Infrastructural growth is an aspect of governance that must be in place for the populace to thrive. The good people of Kogi want to live in an environment where their efforts would be properly rewarded. Thus, we must lay the ground work to enable this for them.
We must be able to deliver adequate infrastructure for our people to reach their full potential. Power, Transportation Networks, and Social Infrastructure like Education and Healthcare facilities are basic amenities that our people do not have. It is the least that can be expected of any government. Are things so bad we cannot even provide the barest minimum for our people? They are not asking for too much. We need a leader with the right skillset to stimulate growth, grow our infrastructure to an acceptable level, and then take us beyond that. We need administrators with specialist qualities to meet our most pressing needs. Someone with a background in funding and developing large scale capital projects. Someone who has built a career in Quantity Surveying. Someone with a renowned proficiency in Project Management. Someone with a history in Public Private Partnerships (PPP). That someone is QS Aminu Abubakar Suleiman.
Kogi needs a government with the foresight to prepare us for tomorrow. We need one with dedication for governance and the ability to boost our economy, meeting our immediate needs while planning for our future. A 20-year plan. This is the bargain we will get with QS Aminu, this is the deal he is offering us. He is offering us a revolution, an Infrastructural Revolution.
This is a mass undertaking on the development of areas we need to focus on, how we propose to do it, and how we propose to fund it. Power, Transportation Networks, Healthcare and Education. Kogi needs a governor that understands these and stands for them. One with the industry know-how to build a legacy for not just us but for generation to come.
Although we understand that our brand of Federalism, here in Nigeria, concentrates a lot of power at the centre, leaving a lot of crucial projects at the whim of the Federal Government (FG), we uphold our stance that the state must actively take a role in infrastructure. For it is foolhardy for Governors to wait around praying the FG will prioritise projects in their states. This would be the equivalent of a man praying to God every day for riches but taking no steps to actualise this goal. To reach maximum efficiency, development must occur on both fronts, at the state level and the federal level. States must ultimately have to dig deeper to finance projects that serve mainly local residents, as the purview of the FG is fixated on National interest, the state interest often becomes a casualty of opportunity cost. We must take on our infrastructural deficit as if it is our sole responsibility to bear, and view FG intervention as an added bonus.
We must, however, maintain a cordial relationship with the centre to foster the necessary ties granting us leeway to negotiate autonomy over Kogi State projects, as QS Aminu previously illustrated with the Ajaokuta Steel Mill. This would allow us to use non-government funded methods to finance our development. This is where QS Aminu’s expertise come in. He is poised on bridging our infrastructural gap through innovative means. Means which are new to our landscape but have been tried and tested elsewhere. We must take a chance with him to bring fresh new ideas to Kogi. As a Chartered Quantity Surveyor of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, he is a man who has reached the pinnacle of his practice, excelling exponentially and proving to be the best of the best, and is ready to bring this success to Kogi. It is our time. If we want it, and the prosperity that comes with QS Aminu, we must reach out and take it.
We cannot sit by idly and watch our people get hoodwinked at the polls by the ruling elites once again. In this time, day and age we must be politically matured enough to seize the moment and usher in a new political class. One with compassion for the state, accountability to both God and man, and most importantly, the ability to lead. For it is fairly evident that in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic the most successful Governors, the ones who have brought about meaningful change, have been the ones who have initially excelled in the private sector. The ones who came into governance with a knack for administration, not the usual careers politicians we’ve been saddling with since 1999, with their unrelenting thirst for power. We need real technocrats with actual skills to build our beloved State. We must attract businesses to Kogi, industries.
The geography of our great state has naturally placed us to become the industrial hub of the nation, but we must position ourselves even better to actualise this very achievable goal. The road to achieving this is both strenuous and copious, but it is nothing we are not driven and educated enough to achieve. We will start by creating fantastic and well-planned road networks, for trucks to haul raw materials and finished goods in and out of Kogi. Roads are our primary mode of transportation.
In Kogi, a large number of roads are unpaved, isolating people from basic healthcare services, education and economic opportunity. This is especially pronounced with our rural population. Remedying this problem will be done through strategically prioritising roads which would best realise our goals in the short term, while mapping out future networks that would bring about the best results moving forward. But in the short term, we shall rehabilitate the prioritised existing roads, whether State or Federal, while immediately beginning the construction of the much-needed newer ones.
Power wise, we must provide a more stable supply of electricity to ease the cost of doing business. There is no single infrastructural development that would have a bigger positive impact of our economy than fixing the Power Sector. Thus, we must consider multiple means of generating electricity. One could be the creation of a Solar power generation plant on the abundant land Kogi has. Smart leadership is utilising the things at your disposal and turning them into advantages. Kogi must utilise the abundance of sunlight we receive every day. We can harness it. Beyond that there is also the possibility of wind turbine plants, an area we are yet to largely explore but a possible solution nonetheless. Solar and wind are renewable types of energy, they are the energy of the future and the direction in which most of the developed countries are leaning towards.
