Dikko Radda: 90% of Insecurity in Katsina Caused by People  from  My  State, Not  Strangers

Katsina State Governor, Mallam Dikko Radda, was among the participants at a recent conference held in Lagos. He insisted that 90 per cent of insecurity in the North-west Region of Nigeria is from locals, stressing they are not carried out by foreigners. He also spoke on other issues. 

Charles Ajunwa brings excerpts

In terms of investing in the North-west Region, can you tell us the competitive advantages, priority and de-risking tools?

First of all, I would like to say that since we were elected as governors in the North-west region, we must organise ourselves, put up a formidable team to focus on coordinated activities within the region because the problems and the challenges in the region are so complex that we cannot solve them at the individual level. We need to collectively look at it and then address them holistically. Since then, we formed a secretariat which we focus on three key issues: security, economy, and agriculture. With political will from the seven governors, we encouraged the United Nations to set up a desk called the North-west Coordination Desk under Hajia Mariam Uwais. The importance of this is that we have to look at the challenges we are facing as a region, which is very critical and key to any investments in the region.

As you rightly know, security has been an issue in the North-west, which has really scared away investments into the region, and which invariably helps to increase the malnutrition, poverty issues, and a lot of other things. If you could remember last year, we organised a North-west security summit in Katsina, in which we addressed most of the challenges against insecurity in the region, and we focused our attention on the regional approach to insecurity. As a governor of Katana State, if I address insecurity in Katana State and Zamfara could not do it, Sokoto could not do it, and Kano cannot do it, I will not achieve anything. Rather, I will just create a forum where the bandits and the criminals will move from one place to another.  So deliberately, before six months in office, I was able to set up a Katsina Community Watch Corps, which is locally-based because the insecurity in our region is really localised in the sense that all the hypotheses that foreigners are coming in is not true.

Ninety per cent of our insecurity is from locals and from the people within our States. We have to address it using the local approach. We pick these young, able men and women from the localities affected by this insecurity, and our job there is to complement the efforts of the conventional security agencies in the country so that we can all work together. They provide intelligence, they work with the community leaders, they work with the traditional leaders, and they approach it because they know the topography better than any other person, and they know where they live, they know where they are staying, and the best approach to that is addressing it locally. Since we set up this, Zamfara, Sokoto, and Kano followed with the same approach. So, it is on this note that we will be able to set up a regional security outfit that will address allour challenges under the collaboration with all the various security outfits in all the states.

Then the next approach under the secretariat of the North-west Governors’ Forum is to set up an investment opportunity summit for the North-west. As long as we continue to address one issue with another, and then coordinate it in this approach, we’ll be able to get where we want to be. But basically, the mainstay of the economy of the North-west, or Nigeria, I can say, is agriculture. Then what are the problems? Because if you don’t address the problem of agriculture, you will not get where you want to be. The major thing that we need to address is seeds. We have problems with seeds, and anything that will improve investment in quality seeds. We have cotton production. Why are we lagging behind now in terms of cotton production? It’s because we don’t have quality seeds, and this is market-based because before we used to have marketing boards, and this cotton was being graded.

There are off-takers immediately from the farm, or from the farmers, but all these things are not there now. This has really discouraged the farmers from producing it because they produce at a very low value, and then they produce lower than the cost of production. Once you don’t have quality seeds, you cannot produce a high level of production that will give you profit, or that will improve your livelihood. So these are the issues that we need to address.  Then we have the problem of land tenure system in our region, due to inheritance. You have one hectare of land, you have 10 male children, and if the father of the children dies, they will share that one hectare with 10 children. So that makes the land smaller, and how do you take advantage of a small land is when you have an improved seed.

Once you have it, you increase your production. Where you have a farm that can produce one tonne, with improved seeds, you can produce four to five tonnes. These are some of the issues that we need to address as long as we know that this is our chance, and this is the major problem affecting us. As a region, we need to look at this market-based economy to set up a marketing board, restore it, and see how we can improve on commercial farming because we should go beyond farming to feed our families. As a region, we have started to de-risk the area of insecurity, and relative security is restored to some level. It has drastically reduced to a certain level with the community approach we have established within the framework.

Nigeria is not the only country that is suffering from insecurity or any kind of other issues that are negative, but we always enjoy portraying our country or our state in a negative light. I don’t know what benefits we get out of it. I saw one major newspaper in Nigeria that said ‘kidnapping, banditry, and other form of criminality returning to Katsina’. Front page! Which is a big lie, and I don’t know what they want to achieve by doing that. Unfortunately, most of the people that are producing that newspaper, some of them are even indigenes of the state. You know, it doesn’t make any sense to portray our country and ourselves as bad. We are not as bad as others, but we can improve on what we are doing and then be able to get where we want to be.  I want to emphasise the North-west governors, we really appreciate their contribution and their efforts toward building a very formidable North-west at this time. This community approach to addressing our issues is very highly recommended for all northern states.

Can you throw more light on the displacement and market-based economy in the North-west Region you talked about?

The seven North-west Governors emphasised operation, partnership and building strategy for market-based solutions to our internal displacement as a result of insecurity and other issues that are related to our states. Also, we highlighted some of the investment opportunities, the de-risking mechanism and the way forward for the region.

How are you selling Katsina State to investors?

I think we have done so much in that regard. We work 24-hours on a daily basis addressing that. On insecurity, we have adopted local and community-based security solution and it’s working very well in the state. That has also yielded positive results in terms of investors coming to partner with us in the area of investments especially in agro-value chain. And we have also tried to provide financial stimulation to the internally displaced in terms of providing them with skills and empowerment so that they can move out of poverty level. That will give us more opportunity for reintegrating them back to the society and building their future for benefit of the state and economic growth potential of our region.

You have been in the saddle for more than two years, can you tell us some of your achievements so far?

You know, we have done a lot of things. Basically, what we did in Katsina was to encourage community-based solutions to all our problems and we deliberately created community-based development programme and this community development programme, it gives destiny to the owners of the land, making sure that they have input on what they do, what we do and the kind of interventions government provide and then for whatever, we make them to be able to be the masters of the game by providing them with all the solutions locally. Then also selecting those people that will benefit who are more dire in need of those benefits directly from the community. Everything is community-based. The projects are community-based, the support is community-based, selection is community-based and that will give the people confidence and allow them to be part of the development agenda of the administration because without the community, we will be empty.

How do you intend to make agriculture become a business rather than a culture?

We are doing that through building industries that will help to create that enabling environment, especially some basic processing plants that will process and give a little quality to what they produce. And then the state is also moving towards establishing a meat processing plant in the state because we have potential in livestock production. We are encouraging the development of livestock feed feed lots and also meat processing programme so that we can have employment for teeming youths and then gingering and stimulating the economy of the state.

All the seven governors of North-west didn’t turn up for the summit organised by the North-west Development Commission. Why?

The invitation was given to us on impromptu notice, which we as Board of Trustees of the North-west Development Commission, we were not part of the planning.