EXCLUSIVE: CHALLENGES IN TODAYS NIGERIA….. Haruna Sae’ed Kajuru Speaks

"Every leader has to take certain blames but it is not in every issue that we have to place every blame or fault on the President alone" ..... Haruna Yunusa Sae'ed.

"At the various levels, there are people who are in authority and should be answerable to certain ills in their domain. The governors have certain responsibilities and the President has certain responsibilities".

 

Malam Haruna Sae’ed Yunusa Kajuru, pioneer Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries and Transparent Initiative, NEITI requires no introduction in the political discourse of Kaduna state or the nation at large.

As gubernatorial candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP in the 2019 governorship elections, AG, as his teeming supporters fondly call him, is an advocate of good governance.

Haruna Sae’ed has remained consistent in his call for quality governance that will remove the people from poverty and insecurity.

 

Excerpts:

Sir, the insecurity situation is daily becoming a worrisome issue that tops discussions across the country. Many have pitched the blame on the doorsteps of the President, saying that he is not being effective enough to checkmate the impunity and criminal acts of these criminal elements. What is your reaction to all of these, being a prominent stakeholder?

 

Thank you very much. Yes, I think every leader has to take certain blames but it is not in every issue that we have to place every blame or fault on the President alone. At the various levels, there are people who are in authority and should be answerable to certain ills in their domain. The governors have certain responsibilities and the President has certain responsibilities. Now, how do we identify some of these issues being related to different levels of authority.

One, you know that the crime in this country, has many dimensions. One form is from the ideological issue where you have issues of faith dominating the way and manner people conduct themselves; you have issues of Boko Haram, you have issues of so many religious sects that have been doing so many things that have either rightly or wrongly, especially now that we are talking about the wrong side of it. You have many of such both in Islam and in Christianity and there are quite a number of sects that are not quite seen to be doing the right thing.

Then, you come to talk about this banditry, which is a new dimension in crime that has escalated to a level that is very threatening to the peace and the wellbeing of many communities in the north as being threatened and as killings, maiming and rape and what not, including a whole village; whenever there are attacks, are being affected. Another form you have are the clashes that you have among people that are supposed to be living together and, it is either ethnic and could be coloured to have religious colourations, it could be inter town or inter village conflicts, it could be land disputes, it could be similar things. So, people carry arms against one another. That in itself is criminal.

Then, you have the issue of kidnapping for ransom. Kidnapping has taken a huge toll on the society. Every part of the north is affected as people are carted away for money as ransom and sadly, some do not come back alive. Some are raped and maimed while in captivity. There are so many issues surrounding that. While some of the communal issues that we talked about can be easily be handled by the governors at the state levels, they also allow these to fester and as such, you cannot blame the president on those areas. Some of them are because of mis-governance by the governors and the people vent their anger on their neighbours instead of looking at the right issues. Some again are because of injustice on the way they conduct themselves. These people then vent their anger on the people around them; hapless people.

What I am trying to say is that, it is not everything that the president should answer. Some of them are at the tables of the governors.

 

Sir, the recent increases in the pump price of petrol and the hike on electricity tariffs is viewed as the president showing insensitivity about the plight of the common Nigerian, considering that the people have only just emerged from the corona virus pandemic after a period of lockdown. Many have protested against the hike.

Do you think the increments are appropriate at this time?

 

Well, the issue is that, these have to be viewed in many dimensions; majorly, two. One is the fact that the government position, regarding the pricing, has all along been talking about subsidy. That they are subsidizing and that this subsidy is so much covered in corruption and that people are involved in this in many dimensions. One is the fact that, why do you have to import refined petroleum? This is because, so many things are happening with many equally benefitting or even stealing in the name of reimbursements of subsidy claims. If you remove it, that aspect of the theft will not be there. Secondly, it is supposed to bring in, people who would set up refineries in a way, and bring in competition into the market in the country. Three, there is the issue of neighbouring pricing and that is the smuggling being talked about. Therefore, what you have is that, at a low price, you do not consume most of the quantity that is said to be in the country; most of it is being evaporated through smuggling to the neighbouring countries. If the price is right, that level of smuggling will not be there. Alternatively, there will be some form of margins that will come to the country in terms of price differentials.

The fourth aspect is that every job is being supported abroad in terms of the poor economy. So if the fuel is being refined locally, there will be gainful employment across. That is what we should be looking at.

Every price that is high, is not good for the people but we should look at other consequences as we have failed in controlling so many things at the corruption aspect and those four things that I have mentioned, will help greatly in helping the economy instead of destroying it.

