We've no hand in Abia Crisis - FG

38—VANGUARD, MONDAY, JULY 4, 2016
GovAhmed
Changing Nigeria
goes beyond APC,
PDP — Gov Ahmed
•Says change takes time to come
•Says Nigeria needs restructuring
•Believes Buhari would implement 2014
National Confab report
GOVERNOR Abdulfattai Ahmed of
Kwara State is so passionate about the
development of his state that he recently
travelled to China where he succeeded
in attracting $56 billion investments for
Kwara.
But the investments seem not to give
him concern as the crisis in Nigerian
does. And without fear of contradiction,
the governor, in this interview in Abuja,
said Nigeria needs restructuring even as
he denies that President Muhammadu
Buhari has jettisoned the report of the
2014 National Confab. Excerpts:
•Ahmed: We need to identify economic strength
By Levinus Nwabughiogu
AS a governor on the
platform of All
Progressives Congress, how
would you evaluate APC
government in the last one
year?
Yes, the promised change has
come. Is it short of people’s
expectation?It isn’t short of
people’s expectations because it
would be unfair to begin to create
assessment without looking at
where you are coming from,
where you are and where you
want to be.
Where are we coming from? We
are coming from a process where
democracy has been on ground
for the last 16 years. The
president came in last year to
meet a baggage of huge
problems on ground and it isn’t
about APC, it is about us as a
country to truly move this thing
forward.
Yes, APC came with a mantra
of change to let people see that
we need to do things differently
for us to begin to make things
different and these changes
won’t come overnight.
We have seen changes in areas
of corruption eradication because
we know it is part of ensuring
good governance. We have seen
changes that are also coming in
from infrastructure deployment.
The government is coming up
with deploying infrastructure in
energy, road and water at
national and sub national levels;
but of course, the challenges are
enormous. So, that is why the
changes are slow. But I want to
let you know that except we truly
sit down as a country and agree
that we have to jointly move
forward, it is not an APC thing
or a PDP thing, it is a collective
responsibility.
This idea of thinking a section
of the country or a part of the
country would move us forward
is not doable; it is a collective
responsibility. Let us put our
heads together and agree that we
have a set goal of where we want
to be at a point in time and put
our resources together to take us
to that level.
Homogeneity
in religion
That is where we are today as
a country because we have seen
it severally in different parts of
the world that homogeneity in
religion, homogeneity in race,
and homogeneity in language
doesn’t guaranty success.
What guarantees success is the
ability to organise ourselves
under set rules and allow
ourselves equity and fair play
that would take us to the
Promised Land and that is what
we need to do as a country and
luckily we have a leadership with
the will and that is ready to take
us to that level.
Some people are calling for
the restructuring of Nigeria.
What is your take on this?
Certainly, Nigeria needs to be
restructured. When you are using
a process that hasn’t translated
into benefits, you change it. But
each time when you talk about
restructuring, people fear that it
is a way of backwarding the
country.
No. It is a way of reviewing
things. If it hasn’t taken us to the
Except we truly
sit as a country
and agree that
we have to
jointly move
forward, it is not
an APC thing or
a PDP thing, it is
a collective
responsibility
promised land, what new ways
do we need? For instance, if you
look at our restructuring in the
past, it has largely been political.
That is why the economic impact
isn’t felt.
We need to restructure on
economic lines which might also
require geo political
restructuring but the most
important thing is the economic
line.
We need to identify economic
strength and put our energy in
those strength with specific ends
in mind and allow those
economic ends to truly begin to
transform into human capital
development and into wealth
creation.
That is the kind of restructuring
I think Nigeria should go
through today and that is what
will give everyone a sense of
comfort without necessarily
relying on a section of the
country for support because
every section of the country has
one potential or the other.
So, the restructuring will bring
potentials to the fore and allow
everybody to contribute to human
capital development and
economic growth and at that level
you begin to see that we are not
threatened by any section of the
country taking laws into their
hand and allow for the situation
we are faced with.
But President Buhari has said
that he would jettison or at best
archive the 2014 Confab report?
We are not aware that the
president is going to jettison it.
He said he is going to put it in
the cooler and the reason is very
simple. You can only fight a battle
at a time.
There is high level of insecurity.
There is a huge economic
downturn. There is a low level of
human capital development.
There is infrastructural deficit. You
can’t be fighting these and say
you want to restructure the
country at the same time.
You need to bring the country
to a basic minimum level where
we will begin to see
implementation of whatever has
been put in the conference. So, I
think the president isn’t incorrect
by saying that.
School feeding
programme
There is a minimum level we
need to stand on before we begin
to talk about implementation. The
challenges we have at hand, for
instance, security challenges are
enormous and we are now
having economic challenges
which are now becoming security
challenges.
Is your state planning to key
into the Federal Government/
Osun school feeding
programme?
Of course, we hope to key into
the school feeding programme as
we move on. Don’t forget it is
largely a federal government
supported programme and states
will only key into that to show
their support so that it has an
overall desired impact. As a state,
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