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Title: We Want to Transform Nasarawa to a Modern State - Deputy Governor
Story Filed: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 11:50 AM EST
Lagos (Post Express, May 31, 2000) - In the academic world, Dr. Onje Gye-Wado is a respected person. He was the Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Jos, Plateau State, where he made a mark as a teacher. Today, he is the Deputy Governor of Nasarawa State.
Last week, when Metro Editor, ONUOHA UKEH and Nasarawa State Correspondent, PATRICK ODEY, spoke with the deputy governor in Lafia, he was his usual self, addressing issues with much articulation. He spoke on economic and socio-political issues, especially as they affect Nasarawa State. Excerpts.
Since your assumption of office, what has been your greatest achievement?
You know when you are dealing with a country as vast as Nigeria and you are dealing with a history that is as complicating as that of Nigeria probably identifying what is right and wrong, it will be very difficult. But certainly, one thing we can all say without fear of contradiction is that the democratic dividend is such that has delivered services to our people and in consultation with our people, i.e. we are confronted with a situation in which the government has been very responsible and responsive, and things have been done, in most instances, to deliver services such as health, education, social amenities, rural infrastructure, water, electricity to our people in such a manner that many have not easily been done, in the former dispensation.
So democracy has opened up space with which the attitude of government, the behaviour of government and the reaction and responses of the people are such that is complementary towards the development of the society. So if we must make a choice, I think democratic experience has provided Nigeria with such opportunity that the delivery of service has improved and has been responsive to the needs and aspirations of our people.
What has the government been able to do, specifically?
In the actual fact, what we have done is as soon as we came into power, we had to assess what was on ground in terms of facilities, infrastructure and institutions, and in order to meet the aspirations of our people, we decided to take this steps and develop a blue print in the development of these areas. So, for instance, in the health sector, it was deliberate for this government that in each local government, there must be a general hospital, and we have done so, improving on those that were in existence, and creating new ones, for instance, in Akwanga, Wamba, we are rehabilitating and bringing into place that of Kiana and a few other places we renovated. So we can say comfortably that all local government areas have general hospitals.
When we looked at the area of education, which is our primary focus, as a PDP government, in Nasarawa State, we were very, very disappointed with the standard of education in the state, and we felt we must take step, and as a concrete measure and evidence of our commitment our budgetary allocation to education is the highest, and so we started off by first providing a befitting enabling environment for learning, and we have therefore, engaged in mass renovation of our schools. In addition to this renovation, we have also provided facilities in terms of textbooks, laboratory equipment, and desks, and other materials that are necessary for learning. We went ahead to create six science schools, two in each senatorial districts, and equipped them to cope with the demands of science education. Apart from the equipment, including computerisation, we felt that it was necessary to also address the welfare of teachers, and we have put in place such packages in order to provide necessary incentives to teachers, and we believe that that is the way to raise the morale of the teachers in order to get better result.
We also understood, when we came to power, that the posting of teachers, principals, vice principals, were haphazard, and we thought that in critical institution or centre like education there ought to be some order, and therefore, we restored order in the appointments of principals, vice principals in the school so that seniority, competence are taking into consideration without necessarily jeopardising the interest of the geopolitics of the state as it were, and we are therefore, looking at a situation in which, while we provide the enabling environment the teachers must also be enabled to cope with the demands.
But even more fundamentally, we have decided that we will employ any Nigerian that wants to teach in Nasarawa State, and we want to take over 1,400 across the nation, and we are prepared to give the teachers the same conditions as persons who are normally resident in Nigeria, if they want contract appointment we will give it to them, if they want tenured appointment we will give it to them; because we don't have it we want them to dictate their terms and we will continue to do that, because some of us have benefited from teachers who do not come from our ethnic group, and there is no reason why we should not give the pupils and students of Nasarawa the best education that we can given the available resources. So we are going to be on continuous recruitment of teachers, particularly in the sciences, to meet with the demand in our school system.
We have also, as a government, developed a road network, because we believe we have to open up the rural areas. Nasawara State is a rural state and the ambition of the PDP government in Nasarawa State is to transform the state to a modern state. We do not want to create the problem of urbanisation. We want to deliver services to people in their environment. We don't have to relocate them to provide services. All we want to do is to transform Nasarawa State from an undeveloped rural state to a modern rural state.
Also communication is one area we are looking into as we are opening up the rural areas. We have awarded contracts for roads, there are those that would remain at laterite level because we do not have the resources to provide asphalt. There are those that we may not just build bridges across very large streams because there are existing local roads to facilitate movement of people as it were. So, across the state we have developed a road network, that would provide the rural people with access to the neighbouring community, through the market and the other Nigerian community so that they can interact and relate with the other members of the community.
Following this, we have provided electricity either from the national grid where it is possible for our communities or we embark on solar energy, and we have test piloted it, and we are building, providing solar energy in Agwada, Mada station, so that as soon as we are able to see how cost-effective it is, we continue to rely on solar energy in such hinterland communities that will take a longer time to get linked on the national grid.
