Excerpts from a live interview programme with the Bayelsa State Governor
QUESTION: In the past 365 days in office of your second term, what are
the challenges you have faced and how have you been able to surmount them?
Governor Dickson: The challenges are very obvious. The challenges of
funding are clear as we are living in trying times and our country is
officially in a recession. That immediately affects our capacity as a
Government to complete our programs on schedule and that can sometimes be
very frustrating. It also impacts on our ability to carry out some of the
social issues we have been dealing with. Investment in health care,
development, education, security and other related issues are the major
challenges we have been having.
It’s been very very challenging but I thank Bayelsans for their
understanding and support in spite of the challenges.
QUESTION: From the reforms you are carrying out in the civil service, what
will be your expectation at the end of the day of civil servants
themselves and those in government at large?
Ans: Every state is expected to have a functional, effective and
efficient civil service and one of the things I noticed upon assumption of
office was that our civil service was not just bloated but was steeped in
much that was unprofessional and a lot of indiscipline. But even in the
midst of this there were many civil servants that were good, that worked
hard and professionally. The general issues we have had are of
orientation, of politicizing the public service, of lack of training, of
indiscipline generally. We have people who have their names on the payroll
who do not earn their salary, do not go to work and just sit at home. We
have health facilities and patients go there but the workers do not go to
work. The services are not provided but this is what we call the public
service in Bayelsa. And we have so many unions fighting for welfare only
and salaries and not addressing the core issues of discipline and
professionalism. We have instituted a lot of reforms since this government
came on board. The unions have been carried along and they are also
working with us in most of these initiatives. What I have always told the
unions is for them to be part of this process because in the end they are
the beneficiaries. I call the civil servants the real landlords; we the
political leaders are tenants. They should have more interest in having a
more disciplined and productive service. I have also made it clear to them
that it will be in everyone’s interest for us to re-position the public
service for greater service delivery and efficiency.
I said in my budget speech that we are going to re-organise the public
service. Take the example of environmental sanitation and the parks and
gardens committee. T
hese are specialized agencies in most states with the clear duties of
taking care of public parks, maintaining them and carrying out sanitation
activities in our state. But this is an avenue where over time a lot of
people were brought into the civil service without going through the
necessary procedures and regulations. In this type of specialized agencies
that should just be taking care of our facilities you have many thousands
of people. I won’t mind if these are cleaners, road sweepers and so on but
majority of them are graduates with all kinds of qualifications. As part
of our re-organisation we said no, that should stop. Sometime they back
date and falsify employment and get in there and earn very high salaries
and and allowances and yet they do not go to work. That is what you have
everywhere. If you go to the Bayelsa transport company, for example they
do not have a single vehicle. We gave them some vehicles some years back
but we do not see even official records of how they manage these vehicles.
You won’t see more than five drivers but you have almost 200 to 300 on the
payroll. Also in Radio Bayelsa, you have almost 500 workers doing the same
work and probably with less efficiency. If we are serious about this
business of repositioning Bayelsa, then we have no option but to
re-organize the public service. I have set up different teams and
committees to expunge these anomalies from all the departments because
there is no alternative than doing that now.
For those who go to work, they have nothing to fear and nothing to lose. I
will be failing in my duties if I succumb to black mail and propaganda and
not be firm on issues of discipline and professionalism. We are playing
our own part.In the area of salaries we are doing much better than other
states whose economic standing is far better than ours. For example we
have paid January salaries and I reminded the union leaders that as part
of management of the recession, with the consultation of union leaders we
had to pay 50% for some months and other months we were able to pay full
salaries.We have started this year with the payment of full salaries and
no more 50% God willing. Every month we will try to assess where we are
and meet the current liabilities and incrementally address the issue of
back lo. But we are firm in our resolve that anyone who does not go to
work will not be paid. By tomorrow I will be announcing the advisory
council of traditional leaders on the pay roll fraud. Gentlemen and
Ladies, you need to see the kind of reports
that comes to me daily. At the local government level, local governments
cannot meet up their salary obligations anymore. We cannot continue like
this. We have to draw the line at some point. I intend to clean up all
this mess with the support of you all so that the next government that
comes will inherit a better system and continue from there. The young
people of Bayelsa should embrace and support this initiative because there
are a lot of areas where we intend to employ qualified people, real
people, as against ghosts that have been bleeding our state dry.
