Shortly after he was re-elected in the April 26 governorship election in Yobe State, Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam said he would use his second term to serve the people better. He spoke with Mohammed Abubakar on his new objectives. Excerpts:AFTER your victory, would you agree with observers who have described the April polls as the keenest competition in recent times We had an eventful and peaceful election in Yobe. It was orderly and the level of participation was unprecedented. And at the end of each election, Yobe proved to be a true home of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) because the party won the three senatorial districts, won five out of the six seats in the House of Representatives, the 24 seats in the House of Assembly and then governorship seat. This didnt come as a surprise because we know that Yobe is a true home of ANPP. We expected nothing less from the appreciative people who gave us a landslide victory. The elections also proved those soothsayers wrong.Despite your claim that Yobe is the home of ANPP, why did the party not re-enact its winning ways during the presidential elections in the stateA lot of things were taken into consideration when electing leaders. The election was not just in Yobe; it was in the entire country. People looked at the parties and candidates. There were instances where people voted for the party, as well as the candidates and there were instances where people voted for the parties or just for the candidates. So people were determined to ensure that they voted for someone who will represent their interests and listen to them. Nigeria is a very big country and people are conscious of the fact that you do not stand as an island.After the post election violence, how does the new administration hope to ensure that peace is maintained because there is a tale of animositySome days after the elections, I extended a hand of partnership to all the leaders of the other parties especially those who contested with me. I asked them to put the election behind and join the new administration for the benefit of the people. The fact is that all of us who sought to govern the state had one destination, which is to move the state to greater heights. I dont feel I should be in enmity while trying to lead the people. We believe that what happened has happened; people have expressed their wishes with their ballots. The opportunity has been extended to anybody whose desire is to see Yobe transformed into a modern state. They should join hands with me to achieve that objective. That is all I can say.What would you do differently in the next four yearsDefinitely, it wont be business as usual. There would be a focus on people-oriented and service delivery. People who are going to be in the new dispensation must be ready to work for the people and represent their welfare. It is not going to be the same old ways of doing things; we are going to sustain the developmental tempo to ensure that at the end of the day, the peoples confidence in re-electing me is justified. We will pay attention to the healthcare sector, water supply, agriculture, education, road construction, and empowerment of the people.Now that the people have given their mandate, we have no time to waste; we have to hit the ground running.We are expecting a situation whereby the people consider all projects cited and executed by the government in their areas as their own, so that there should be a community ownership attached to it. We also expect our youths to be more hardworking. The dictionary is the only place where comfort comes before work, so we expect our youths to be hardworking before they can be comfortable. The state government intends to establish a skill-acquisition centre very soon. This is in response to thousands of youths who have expressed the need for government to provide them with employment opportunities. It used to be that over the last four years we have sent about 10,000 youths to Kano State for skills acquisition centre where they learnt such crafts as knitting, welding, carpentry, etc. The government would sponsor the youths and after the programmes, the government would provide them with the tools for them to establish their businesses. But because of the demand for these programmes, the government has decided to establish a Skills Acquisition Centre, which has been unveiled. This Centre would give our youths from the 17 local councils an opportunity to establish their businesses. They would be drawn on a continuous basis to participate in the scheme and at the end of their programmes, they will be given the funds and the tools to go and eke a living. I hope they will take this gesture very seriously because I believe as I have always said that it is better to stand on their own rather than depending on someone to feed them. It is better to give somebody the tools to catch a fish, teach him to catch a fish than just to give him one fish, because after he eats the fish given to him, that will be the end of the story. But if you teach him to catch a fish, I believe he would go fishing anytime he wants to.One common refrain in Yobe is that Damaturu, the state capital is yet to shed the toga of a rural state capital. Are there any measures to change things there, like a master planI agree that Damaturu used to be described as a rural state capital, but it is no longer the case. We have a network of roads that was laid by this administration and many people have confirmed that Damaturu is wearing a new face. All the old roads are giving way to new ones stretching all the nooks and crannies of the state capital; we have solar-powered street lights, new hospitals, projects and programmes that the state government is executing in almost all parts of the state capital. Damaturu is a transformed city and people have attested to this fact. But our focus is not just in the state capital alone. Right now in the major cities of Potiskum, Gashua, Nguru and Gaidam, major township roads and drainage projects are going on. So the development in this state is spread far and wide.There is a lot of emphasis on the state capital because it represents the kind of development taking place across the state. Besides the development of infrastructure, there are also a lot of investments in the state capital that has also attracted many visitors into the state capital on a continuous basis. We are building a lot of solar powered street lights, drilling a lot boreholes, improving our electricity supplies, extensive housing estates, in fact, there are new ones that have been allocated to the people and we are beautifying the town. Of course, we have also built a new three-star hotel, which is waiting for commissioning. Our 200-bed capacity well-equipped hospital has been completed. Our state university, which is also located in the state capital has been ranked as the fastest-growing university in the northern Nigeria by Prof. Abdullahi Mahdi, a former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria. A renowned university administrator, he is the Vice Chancellor of Gombe State University. It is significant that such a person is ranking our university. So, Damaturu is transforming and improving and in the next four years, we are going to see more of such transformation.Yobe didnt suffer any invasion in the wake of the violence that trailed the presidential election, despite its proximity to some hostile states. What does that say of the stateWe may have achieved two things that we wanted in this state. First, our approach to public security is community based; we have always involved our community leaders, traditional rulers, ward heads as well as our opinion leaders in the process of ensuring the security of lives and property in the state. Part of this is employing the services of the local vigilance groups who know their communities very well. We put them on patrol to ensure that they know people who come in and go out of the state and where necessary report any suspicious movement. So this community based approach to security has helped a lot in ensuring that there is general security.The second aspect of it is that we believe strongly in the power of prayers in this state. We ask our religious leaders, whether Moslems or Christians to pray for peace in our state and always understand that without peace, there will be no development in any society. So our people have imbibed this idea by praying fervently in their mosques and churches, even in their homes and God has been answering our prayers.So these two things more than anything are helping us. But most significantly to the state government has been the deployment of state resources in ensuring that there is security. We have provided so far over 100 all terrain vehicles to security agents for their patrol. We have continued to support not just the police but also all other security agencies to ensure security across the state, and that is why we have continued to enjoy peace and stability in the state.
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