Niger State Governor, Mohammed Bago, says his administration will focus on agriculture, in order to boost the economy of the State.
He made the remark on Tuesday, in an interview with State House Correspondents, after he met with President Bola Tinubu.
Governor Bago said due to the vast nature of land in the State, cultivating it will help address the problem of insecurity in the State.
He said: “Niger State is the largest in terms of land mass in the country and we know that in the past few years it’s been bedeviled by banditry. What are you going to do differently to ensure that the people of your State, whose mandate you enjoy today, enjoy peace?
“Yes, if you agree with me Niger State has a lot of ungoverned spaces and we are agrarian and in our strength is agriculture. So, we intend to cultivate most of your ungoverned land.
“We have a lot of water across the state, we want to encourage our irrigation farming and that is why we are collaborating with Mr. President, to ensure that the argic potential of Niger State is tapped very well. So, we will harness them. However, in the interim, we were working with security agencies in making sure that we curb this menace and by the grace of God we will come out on top.”
Pardon
He said he recently pardoned 80 inmates hitherto held in the Correctional Centre, in commemoration of this year’s Democracy Day because they have learnt their lessons and are ready to integrate into the society.
“We don’t hope to have a lot of people in the correctional center. So we hope we engage them positively but those that have been remanded, you know for some offenses and needed to pay a small amount of money, we thought it was wise, they have learnt their lessons and as a government you should be responsible for our citizenry.
“And that’s why we did that. We will always come to the needs of our people. But we hope we don’t have a lot of people to be freed from the correctional centers or taken to the correctional center,” he said.
Endowments
The Governor said his administration would harness its mineral resources to yield more resources instead of depending on revenue from the federal government.
“We are endowed as a state with a lot of mineral deposits and is not only related to the insecurity issues, most of the places where you see these banditry are places where you have lithium or gold. So a lot of these activities are kind of associated with why the banditry is springing up.
“However, yes, we will harness our mineral potentials; we don’t intend to come to Abuja every month to collect FAAC or JACK or whatever you call it. As a State we have to put all the things in order so that we can harness these potentials.
“Now the state also has Mining Corporation, where we’re hoping to have an MOU or synergy with other mining companies so that we can harness that potential and I assure you in the next one year we will come out tops,” he explained.
The Governor affirmed that in line with affirmative action, he will allocate 50 percent of his appointments to women of the State.
“Yes, as the government we are responsible and we are going to match our words with our actions. First and foremost we have issued an executive order to change all the secretaries of the local government councils to be female, that we’re going to implement in the next local government council, it is compulsory that at least all the vice chairmen of local governments will come out as female, that is one.
“Secondly, I have just made five appointments and I promise that the next one will be female. So you should be watching out for that. So we are not going to even stick to 35 percent, we will have 50-50 if needs arise,” the Governor added.
Confidence Okwuchi