Where there are challenges and where the reform impacts in a way and
manner that people complain about legitimately, labour leaders who I see
every so often can attest to the fact that I have had more meetings with
them than any other governor before me. It is an ongoing reform and I
expect everybody, political leaders, traditional and opinion leaders and
all Bayelsans to key into it. We cannot be a state that will be a laughing
stock, where people will say Bayelsa payroll is over N6b every month. We
have managed to reduce it from N6.4b to about N4b. But the local
government are paying almost N1.3b and if you add that to our wage bill it
is almost N5.3b and these are core issues impinging on the capacity of
people to deliver especially at the local government level. They cannot
even pay salaries not to talk of meeting their other obligations.
These are the reforms: we will no longer have a situation where graduates
that have a teaching qualification and are in environmental sanitation for
instance, earning salaries and promotions and have been there for ten
fifteen years. Our schools need teachers so I will send them to teach in
school. No one will be sacked but if you do not go to work, you will sack
yourself and I will have no hesitation in endorsing it. At the end of
this, when we have removed all the ghost names and those who do not go
work have sacked themselves, there will be a lot of vacancies for our
young people.
Question: Your administration recently set up the University of Africa,
Toru-Orua. The thinking in certain quarters is that it is aimed at
crippling the Niger Delta University. What is your reaction to this?
Ans: That is completely baseless and an irresponsible thing to say or
insinuate. We have demonstrated commitment to education. We have spent so
much at the primary school and secondary schools levels. You all know what
is going on especially at the secondary school level. Schools in every LGA
with boarding facilities. Even in this recession, we are buying beds,
lockers etc. We are equipping libraries, building fences and so on. These
schools are like tertiary institutions now. Some local governments have
three of such schools. There is the Ijaw National Academy, very soon to
be commissioned. Now most of the challenges we have in this state, the
way I have come to conclude are rooted in years and decades of
insufficient investment in education and that is why any time any where I
see people demonstrate a commitment to education as a government I have an
obligation to support and assist. And this should be a collective approach
to our development. Anyone can come and build roads but the greatest
investment is investment in the human mind. You have a number of educated
people in the state but largely this state does not have the critical mass
of educated enlightened populace and that affects us in a number of ways.
All these issues of gossips, vile propaganda, rumours and blackmail and
people not reading and knowing what their government is doing or saying
have made our society very dangerous and predispose our youths to crime
and criminality and violence. And it is from this pool that leadership
emerges so you can see that you are in a Catch- 22 situation. We have
cultists and if your young people are cultists it is just a matter of time
that all your leaders will be cultists and criminals. That almost happened
in this state and we are reversing an ugly trend. I know the massive
investments we are making in the education are not investments that are
politically rewarding and I did not embark on them to be popular. I have
told the education team to release the number of scholars we have sent
outside and within the country for people to know. I am aware that has not
brought political credit, I am aware that building these schools and these
institutions , keeping our young minds and incubating them as we have been
doing in four years and in various secondary schools and for the past one
year in the teachers training school in Bolu-orua do not bring political
credit but we intend to do much more because it is the right thing to do.
When in the next 2 to 3 years we have these young Bayelsa minds that we
are incubating from the Ijaw National Academy which will start with about
a thousand students, which will probably be the biggest, ambitious
investment in secondary education by any government in the whole country
which higher institutions will accomodate them?
Now if you do not set up a university, and all these investments begin to
mature in the next three years, which university do we have that will take
all of them? The capacity we are building is one that NDU alone cannot
contain. I am aware that notion is being promoted by some people who
should know better and that is very disappointing. But I have made it very
clear that our commitment to NDU remains unshaken and that no individual,
trade union, community or body has an interest or stake in NDU that can
rival or is higher than the interest that the state government already
has. That is a state -owned institution and by the law establishing that
university, I am the Visitor. This state bears the brunt of that
university’s upkeep; the establishment of that university was a laudable
step and I give credit to the administration of our late leader Chief
Alamieyesegha and others who worked with him to establish that university.
There is no community that doesn’t have students. You can almost say there
is no family that doesn’t have students so that university remains very
important. But having the university in place and keeping it going,
reforming it and making it better are two different things. My duty is to
work with the stakeholders there in the university as we are doing to
ensure that we reposition it. We have had that university this long, every
month paying almost N500m as salaries and other commitments but without
enough resources to make as capital investment in the university. I am not
happy about that trend. So as part of our re-organisation process, we are
also looking at a few things, particularly the staffing situation. As far
as the academic staff is concerned we have no problem with that because a
university exists primarily for academic research and teaching and service
to the community. I have told them that if the committee that is working
with them comes with a report that we need to give them more support to
enable them have more respectable lecturers, more lecturers coming in or
even existing ones to stay, that will not be a challenge. I will approve
it but I have also told them they will work with us to ensure that our “no
work no pay” policy holds. We have done an analysis of all state- owned
universities. We found that the staffing situation on the non-academic
team and even on the academic team is such that we have more staff than
any other state -owned university but with fewer students. So the unit
cost is highest here but these are all legitimate issues.
