Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
A gubernatorial hopeful in Kogi State, Aguda Oluwole, has said he is in the race to the Lord Lugard House to rescue the state. Aguda, an aspirant on the platform of the African Action Congress (ACC), told Daily Sun that Kogi State is on the brink of collapse, hence his decision to rescue the state.
Amongst other issues, Aguda said if elected, he is going to explore the tourism potentials in the state, focus less on federal allocation, while also taking governance to the grassroots.
Why did you decide to join the Kogi governorship race?
Because I realized that Kogi is actually on the brink of collapse.
How did you arrive at that conclusion?
Let’s look at the facts. In 2016, the domestic debt of Kogi was about N71 billion and today, it has doubled to about N140 billion today. You will expect that we would find minimal justification for such, but we don’t have that as there is nothing to show for it. I came from Lokoja recently and also. In fact, I visited different parts of the state.
But the governor is being touted as performing in the area of security. Don’t you think the money may be going into that?
Security that is not economic based is almost futile. The best form of security is not the one that carries arms and shoots in the air. The best form of security is socio-economic security where the people can fend for their families. You can’t be talking of security in the face of mass poverty. That is a joke. You can’t be talking about security where there is nobody to secure.
What, in your opinion, is the problem of the current administration?
It is gross inability to manage little resources, greed and a very high tolerance level to corruption. I find that the Government of Kogi State has failed the accountability test. I do not believe that the government as it is today has the capacity to even manage abundance. So, the examples of increased debt without justifiable pointers, to me, simply tell you that we have a wrong crop of people there. If you have the same people there for the next 20 years, you will find no difference. What you will have will simply be additional suffering because the focus of the government there is totally misplaced.
If given the opportunity, what will you do about the nonpayment of salaries?
I am happy that you mentioned that. But that is a problem that was created by ourselves. We generated that problem ourselves in Kogi. Indeed, the general excuse has been that there were falling oil prices and the rest of it; national micro economic issues which affect how much the state get. But when a state is not self-sufficient, you are bound to continue to be dependent. So, the dependence is not a must. That dependence has totally disabled us such that if there is a problem in the center, it affects you locally. We must first of all come to a point where we accept that we have been too dependent on Abuja. So, one thing that I will focus on is less dependence on federal allocation because if the federal is sick, the state becomes automatically sickly and if the federal is healthy, you become healthy. What we are suffering in Kogi is the failure to project our economic survival beyond what comes into the state.
But how would you have handled the workers’ issue if you were at the helm of affairs?
Let’s look at the practical, historical issues – our bailout funds. Agreed that we had a precarious situation in the country and then you had bailout funds issued, you had Paris Club refunds that were issued where the total sum grew up to N70 billion. There is no justification. So, it is actually a problem of leadership, it is a problem of management. It is not like the workers had to be owed. The workers don’t have to be owed.
So, it was mismanagement problem?
It is apparent. It is not in doubt. If you ask how the Paris Club refunds were spent, you would not see that they were used to pay workers; if you ask how the bailout funds were spent, you will realise they were not spent to pay salaries.
Will you probe the governor if elected?
I will ensure a thorough audit of capital projects in the state; I will ensure a thorough audit of revenue that has come into the state and I will also ensure that where we find that there has been established cases of misappropriation, that remedial action will be taken. I am not saying that I am going to probe Yahaya Bello and his team, but I am saying that we are going to look into the books and where we find that anything is missing, we will withdraw the money back.
What is your blueprint for Kogi?
If elected, I am going to be looking at tourism for instance. I am looking at the possibility where Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, will have tourism linkages with Kogi so that if you have whatever you are doing in Abuja, we can take advantage of Abuja as a federal capital because of the proximity that we have. So, I am going to look at how we will enhance and develop the confluence area.
We are also going to be focusing on participatory rural development. We are going to have economic viability propositions for each of the local governments in such a manner that Kogi will become the go-to state for the nine border states around it.