We are also toying with the possibility, but we don't know how possible, it would be, to generate electricity with windmills. We are commissioning people to take a look at it, to find out the feasibility, whether we have the condition necessary to use windmill to generate electricity. If we can, we are excited about that possibility. We do know that they exit in other countries.
Of course, in most areas we have provided boreholes that use this solar to generate water, portable water for the community, because there are a number of communities that have water problem. So those that are not on the Akwanga-Keffi-Idoma water network, get provide water through boreholes, and we hope that by the time we are through most communities should have portable water to drink, and we will use solar where it is not possible to get linked to the national grid, and where the community is not very large we may just provide portable water in some other forms available to the community locally, as it were. These are what we have been trying to do.
What you have done so far is very impressive, but what are we going to expect in the next three years when you round off your administration?
First, what we would do is to consolidate and improve on the services that we have provided, and this will also offer us challenges in more areas. For instance, if we are able to achieve a second level of development in the area of education, we are hoping that in the next one or two years we would be thinking about setting up a university in order to raise the intellectual capacity, intellectual atmosphere of the state.
For those of us who are resident in Lafia, you will recall that we have all sorts of satellite campuses, and all sorts of persons, all manner of people claim that they have competence to teach and graduate people with university degree. We feel very sad about the situation and we realise that that is because of the demand for higher education, and we cannot allow our population to be hook winked into being taught by person of doubtful competence, and yet we do not have an alternative, and we are modestly thinking about setting up a state university that can address this problem. But what is more fundamental to us is that we need an intellectual environment which will raise the level of our consciousness and level of the articulation of our people and response to issues and problems.
We also hope that during this other period, we will develop sufficient attitude and disposition among our people to realise that the democratic dividends are more beneficial to any other form of governance. And so, if at the end of the day we are able to achieve that psychological, mental disposition for our people to realise that democracy is a worthwhile venture, we would have attained a certain level of commitment which this country needs to be able to move on more meaningfully because the system in which it got cracked along the way so often also affects the level of our development as a nation, and so we will build on that.
We also hope that as a governance we will continue to respond to the various demands of the communities because while we may initiate a number of these programmes there are peculiarities that may require definite government response, and in such circumstances, if we are able to establish a general approach to some issues, we would then be responding to specific issues where we need specific action, and this will continue because as soon as we discover that same measures have been taken, there are always repercussions, fallout, spillover and our responsibility is to manage this repercussion, manage this spillovers in order to have a coordinated approach to governance, in order to have a coordinated governmental response to the needs of our people, and I am sure that we would have a full basket throughout the tenure and we would always have other things to contend with.
You will recall that Lagos State and Nasarawa states are probably the only states on the internet now, which will mean that our approach to IT would involve our continuous development of our website and other systems of communication in the state, but we are toying with the possibility of networking the state, and as soon as we are able to get out there we will do it so that it will be easy for the person in Kiana to have access to whatever information we want from Karu without necessarily coming to Lafia and driving all the distance. All he needs to do somewhere in his office is to access these information, and we can relate at that level and we intend to do it.
We are toying with the possibility of networking the state either at the intranet level or to link the state to our website at the internet level, but certainly we will also develop on the IT to see how much we can make government and governmental activities much easier, more accessible so that you can sit here in Lafia and access whatever information you need at another local government or ask your question through the intranet without having to bother about travelling the distances.
This will reduce the distance, increase effectiveness and improve the lot of our people, and open them up to the technology of the 21st century.
That the state government has done all these within its short tenure goes to show that you met a very strong economy on the ground. Is this correct?
Not really, I am not sure that we met a solid economy on ground. When we came in, our revenue base, internally generated revenue was totalling between N1, N2, to N3 million at best, and if a whole state is generating this per month, that is not anything to talk about. When we came in our federal allocation was also just in the region of about 300 million naira, and so we cannot say that we had money on ground.
On the contrary, our debt overhang is about 19 billion naira, and so we have more debts than resources, financial resources available to us. But because we are dealing, we are a government, we have this resources, meagre as it were, we are deciding to prioritise and manage our resources, limited as it were, effectively and efficiently.
Of course, we cannot say that these resources are sufficient, but Nigeria cannot get itself out of a credit society. There are some things that we do which we pay for immediately. Others, because they are long term, we are paying gradually or according to the pace of work done, and that can be stopped. So we are managing the little resources that are available to us, and we hope with the improvement, because we have improved our internally generated revenue since we came in to about nine million naira per month, we hope that we will go beyond that because we have contracted some consultants to tell us how to generate resources. But if you don't understand that we are a rural state, there is a limitation to which our internally generated revenue can do because the population itself is not engaged in such activities that you will generate internal revenue to the extent in which you find Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, or Kano. The best that we can do is to optimise what we can, but we cannot have any internally generated revenue that can get us out of the woods.