Let me make it clear again that the University Of Africa is a state- owned
university, an initiative of the state government because by the time we
have worked on all our tertiary institutions and their needs and
re-organized all of them including college of health technology, school of
health, school of nursing, and BYCAS because they all have the same
challenges of over bloated staff, indiscipline and low productivity but
with a very high recurrent cost which higher institutions will be there to
accomodate the products that want to proceed further with their education?
The University of Africa is established by law of the state but we want it
to be run on a different model, we want to try an idea which we hope will
be successful and probably will be a model for others to copy moving
forward. The university is a public one, that is why I will be making the
first appointment very soon and I will be acting as visitor. But the model
is this we will only support infrastructure as much as we can but the
university must take responsibility for its funding and also support its
development. It has to raise funds. It is a fees- paying university and
because we cannot tell NDU students to pay those very high fees since it
did not start on that model we want to have a situation where we will
have a publicly funded university like NDU but one everybody knows will
charge fees from day one. The university will use the fees to maintain
academic as well as non-academic staff so that we no longer have the
challenges that we are having with NDU and most other public universities
in Nigeria. When we talk of partners people misunderstand us, if a Bayelsa
business man wants to support and say I want to have a faculty in my
community and you can build it because it is still with us they will sit
down and work out the structure how students can come and generate funds
without it affecting the public funds. That is the model in all the
universities people are sending their children to all across the world. So
we want to have a world class privately- funded education. The students
that we will support from Bayelsa will be on state scholarship but the
university will not run back to government to say we need this or that. We
will know the number of students from Bayelsa and say this is their
tuition fees and no more. You employ whoever you can afford so that we do
not have the challenges we have in NDU. Meanwhile they will also be
competing. They will look at investments in agriculture,university
students will be there working and learning, studying. We are working with
a lot of universities that have expressed their desire to support this
kind of venture because there is a likelihood that most of the students
will acquire specialised expertise. For example in Nursing, we want
Bayelsa to be a world class exporter of nursing services like the
Philippines and all these countries are doing. We are in touch with those
institutions that are training them. They work with us such that our
nurses will have a Nigerian qualification and the UK and American
qualification and then they will go out. If we are sponsoring, they will
take the number that Bayelsa state can support and send as scholars there,
that’s all. We will not give the university money, we will not pay staff
salaries for them. That is a new concept we are running. Unfortunately I
know some people are promoting the idea and insinuating that people in
government or myself since it is located in my community have an interest
in if. No one has any interest in what is going on in NDU. These are the
challenges of starting something new, it may well be the question of maybe
not communicating or understanding each other. The truth is that there is
no private ownership yet but we are open to partnership.
QUESTION: Please educate Bayelsans on the motive behind the allocation of
land for a ranch to herdsmen?
ANS: Let me acknowledge that the conversation going on is legitimate, I
told a number of people just the other day that I christened Bayelsa the
Jerusalem of Ijaw Nation in my Inaugural speech in 2012, and because it is
centred on promoting Ijaw unity and identity and culture and history, I
believe that it is legitimate for any Ijaw man or woman to express an
interest or even venture an opinion or a suggestion on the development of
Bayelsa. I said no body should take an exception especially with respect
to the comments credited to my dear sister Mrs. Ann Kio Briggs who is a
friend and sister, a colleague in the struggle. Even though I feel that
she was unfair because she knows she has access to me and she more than
most people should knows my type of person and what I stand for as far as
protecting Ijaw fundamental interest is concerned. What I can say is that
while I concede to people their right to disagree and even to venture
alternative points, they too should concede to me that we know our
governor, he must be driving this policy for a good reason. They should
also concede that to me especially on matters that affect the protection
of Ijaw people and the defence of Ijaw fundamental interest because none
of this people can say they rank higher than me in terms of pedigree. And
as governor, you look at all you have done and you will also concede to me
that I am running a government that will stand by you and protect Ijaw
national interest. I also know and it is a fact that the undertone behind
most of these concerns has to do with the barbarity and criminality
associated with some elements who are said to be herdsmen.
