Alhaji Musa Maikaya is a chieftain of the All Progressive Congress APC, in Nasarawa state, he aspired to be the governor of Nasarawa state under the platform of the APC in 2019. In this interview with selected Journalists in Toto his home local government, Chief Executive Office CEO, of Maikaya foundation bares his mind on the administration of Gov. AA. Sule. Our Northern Bureau Chief Nathaniel Gbaoron, was there and brings the excerpts.
You Aspired to be the governor of Nasarawa state in 2019 and you lost out to the present governor at the stage of primaries; are you considering to still contest come 2023?
Before now I considered the seat of the governor in Nasarawa state, in the last dispensation, as it were I wasn’t the chosen candidate and as God will have it, we have Engineer A. A Sule as the governor. For me that aspiration wasn’t born out of I needed a position, it was out of I needed to serve. You know there must be one governor and which we have now. Therefore the idea of serving my people I think shouldn’t be through one singular channel that’s why for me from 2019 till date, there are lots of activities that My foundation, Maikaya development foundation have done. It’s a way I think we can provide services to the people or mankind with our limited resources. So talking about governance in the state, to me we have a governor on seat right now so there is still time. At the moment it’s not something am even thinking of to be honest with you, not at the moment because we have a governor who is virtually two years on seat. We all contributed to him being there, am sure you know other candidates in APC who rally round the candidate to ensure we help him get Victory at the polls. I am sure you notice that he was supported till the last moment because we all collectively agreed to work for the party and to ensure he won and if you notice what came out of Toto Local government, I am sure statistics show that Toto is a true supporter of A.A Sule, so at this point in time we still maintain our support for him, he is half way into the first tenure and as you all know, he was not in government before but in the private sector. I think he still have the time to get the grasp of what he planned to do for the state. Hopefully we would be able to see something at the end of the first tenure in the state. For anybody or for me as an individual to start thinking of governance of the state while he is just two years in power I think that will be counter productive.
Are you saying your hope of becoming the Governor of Nasarawa state is dashed ?
No dashed in what way? dashed when A.A Sule succeed? dashed within what? Not when he is on seat, so there should be boundary where you describe dash. You are talking about somebody who is halfway into his tenure so nobody should aspire for anything and again today we have APC and we are all in APC, we have an APC governor on seat that we all supported to be on seat and we are okay with him, talking about any other aspiration it is after or when he is completing his mandate we have given him. When that time truly come up we shall know if there is nothing like dashed aspiration but for now there is nothing like that. Yes we have somebody on seat and we supported him to be on seat and we’re still supporting him to perform and make a difference.
Are you saying you’re comfortable with the way Governor AA. Sule is running his led administration ?
First and foremost, I must say without any form of ambiguity that the governor means well, he just came into government, he wasn’t part of the last administration, he would have had his plan like you said, he has his manifesto, until he gets to that seat before anybody will appreciate any level of what is on ground. If you don’t know what is on ground you probably be assuming from what you see, but the reality is when you are there. I know that there are issues around education recently when he came up, trying to uncover some frauds, am sure he didn’t know about that when he came in, not just that, for you to even talk about development in anywhere in the world, you need to talk about security, if you do not have security there is no way you can talk about development in any area and security I believe anybody in Nigeria knows that Sule is one of those governors that have been running to Mr President to seek support on security. He has been calling on the world to seek support, that shows it’s key issue to him and security is not something you can predict or get your data or information as planned, it can come up anywhere, anytime there could be breach anytime and suddenly you have a threat situation around security. For me if I want to assess him I will start from whether there is an enabling environment for him to even put those things he plan in place, we all agreed where security is in Nigeria today. Nasarawa state is not left out, Nasarawa state is one of the key state in Nigeria in terms of security, Toto particularly, I will say 18 months ago you won’t be able to come here, if anybody tell you to go and mine or pick gold on the street of Toto, people were not coming because of insecurity but we clearly saw his efforts and today people are coming in, people are celebrating sallah. It is one thing even if you are his enemy you will give him credit for this one so if you want to measure him in other things you will have to begin from there, that is the fundamental thing then he can take off from there He has his plans but again what he met on ground was probably not what he thought. As long as security is concerned you don’t have anywhere you can isolate a state. If there is insecurity in a neighbouring state it is likely to catch up with your own state, we have had so many breaches around our neighbours and which has ended up affecting our own state here, I think it’s the first thing we need to look into. If I will score him for me he has started on security to put measures in place a good environment for us to live peacefully then we can talk about development once there is security.
It is said in some quarters that almost 99% of Nasarawa state youths are Jobless; what is your take on this?
I don’t know where you got the statistics from, I don’t know where you got 99% from but I will question that statistics. Ninety nine percent shows that almost every youth in Nasarawa state is unemployed. I know October last year they employed two thousand five hundred (2500) teachers that can be within one percent. What am trying to say is that there are efforts. Understand something, this man wasn’t part of the last administration, he came in and he his trying to get a grasp suddenly there is security issues around the country, solve the security first before you carry out anything he his making his strides on that. With the structure of this country, if you are unemployed in kogi state, you don’t need a visa to come to Nasarawa state or Benue state, more so you find Nasarawa state conducive to stay aside from employment, which I think for us to be living peaceful, is a plus that anybody will want to move into Nasarawa state, therefore, if you have trunks of unemployment in Nasarawa state that doesn’t mean Nasarawa indigenes are unemployed in that number so it also means there are very good things that are attracting unemployed people in Nasarawa state that will bring in people to earn a living in Nasarawa state. So describing unemployment. Isolating a state describing unemployment especially a North central state as Nasarawa that houses the federal capital, seriously it’s a very difficult thing to describe, is not something you want to leave it to the state alone. Because if we check unemployment in Nasarawa, it won’t be attributed to the indigenes in Nasarawa state alone but you know there are consented efforts to ensure that in Nasarawa state there are improvements on getting people off the street and the Governor is an industrialist and he knows what it means to engage in accordance of what we call generally as human capital. he knows what it means to the society. The human assets is the greatest assets any state will have not even mineral resources, when you get the human capital you are towing to the right decision in a society. So for me let’s live in peace in the society and then we will talk about doing something positive, I think he is doing that already and there are also some skills acquisition program he has put in place and then he encourage people to participate in it. Also, I am aware that this power generation station somewhere in Lafia, Akurba which was started by former Governor, distinguish senator Umaru Tanko Almakura, recently I read in the papers about his visitation to the place, that which we know is a catalyst to get people off the street once that is ready.
Some Months ago, governors of the Southern region came together to discuss issues bordering them; Are you comfortable with that ?
It’s not the first time we have government at different regions discussing issues keen to their interest, but the system of government in Nigeria is not a regional government style of governance, they have made their points as it affects them. But in the overall restructuring. I think we have an institution that will look into this, I think any region can come up with its own rhetorics and how they want it to be addressed. You are just expelling the anger in you, but insecurity and herdsmen, I don’t want to attribute it to the south, it’s happening in the north as well, every state can say one or two things about this menace but at the end of the day we must first agree to live as a country, we must all agree there is no perfection anywhere, we must sit down to discuss and resolve as human beings.