But we have a joker close to our chest, which is Karu, and we are hoping that after the consultants would have given us the master plan for Karu, then we can now push Karu to be our main revenue source, either in terms of rates or estate development, and because of the spill off from Abuja we might think about industries that will develop products to catch the Abuja market, and we hope that Karu will be the miracle spot in terms of our internally generated revenue. But we are still working it out, so we cannot include it in what we now have. But we hope that at the end of it, whether it is during our term or after the next four years, some persons can be hopeful of Karu in the improvement of the internally generated revenue.
Now that you have mentioned Karu, It has been observed that there is an influx of Abuja workers into the area and other communities close to Abuja. Do you see this as an advantage or disadvantage to Nasarawa State?
Well, except if you take disadvantage in the sense that for the time being we are not organised. But the moment we organised there will be an economic benefit no matter what, because any population that exists, particularly of the working class, is an economic population.
But certainly, noiw that everything is haphazard, the one problem that we do have of the Karu situation is not much of the working class falling back into Karu to stay, but it has provided a shelter for people of dubious disposition to go into Abuja, do some shaddy deals and get back to Karu and hide.
To that extent, we are worried, and I am sure that the Federal Government as also aware of the settlement pattern around Karu and its implications for the security of the federal capital territory. Otherwise, we will welcome people, Nasarawa State cannot disregard people. In fact, we need people, and the more the merrier. We want to be cosmopolitan, because we are close to the federal capital. We will accept people, and we will live with people because we are all Nigerians, and all of us must therefore contribute tÿþ government agencies without a bid process. "If you're in the book, they can just order by the numbers! Every government buyer and all government agencies utilize the GSA," said VP J.R. Cox. The company will be on line in about 10 days. (For more information see www.gsa.gov)
Senior VP Dan Mehosky announced the signing of a new Teaming Agreement between SeaView and New Technology Management, Inc. (website: www.ntmi.com) as "a huge move forward for SeaView." Oakton, Va.-based NTMI is a systems integrator with direct contacts to Federal agencies and is 8(a) certified through 2003. Started in 1990, NTMI has grown 12,493% and operates five offices nationwide. NTMI will represent SeaView products to the Port Authority, U.S. Customs, U.S. Border Patrol, the Federal Protection Agency (FPA), and others.
"This group [NTMI] is on the move," commented CEO Rich McBride. "They invited us to join them. And combined with our other Teaming Partner, Logis- Tech, we have all the bases covered."
McBride also spoke about the previous week's D.C. visit: "I'll try to give you some insight into a common presentation with SecureView, but with a major agency involved. We walked into the FPA, downtown, with the Capitol in the background. The conference room was near the main entrance. In five minutes, we had four SecureView cameras plugged in -- covering the front door, the hallway in both directions, and an adjacent office. We plugged in the PC, and were immediately monitoring all four cameras from the conference room. Utilizing the software, we 'painted' an alarm zone just around the front door. The next person to enter the building set off the alarm. The computer had already digitized the few seconds preceding the event, allowing us to see who triggered the alarm, and recorded the entire event to the hard drive. To say that everyone was impressed would be an understatement." The FPA is the agency responsible for policing all Federal buildings. The company feels that rapid-deployment capabilities are endless.
Jennifer Lawson announced that negotiations with Coach Don Shula concluded without a contract agreement. National Sponsorships continue this week on the Weather Channel: the Weekend Outlook at 6:25 p.m., June 3; and 5:25 p.m., June 7; the Beach and Boating Report at 6:16 p.m., June 4; and 4:00 p.m., June 5th and 6th. The schedule also includes "rotating" 30-second advertisements throughout the broadcast day.
New sales projections, which will include SecureView forecasts, will be out next week. Mehosky predicted "a dramatic increase, with the current government contracts -- 7th ARMCOR Division -- and National Guard plans here in the U.S., and a major consumer retail summer blitz. The company has been selling a half-million dollars a month through the Marine Division, with over 700 retail dealers. The gross revenue from 100,000 SecureView consumer cameras at $399.00 would break $40 million by itself."
website:
www.sevu.com
email: info@sevu.com
Investor Information: 727-866-3660
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created thereby. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, the ability of SeaView Video Technology, Inc. to accomplish its stated plan of business. Although SeaView Video Technology, Inc. believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements contained herein are reasonable, any of the assumptions could be inaccurate, and, therefore, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements included in this press release will prove to be accurate. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included herein, the inclusion of such information should not be regarded as a representation by SeaView Video Technology, Inc. or any other person that the objectives and plans of SeaView Video Technology, Inc. will be achieved.
SOURCE SeaView Video Technology, Inc.
CONTACT: J.R. Cox of SeaView Video Technology, Inc., 727-866-3660, or
e-mail, info@sevu.com
URL:
ntmi.com
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