We condemn the criminal elements who have been parading as herdsmen that
have been ransacking communities. I know most of the fears people are
expressing. The hysteria that people have unfortunately built around this
issue has a foundation in the unfortunate association with crime,
criminality and brutality. But you are in a country where you cannot stop
the exercise of freedom of movement within Nigeria by anybody. Those who
are not running government, those who want to be popular claim that herds
men should not come to Bayelsa. But as we speak, herdsmen have been in
our community for years. It is not this government that is bringing the
herdsmen to Bayelsa. Ann Kio knows that in Rivers State there are a lot of
herdsmen in many communities. Also in Delta state and everywhere across
our country they are there and they did not start today even though most
of these violence-related activities are things we are beginning to see
but the truth is that we cannot stop people from moving from one place to
another just like people cannot stop Ijaw fishermen from going anywhere to
fish. As a government it will be irresponsible on our part to promote
that kind of notion, that people should be expelled, attacked or prevented
from being in Bayelsa. The truth is that they are in all your communities
and they have their cattle grazing in our farmlands and communities and as
government, I know the report I receive on a daily basis from community
and security leaders and part of the reason you have not heard of attack
on herdsmen and herdsmen or serious violent clashes is because of the
proactive measures our government has put in place. We had to set up a
committee and in this committee we have youth leaders carefully selected
on the areas of impact and these areas of impact we all know. Some of them
are in Gbarian, Kolga area, Sagbama, Ogbia and Amassoma area. We carefully
observed this and selected youth leaders in a committee that has been
serving. In that committee you have representatives of the relevant
security agencies. We have very senior police officers, and assistant
commissioner of police with enough experience and capacity to take charge
once there are suspected security breaches.You have a very senior officer
of the SSS, Civil Defence Corps and the king of Kolokuma Opokuma and one
other traditional ruler representing the traditional rulership in that
committee. We also have one or two of the leaders of the herdsmen in that
committee, those who are herding cattle as well as those selling and
killing cows and so on. In that committee you have all of these people
monitoring developments, defusing situations. Absent such engagement and
you see why other states have these violent clashes. If you look at the
papers, the reports of such clashes are daily and this was almost
spreading down to us so we took a proactive security measure first to put
this committee in place so that they always resolve this conflicts and
disputes and then we discuss it in the security council. What we decided
to do is to confine them to an area and regulate their activities and
operations. We put up structures and mechanisms of identification because
from the reports we have read, cattle men and herdsmen will come attack
places and run away, nobody will know who has done it. We say that cannot
happen in this state. In that place of husbandry there is a register. All
those who have cattle must be registered in the state. If you come into
Bayelsa with any cattle we would know your identity, have your photograph,
name, phone number, and at least ask you where you come from. . They will
also pay tax every month for the services. We have not given any herdsmen
any land other than what remains government land. Bayelsa Palm is Property
of Bayelsa State government and it is in full possession, occupation and
control and management by the government of Bayelsa state. Government
offices are there, the ministry of agric is there, the senior director, in
the ministry of agriculture, the head of aquaculture are the ones driving
this. Let it be clear, the government of Bayelsa state has not given any
community or Ijaw land to herdsmen. We only provided a place where their
cattle can be raised and a place that is already used for raising cattle.
Cattle and palm plantation can effectively co-exist. We have studied it,
seen what is happening in Malaysia, Indonesia, and we believe that that
farm that is there is property of Bayelsa state and the available place
we can use now to forestall this looming crisis that is playing out day by
day in most states.
As your Governor, I have made a judgement that the dangers we face on this
cattle problem are such that providing this place of confinement is the
best solution now. We intend to construct a security post where security
men will be. And very soon we intend to enforce the registration of every
cattle rearer. It is not in the security interest of our people to allow
herdsmen who may be armed to be roaming our communities. I am not one that
will take your security lightly. There is no benefit for me in this
decision. But this is the right thing to do and it is a model that a lot
of states are looking at. There will be no permanent structures there. My
judgement in consultation with the state security council says we should
confine them. They go round destroying peoples farms and if we do not
contain them it will lead to a major clash which we do not want to see. Or
what other option do we have? is it to leave the herdsmen that come from
far and anywhere to come and wander about and take over Amassoma or other
communities? That is not good, I cannot allow that. I would like our
young men to even own cattle and rear them as a means of livelihood,
because most of the cattle there now are even owned by Bayelsans. Some of
the cattle is owned by our people, Igbo traders, Yoruba traders and so on.