The same is the issue of energy; power. They always complain of the fact that the price is too low for them to give us stable electricity supply, so much is happening, and the country is suffering for it.

If that is the pricing that will give Nigerians steady and constant electricity supply which again, will lead to competition among the various companies, with so much achieved at the end of the day, then, the price will eventually come down.

Again, if that is claimed to have been spent on subsidy can be channeled to what Nigerians need most; education, health, infrastructure in the form of roads and many more, then, the human lives will be better for it. Agriculture can receive a portion of it and security, majorly, can be seen to be in check. We have so much insecurity and that we have talked about earlier on, that resources at the disposal of government can help contain this insecurity.

 

Sir, you talked about subsidy and importation. If you recall very well, prior to the emergence of the Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2015 as President, it was alleged, by their political party; the All Progressive Congress, APC that there was nothing like subsidy in Nigeria. Also, we have four refineries in Nigeria but sadly, none of these four refineries can be said to be functional as at today, in terms of refining of petroleum products.

Sir, who is to blame as the government, on one hand says there is no subsidy? The refineries which are supposed to refine the crude into Petrol and other products are not functional and as a result, the country has to continue importing.

There are two things that you have said here. One is the fact that the President, at one time said that there was no subsidy and later came up again now, to say that there is subsidy. For me, there are two things; one, he ought not to have uttered the much that he said at that time, with affirmation that “there was no subsidy”. Maybe, there should have been a promise to look into it.

The second aspect is, now that he has again believes that there is subsidy, he needs to tells Nigerians that, yes, he has realized that, what he said was not right. So that, he owns up to the fact that, what he had said earlier, was not right and then, do what is necessary in order to improve the economy. And, that is to remove the subsidy which he is now removing and ensure that wqe are better for it and not the other way round. Certainly, a country like Nigeria requires massive investment which we are currently lacking. This is because, people would love to come to this country if we have security, better infrastructure in the form of roads. As you know, you cannot travel by road now as, aside the insecurity situation, the roads are horrible. You also can not go to the hospitals with the certainty that you will be well received and be provided with the best treatment as we understand that the machines are just not there. You also, cannot take water with that confidence that the water is portable and safe to drink. Again, the people are starving. So, they need a lot of employment which the economy can only provide if it is stable, secured and with good infrastructure and again, an educated workforce. We certainly do not have that educated workforce.

 

Sir, talking about these key sectors; education, health, security, agriculture; there are complains everywhere, that this government has failed totally.

What is your own take on this?

 

You see, in every aspect, I always tell people the fact that, it is not the quantum of money, because, money is never enough. No matter what, money is never enough but, the capacity to manage certain situations is always the best.

You manage to provide roads by some means and you maintain it over time but you do not manage it until people continue to die, for instance. So, it is not how much money you out into the road infrastructure sometime per se but rather, the way you manage it.

If you have a development plan, take for instance, that you want to have Trunk A roads across the country that will link every aspect of the country to make it accessible in order to boost commerce, security and also, take care of human lives without accidents every now and then. You can have a good plan while you are maintain the good roads while you are creating those ones. You can do so many approaches through PPP, or, you put tolls and whatever is what doing in order to ensure that.

It is the same under education as there are many private or public institutions that are majorly, lacking in quality. Only recently, I was having audience with some group of journalists and I made it clear that even education that we need so badly, is being affected by the fact that there is no security. So, the village schools cannot function in most areas because, there is no security. This is because, the teachers cannot go to teach and same also applies to the students who cannot got to school. Then again, we talk of the infrastructure. The classrooms are so horrible. The question therefore is, you do not have quality work because of corruption. The money that you put to do a classroom, sometimes, are not well situated in the first place. The ones that are well situated, you end up discovering that the contractor has done a bad job and that it does not last the number of years that it is expected of that project. So, there is so much corruption that needed to be taken care of and some of these are at different levels; from the state through to the federal levels and even the local government councils. So, you do not look at it in that order. The moment you try to focus on human angle; how do I improve on the human capacity and wellbeing, you will discover that you are getting it right.

Take the roads for instance; everyday you will find accidents on the road with people dying. Nobody is talking about that death. The moment a driver loses his life through unfortunate police shooting, which is sad, that is the time for the drivers react. But, they should equally act when they know that their members are dying every day because of bad roads.

This is also, an integral part of mis-governance. It is not only about the Policeman hitting or shooting somebody that you say it is bad governance. The state of the roads, when they are dilapidated, then the government has to answer for it.

