by the Federal Government and it is also being augmented by the internally-generated revenue (IGR) of the state. Having had the opportunity of running the Ministry of Finance for over seven and half years, I am quite conversant with the fact that the resources of the state required to be augmented. Augmentation allows us to look, largely, at the IGR and that takes us to options available to drive revenue.

The first option is the issue of ensuring proper collection process. Second is the issue of areas that have not been touched in the IGR. We went ahead on levels of enumeration to see how to improve on direct assessment and collection of taxes. You will agree with me that Ilorin is largely a civil service environment. We are just trying to move on gradually into a commercial environment. We see that, by Providence, Ilorin is growing at an exceptional rate. For those who are familiar with what the city was about six, seven years ago, we'll see the kind of pressure on the city today. There is pressure on our water, energy, road and on all sorts of infrastructure. Not due to anything else, but there are lots of inflow of people into Ilorin and we thank God for that. This is because the environment remains quite enabling for new entrants and current occupants of the town and, by and large, Ilorin is becoming bigger for peace, commerce and togetherness. Most importantly, we have strong levels of religious tolerance, which has seen a lot of inter-religious activities without any problem.

It was out of the need to drive revenue that we looked into the issue of land. One thing that quickly came to mind was that government must be a little bit proactive in the use of land because you cannot drive revenue by taxing people. Thus, we looked at the option of land. It was on this basis that the Urbanisation Law was put together in 2009 as a bill and signed into law. The law simply gives the state government power to use land in parts of some local government areas for the purpose of public use. However, this has been misconstrued in some few quarters and the areas that had been of concern had been isolated. Before now, a good interpretation of the law was not made and lots of insinuations were made. Some people said government was collecting all the lands in Kwara State, including Yidi (EID praying ground, Ilorin), Emirs Palace and Taiwo Road; people said a lot of things.

I want to use this opportunity to let people know that all that they said was not correct. Government is only taking some portions of land in some areas so that it can put it into optimal use and see how we can generate revenue for public use. Don't forget the fact that whatever revenue we generate will go back to the public. However, there are areas of concern which had been highlighted by the members of the IEDPU. The major gap between the association and the state government was largely an information gap.

Is it true that there is a rift between and Senator Bukola Saraki?

On the issue with the Leader, Senator Saraki, you should know that this is purely a political gimmick by our opponents. They are not happy that we are happy and the simple reason is because they've failed to understand that what we have in Kwara State is God-ordained.

We've had the responsibility of driving an eight-year government which had progressively moved Kwara State from where it was to the state in which we took it over in 2011. And they've forgotten the fact that, by Providence, I was not only part of policy formulation in last the administration, I was part of the implementation. It was only normal for me to continue to leverage on the goodies of the last administration and there's no way I can do that and go to the next level without taking cognisance of the last administration.

I will tell you that I and Senator Saraki have a very cordial relationship and it is beyond what people are seeing because we both have a true sense of purpose to move Kwara forward. That spirit that saw Kwara being moved to a prominent state in agriculture, aviation and a public/private driven partnership has seen us creating a very strong platform between me, the Leader and the members of the cabinet. We have a very robust relationship that will continue to blossom because we have the same goal to ensure that we give the best to Kwara. It is a self-chosen sacrifice which we both agreed that we will continue to do.

So, apart from the fact that we have a very cordial relationship, we have the same vision of ensuring that we move the state forward. This vision is defined by what was done by the last administration which is being consolidated on in this administration.

I want to assure you that Senator Saraki will continue to be our leader because there's no substitute for experience; he's had the experience and we are proud of him. We are trying to draw from his wealth of experience, both in politics and governance and I am very happy and lucky that he's always by my side and that he will continue to be by my side. He's been a strong stabilising factor for me, especially in areas I need to take certain decisions that I am not properly informed about. Don't forget that you need to draw from the experience of those who have it and add it to yours to take you to a new platform to move forward. We will continue to strengthen the relationship for progress in Kwara and for the growth of our people.

How do you explain the allegation that your administration is often late in paying salaries of local government workers?

On the issue of delay in payment of salary of workers, I am sure we are all aware of how much allocation has been coming into the state since the inception of this administration because they are published. And we have seen the drop in the allocation from the month of March, April, but we began to feel the impact from May till date.

This drop has been affecting, not only the volume of what is supposed to come into the federal, state or local government purse, but it has also been delayed. For us as at the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), we've resorted to asking the Minister of Finance to work on the issue of delayed allocation meetings. I remember in those days when I was the Commissioner for Finance, allocation meetings were usually held between the 13th and 14th of the month. It gives an ample time for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which is in charge of allocating the funds to many states and local governments through the Ministry of Finance to do that. But lately, you find that allocation meetings are usually held much later and the later the meetings are held, the later the distribution and allocation of money. And when it gets to the state, the state has its own process of ensuring distribution and allocation. That is the first leg in the delay.

The second leg is in the shortfalls as were recorded in May, June and July. These shortfalls have not been very helpful in meeting both the recurrent and the capital expenditures of not only the local government, but also the state government. The only difference is that at the state level, we have exhibited a very strong sense of financial management which has allowed us to be able to put our resources together and look at other funding windows that could support our funding gaps.

What then are your other sources of funding?

Don't forget that local government councils have limited funding windows from which they can source funds, unlike state governments. Of course, they too have been charged with the responsibility of looking inwards at their IGR, but, most importantly, they should control their expenditure. In any system of cost management, there is a very basic ground rule that, if you cannot increase your revenue, you must cut your cost; it is that simple. Don't forget that the local government have been saddled with a very huge recurrent cost and that this was what prompted the need for us to demand a biometric exercise for them where we wanted to see the true number of workers we have. It was all designed to help them bring down the number of workers to the real number so that they can manage their over head and personnel cost and, most importantly, to create a platform for future planning.