QUESTION: Is Bayelsa State thinking of resorting to loans to complete
the massive developmentprojects you started in your first term?
Ans: Thank you for asking that question as it has given me an
opportunity to shed more light on an issue, the one about vehicle loans
for legislators which some persons have been using to incite our people
against us. We have been making a lot of sacrifice in this state, all
arms of government. For the past one year my vehicle cannot even take me
to Port Harcourt. My vehicles are all old, overused, for five years now.
Same for the Deputy Governor and all our aides;nobody has functional
vehicles anymore. The Assembly is almost two years and unlike their
colleagues, they have been working without vehicles. A number of the new
members were going to work on Okada. They have managed for two years and
so we had an arrangement with a bank, because we do not have money to pay
for it. The Doo-Akpor vehicles are all condemned, which is reducing their
effectiveness. We had an arrangement with a bank to purchase the vehicles
for Doo-Akpor and also for the Assembly members so that we can pay
gradually. It is not as if we took loan of N3b to go and pay for vehicles.
It is on lease and we are servicing it gradually.
And coming to the issue you raised, Governments borrow but what is most
important is what you are borrowing for and how you execute that
objective. We took a loan which we are servicing and that has to do with
the critical infrastructure project going on at the airport and every
month the cost of servicing it is so high. People mention figures that
Bayelsa Government receives as allocation but they do not calculate the
cost of paying salaries and paying obligations every month. We are
currently servicing that facility for the airport and we all know that
there is no federal involvement in that airport. Initially we wanted a
partnership but the federal government failed completely on this and even
the navigational instruments at the terminal that they were to build they
have not done and we cannot wait. Our state, as far as we are concerned in
the government, is in a hurry for development so we had to take that
facility, we are working on it and it is almost completed. I have received
financial advice from the finance team that at some point we may need to
re-finance that obligation. Because we cannot be sure how our monthly
earnings will be and I have made a commitment this year that we will not
delay payment of salaries and moving forward I will not want to pay
workers’salaries in any manner than paying fully. So with this commitment,
whether money comes in or not, or whether the allocation is low or high,
we have a binding obligation to authorise expenditures of over N4b and
this does not include local government salaries. This is why we must all
work together to make sure that the ongoing reforms are successful.
Assuming you are getting N6b or N7b, some people who do not know our
challenges somewhere will say we are getting so much money but your wage
bill is already over N4b. Not to talk about investing in security for
example, you have not talked about funding education, healthcare,
completing infrastructural projects. It is only people who sit in this
office as I do and those who work in close financial circles, managing the
public finances that know the difficulties we are managing. I cannot rule
out the possibility of some loan at some point but what I can assure all
Bayelsans is that this is a very transparent government, every month we
announce whatever we get and if you ask we let you know what we are using
it for and you are even seeing it on ground. Every development is money.
Most people think when they make negative comments they are fighting a
political party, no! You fight political parties during elections, after
elections you collaborate and work for development, security. So for
those sponsoring propaganda and blackmail, celebrate your state. Give
yourselves some credit. We are making sacrifices, we cannot even afford
vehicles. A company came and I asked how much are the vehicles. They said
N400m for convoy vehicles and even that of Deputy Governor and I said we
cannot afford that, turn them back. After salaries, what is left is not
even enough for my projects.
Because there is need to complete these life changing projects, at some
point there may be need for loan in one form or the other. Every project
has a gestation period as part of its design and signing process. We do
not have the federal interventions. It will be nice to have the acting
President move into the creeks, I have invited him already. Let them come
and see how we confront issues of development. The entire state is below
sea level. What we call roads are actually bridges. Even now we are still
sand filling Sagbama-Ekeremor road and we will soon resume that of
Oporoma. So if at some point we have to approach the market, we will raise
funding to complete our critical roads.
QUESTION: What is really delaying the completion of the Samson Siasia
Stadium?
Ans: We had an unfortunate development we did not anticipate. The
contractor gave a wrong impression and has been given all the facilities
that he needed on ground because he said he needed to be remobilised to
site to fix everything u and we said ok and he kept working only for me to
hear about three weeks ago that the gentle man says he needs more money to
import more materials. As a matter of fact, the money he needs now is more
than the total initial cost of the whole project so for me, that was
difficult to comprehend and there was need to say this was not our
understanding. That is the point we are at now. But let me also say this:
for a contract that was given 2012/2013, and particularly with the
devaluation of the Naira, it is not unreasonable for some adjustments to
be made in overall cost of the job. I have given instructions to the
finance team and commissioner for sports to meet with the gentle man who
incidentally is a Bayelsan . They are working out the details that is why
the anticipated date of commissioning became unrealistic. The stadium will
be put to use very soon.