 

You are well versed in the financial sector. Presently, the country is neck deep in debts and of recent, we were made to understand that a rail line, running from Kano state through to Katsina which will then terminate in Maradi, in Niger Republic, was approved for construction by the Federal Executive Council, FEC.

Of what economic gain would this bring to Nigeria, considering that, this is being executed through loans secured  that have to be repaid?

 

You see, debts are in themselves, not bad. If you talk about the level of indebtedness that a country is faced with, those who look at the debt GDP ratio, believe that we are still not in danger. The World Bank and other international creditors do not see our debt level as horrible but, the major issue is the purpose. What do we borrow to do? Is it worth it? What would be the benefits that would be derivable from the project and, the project cost, is it worth the cost that we are talking about? What is the cost valuation?

So, there are quite a number of aspects that we need to look at. If it is worth it, then there is nothing wrong with borrowing, iof you have the capacity to repay. In the first instance, you need to look at the Nigerian government, the Nigeria that we have today, is suffering horribly from a lack of infrastructure. Providing the infrastructure is greatly necessary. It is expected. So, when you have a rail line that cuts across; you know, some of the rail lines that we even had, are no longer there. For instance, if you go to some areas like Bauchi, Gombe areas, the rail lines are no longer there. Some of these states needed it to boost their commerce, agriculture and what have you but it is just not there anymore. So, you can have that without having to complain about it and, I expect that every society have to pay for certain services that they get, in terms of costs. Nothing is going to be free, per se. so, it is good to have road networks across, trains, water transport systems and what not. It is in order.

 

Many have insisted that there is nothing economically derivable from that axis, particularly, the Maradi end, with Nigeria bearing a very high percentage of the costs of constructing the rail line.

 

I disagree with that kind of thinking. What is the transport systems meant to do? They move goods and human being. Are you saying that there are no human beings or goods there? Ideally, the goods that are transported from Lagos; go to Tafa, Maraban Jos, or even Kawo every night, to see the number of vehicles going up north. Some of these trucks spend crazy hours on the road, due to the traffic grid, caused by these trucks that move goods and services that they are either taking, or bringing.

In those areas, there are animals that are being moved to the Western and Eastern parts of the country, every day and some of them are maltreated due to the travelling time and from the way that they are cramped into the trailers. With efficient trains, it will take shorter time for delivery of goods and services to their various destinations, in good shape. There are also, agricultural exports that the people can benefit from in delivering goods to the coastal areas.

Therefore, I do not agree that it is a wasteful project. There is always a purpose for the creation of every transport system and this will certainly, serve its purpose.

 

Sir, in Kaduna state, there are issues pertaining to the selection and installation of a new Emir for the Zazzau Emirate Council, to replace the late Alhaji (Dr) Shehu Idris of blessed memory by the Kingmakers. There are complains. Do you see this complains as legitimate?

Well, I think that one thing that necessitated this was the delay. It was not right to have delayed the appointment. I have issues concerning the delay and timing. Again, it is not right for a system to be so established and then discarded. There is a procedure for appointing a King and the Zazzau Emirate is no exception.

There are Kingmakers and when they do that, it is always natural into, how the procedure is carried out.

 

As a businessperson, what is your assessment of the business environment in Kaduna state? Is it encouraging?

No! Very much no. I think for the country generally, except for the coastal areas of Lagos and Port-Harcourt and some other areas that are enjoying. Kaduna state is not left out in this suffering. We are suffering majorly because of the insecurity like I earlier mentioned. That is the number one challenge that we have.

However, the other challenge is that of the COVID-19 pandemic and the income inequality in the state is so wide. The people do not have anything but; they have to live in the same society with the affluent persons.

The business environment is very ugly and every other price is very high.

 

There are grumblings over the absence of a balance of appointments in Kaduna state, in terms of governance in the state. Prior to this advent of this current administration, the three senatorial zones are usually given considerations in the setting up of the government. Presently, it seems Zone One and Zone Two are more favoured, in the share of power and governance.

In every society, representation is important and, it will always augur well when you have the voice of the people heard through representation. That is why you have the state and indeed, the country, broken down into elective zones. You have representation in the state assembly and again, there are representations into the Senate and the Federal House of Representatives (National Assembly). The president and that of the governors also have their own limited constituency and so, it is always good to have people that can be represented, as there are different cultural representations. This is very essential. If a section is not represented in governance, that feeling of marginalization will always set in.

Therefore, it is not right to marginalize any side in the state in the aspect of governance.