When you have the proper number of work force, it could be easy for you to subsequently increase to the number you want. For us, we have been looking at how we can be supportive of the local government by ensuring that the revenue from crude oil is not used for recurrent expenditure, except it becomes absolutely necessary. We want to ensure that they do capital projects with them.

You will recall that the deputy governor had to go to some parts of the three senatorial districts to commission projects that had been financed under the excess crude funding window of the local government. This is designed to encourage them so that money would be spent only on recurrent expenditure. They must have ‘capital leg'' because that's the only way to reach the people. For us at the state level, we have no business with local government money. We have enough money we have been using because we've been able to cut our coat according to our cloth.

At any point in time, the state has been able to manage its own finance. The local governments that were having challenges, we have been encouraging them to discuss with us on areas they have been having challenges and we've been trying to see how to create windows to support them. Don't forget that the only thing that joins us with the local government is the joint project account. Till date, close to N800 million has been channeled into rural road construction and this is mainly to support the N2.5billion that the state government is expending on the same project.

Rural roads are largely local government roads; state roads are different. In order to make the local governments also take home, as it were, some projects in road construction, knowing full well that their resources cannot support them in road construction, we decided to invest about N2.5 billion in rural roads and we use that to augment what they have. The agreement on the joint project concept is that whoever initiates the project drops 60 per cent, to be supported by 40 per cent as counterpart funding. You should also recollect the fact that apart from putting down the N2.5 billion, we are only asking the local governments to put down N800million.

They take ownership of the roads and maintain it subsequently and to ensure that other projects, ie, MDGs that are now being carried to the local governments, are also supported under the joint project funding. So, for any reason, the joint project should not have any bearing on their incapacity to meet their recurrent expenditure. They only contribute not more than Five Million Naira each and the gaps in their funding windows are so wide. What they have to do, with their current challenges, is to look back at their recurrent and capital expenditure, except recurrent overhead and personnel. That's where the problems are.

So, we have decided to sit down with them and help them look at what their books are reflecting in terms of their expenditure lines to allow them to see how they can begin to reduce some of these expenditure lines to give room for capital projects. Where we see there's a gap, we augment them. Ask any local government the road they have constructed till date; none. The only roads they can showcase are the existing ones, those undergoing construction or the same rural roads the state government is doing. These are the roads we constructed largely from the money we are putting into the system, which is over Two Billion Naira. So, their own contribution is much less than what they are going to enjoy because they would take ownership of the road.

I wish this approach is put in place between the state and the Federal Government, so that we too would be happy. You can imagine the Federal Government coming to us to say, “On the Jebba-Eyenkorin, Kaiama-Kishi Road, you, Kwara State government, should put something on the ground and we would construct the road for you.” We would be happy and we would take ownership. So, the local government should be very happy with what we are doing because we are helping them to execute some capital projects which, ordinarily, they would not have been able to do.

What is your view on the issues generated over the Offa Local Government Area election?

It is not a new thing; it's a judicial matter. You are all aware that when there's any election, other parties who are sometimes aggrieved would go to court to challenge the election result. What's happening in Offa is a normal thing; the stakeholders in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Offa saw the need to challenge the result of the election at an appropriate court of law, which looked at the issues and nullified the election and we are expecting that there would be either an appeal or we look at the constitutional provisions to move on from there.

For us in the PDP, we see it as a welcome development because we've always said Kwara is a strong PDP state and we are committed to the values and ideals of the party, exemplified by projects and the environment we've been able to create to ensure there's growth, peace and development. The incursion of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) into Kwara is seen as an aberration. So, this has been proven by the just annulled election. We will continue to consolidate on the games and leave no stone unturned to let the people enjoy the dividends of democracy.

What is your take on the clamour for state police?

As a pragmatic person, I will continue to look at governance from the perception of marching vision with pragmatism. State police is desirable, when you consider that Nigeria has a population of over 150 million people and when you look at the current level of policing, vis-à-vis the level of crime, level of challenges of insecurity and other areas. But, at the same time, the current political situation in which we have found ourselves and the current social situation will require to be put into serious consideration before taking that big step of moving toward creating different levels of police.

My own biggest grouse with the issue is that I am looking at the angle of the inability of the Federal Government to fund the police adequately. To the extent that state police is desirable, how do we fund it? States are currently under pressure by not being able to meet with their various expenditure needs. So, you can imagine what will happen if we are to create a new expenditure line to join the current expenditure pressure. So, no matter the desirability, it's not financially feasible. That is the way I am looking at it.

What we require to do today is to come out with a platform and I am happy the Federal Government is responsive on this. We must be able to come up with a very strategically developed police force. For some close observers of what the police used to be and what it is today, we see a huge gap in the areas of support for the Nigeria Police. The Nigeria Police need to be completely restructured. The men and officers need to be transformed; the process requires to change and a new technology must be developed to drive the Nigeria Police process. It is a tripod thing that should be looked at. It requires proper funding, not on transitional basis but on continuous basis.

The man who is putting his life down to protect you, your goods and property must be adequately supported. In my own understanding, we require strong funding window to support the Nigeria Police. After then, we can begin to look at additional need, if there is, to create other levels of police. But we must begin by reviewing the police as it were. We've not given required funding to protect the people. When we get to that level, we will look at the gap that will be existing in the need for policing and then we'll see the need to create other levels of police.