Listener:I would like to be employed into the University of Africa
Toru-Orua, I am a fresh graduate with a second class upper degree.
Governor’s reaction: This is the first application I have received on
radio. But because of the new model we want the university to follow, I or
anybody else in Government will not be permitted to send names for
employment because these are the things that contributed to the over
bloated wage bill we are complaining about. I was delighted at the last
report that over 6,000 of our sons and daughters applied for scholarship
places of only 4,000. That shows that there is need for more universities.
I invite the private sector to participate actively in this area. In this
state we do not even have a private university which is a contribution to
development and human capacity building.
At the end of this ongoing re-organization, the only thing I can do is
send a lot of qualified people who are already in our payroll with
teaching qualification to our primary and secondary schools because this
state needs a lot of teachers. Because of the boarding schools we are
building everywhere, we have set up the Education Safety Corps. We will
recruit and I have asked the security people to prepare a training manual
for our young boys and girls to enable them acquire the skills to secure
our schools. As a matter of fact, there is a lot of employment
opportunities coming this year. But first you must be prepared to go to
work.
QUESTION: When will you make the appointments for the caretaker committee
for the RDA’s so that the people in our villages and communities will
also feel your presence?
Ans: The reality in the RDA’s is that, every RDA has a minimum staff
strength of 250-300. If you multiply that by 32 you know what that means.
That is the ugly reality in Bayelsa. I am happy you raised the issue
because that is one area we have the biggest wrath. People do not go to
work. Those RDA’s were created with the intention of bringing government
closer to the people. Now you have very senior people posted there and
they do not go to work. Some of them do not even have secretariats yet we
have up to 400 people earning salaries. This is part of the challenge. We
appreciate the grass root support because that made it possible for us to
win the election so do not worry we will reach out. This government has
also made a lot of appointments and we will recognize that.
QUESTION: Why is the state having University of Africa as state -owned
private university and having NDU as state- owned public university? How
do you think the AU can create access road for the poor Bayelsans to
afford its tuition fees if NDU is getting tough on school fees?
Ans: Fees are high but children are being sent even from Bayelsa to
Ghana and they pay fees in dollars. Nigerians send their children to UK,
Canada and so on. Our calculation with this model is that very soon, the
UA will be an international university where people in Nigeria will send
their children to. This is part of the big dreams of this government. The
UA is an opportunity not just for Bayelsans but for Nigerians to send
their children to and receive education instead of sending them outside.
The programme is such that in 4 years the children will finish, no ASUU
strike and so on. The UA attracts world class lecturers.
I want to use this opportunity to appreciate Bayelsans for their support
especially for the election and for the triumph in spite of the
challenges. We are now concluding the first year of our second term to
the glory of God. The last two years have been very challenging as a
result of developments in our national economy. We are trying our best to
utilise our public resources in such a way to advance our common good. We
have also been working hard to look at all the areas we need to look at,
addressing the work culture and delivering on the paradigm shift in
governance that we brought this year. Be rest assured that every resource
coming to Bayelsa is well spent. Your state is in safe hands and we hope
that things turn out well for our country. I want to use this opportunity
to call on all Bayelsans, Ijaw people, this is no time for bickering
especially over small things. This is a time for unity, closing of ranks,
for encouraging and supporting one another because these are very
interesting times for our country and you can be rest assured that you
have us that have been here as servants of our people that you have all
known me to be. I am not saying I am perfect, but you cannot take away the
fact that we are committed, passionate and we are following a broad
comprehensive vision. We need your support, encouragement on the issues
of economy, to broaden the base of our economy, issues of investing and
expanding critical infrastructure and on the issues of security. We are
open for discussion as to how we can make initiatives better. Let me make
it clear that as a governor, I will not sit here and allow herdsmen to
invade our communities. Any herdsmen that is found with arms will be dealt
with accordingly.
Tomorrow will be the end of my first year. We still have three years to
go God willing. And because this is a season of love, I being the only
Valentine Governor, I want to wish you all happy Valentine!
And for your information I have directed the establishment of the motor
cycle patrol squad and very soon they are going to have their
communication facilities co-ordinated from our security command control
centre to keep all of you safe.
ENDS…