Some may argue that Nigeria is not yet ready for such, and that we should stick to the more ‘out-dated’ non-renewable methods. My response to them is, why can’t we do both? QS Aminu’s vision is, while implementing the establishment and the creation of cleaner renewable methods of solar and wind, we make use of the abundance of coal in Kogi. Our coal fields of Ogboyoga, Ozaba, Orukpa and Ezimo, are estimated to have reserves of 300 million tonnes of coal. This is enough coal to provide us with many years’ worth of energy supply. Power generation is however not the full picture. In conjunction with the FG we must create new power lines to illuminate our rural areas starved of electricity.
Social Infrastructure, namely Education and Healthcare services, is crucial for both our short and long-term successes. It directly contributes, significantly, to our human development and poverty reduction, being a critical enabler for productivity and sustainable growth. As a man with numerous degrees from all over the world QS Aminu understands the value of a good education. It is what has made him into the man he is today. A man poised to lead us into tomorrow.
He also recognises the good work a select number of foreign and domestic Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have done and are doing in Nigeria. His aim is to partner with these selected NGOs to boost Education and Healthcare in Kogi. Importing the skill and aptitude of the best international practices, with the view of raising our standards. This is inclusive of, the building of schools & hospitals, supply of equipment, training of staff, remodelling of school curriculums, amongst many other benefits we will gain. The creation of global strategic partnerships is what will usher us into our bright future.
QS Aminu is adamant on coupling conventional with non-conventional methods to raise the needed finance to fund this infrastructural revolution. One being the use of Non-interest financing instruments (sukuk). This mode of raising Infrastructural capital is new to our landscape and is quickly gathering momentum. Appearing in the public sector through the N10 Billion Osun Sukuk, and recently followed by a N100 Billion Federal Government Sukuk. It is a proven method of financing that we could greatly benefit from and must tap into. This would be complemented by the conventional Bond Issues, a popular vehicle for funding state and local governments. We shall also look to organisations like the African Finance Corporation and the African Development Bank, organisations whose mandate is the same as the vision QS Aminu professes for us, boosting infrastructure.
Another method QS Aminu plans on using to deliver infrastructure is through fiscal responsibility. Resources are limited, state governments must utilise Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) and Federation account allocation committee (FAAC) allocation sagaciously.
QS Aminu aims to curb the excessive spending of Government and utilise the money saved to carry out real projects. In the year 2018, alone, this current administration budgeted N8.14 billion for Government House expenses. This is more money spent on the Government House than on our Ministry of Education, Science & Technology, Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Culture & Tourism combined. It is also more money spent than our Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Kogi Road Maintenance Agency, Ministry of Budget & Planning, Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Rural Development.
This sort of wasteful spending and misplaced priorities are reasons why the current administration is both unpopular and underperforming. Their blatant failure to channel our finite resources into much needed areas is costing us our future. We have a government that, in 2017, spent almost N300m on the cleaning and fumigation of the Kogi State Government house, in one year alone. 300,000,000.00 MILLION NAIRA! Just to clean and fumigate. This is an amount similar to the annual cost of cleaning, and all forms of maintenance and repairs done in the White House, the home of the American Presidency, within the same period of time. A building which is more than three times the size of the Kogi Government House and occupies 18 acres of land mass. We have to be fiscally responsible.
By reining in Government profligacy, we will have capital to impact the peoples lives.
Outside the above, we must look to the private sector to be a driving factor in our revolution, for it is not feasible without them. Our role would be to create a conducive environment for the private sector to thrive. Through state-wide tax incentives and the creation of an Export processing zones (EPZ), for factories, a new Kogi would look to attract both Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI).
The EPZ is of particular interest to QS Aminu as it is a major indicator of his unwavering desire to build our great state into the industrial hub of not just Nigeria, but Sub-Saharan Africa. We shall create the Kogi State Industrial Zone, an EPZ, that will concentrate major industries in one area in order for them to mutually benefit from the world class infrastructure we shall situate there, creating a spirit of cooperation and synergy amongst various sectors to boost both productivity and profitability. Which shall in turn lead to higher IGR for Kogi and boost the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of our nation. It will be an industrial version of our very own Silicon Valley, making Kogi the Industrial hub of Sub-Saharan Africa.
QS Aminu is the vision of Kogi. He is our future Governor. With him at the helm, WE CAN, WE WILL.
– Barr Mohammed Yunusa writes from Abuja.
