Niger State Governor Mohammed Bago is one of the officials on Vice President Kashim Shettima’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA79) in New York. He speaks on the negative effects of State governments’ over reliance on monthly allocations from FAAC to fund critical infrastructure and development projects, and the need for coordinated Diasporian remittance support to the Nigerian economy among other issues. Newsquest brings the excerpts;
Q: What is your perspective on Diaspora support in the Nigerian economy?
I am the President of the youth forum of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF). Diasporian, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the conversation has been around these two major issues. Africa’s undevelopment, which way out? I think that I have spoken enough on this, but I think it is time to reiterate at this forum – the UNSRC-Nigeria Association And Nigerian Professionals Network (NFN). We don’t want the handouts.
We don’t need handouts. We need to start production. In the climate forum I went to this morning, I told them that the entire global warming is not an African headache. We don’t have snow. Let the ice be melting.
If we will do conservation, we need something equivalent.$8 trillion in the carbon market. How much of that is voted to Africa for us to continue the poorest sequence, for us to continue the transition from the use of fossil fuel, to cutting down trees? We are worst hit by climate change. Yesterday, I woke up to very sad news in my State, a lot of floods, communities, lives, properties, everything destroyed. And this is year in, year out.
So, you want to put up infrastructures, you want to put up roads, you want to do this, you want to do this and that. So, I think that what we need to talk about here with the people in Diaspora, we are not talking about the FDI or Diaspora funds.
We need to identify exactly what we want. Do we want to channel resources from the Diaspora into housing, transportation, health, agriculture, education, and production? This conversation must be around this subject. Not this one that you send money to some of your uncles or aunties and they will build their house for themselves and additional wives, no. It must be a policy between the government and the private sector on how to exit from these callous ways that have brought us down continuously.
And I want to say that in the last one year of my stewardship as the Governor of Niger State, I have seen prosperity in agriculture. I am bigger than Nigeria in agriculture. I can say that boldly.
In the last six months, I have signed treaties and MoUs worth over $ 1 billion and these are coming as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). I have partnerships with the United Nation Development Agency and other development partners and companies like Bayer, John Deere, and so many other companies. Even the UAE has just given me one million stoves so that my people can transition out of using fossil fuels.
So carbon credit, the market is there, and renewable energy. Niger State warehouses four hydropower dams. Kainji, Jeba, Shiroro, and Zungeru, I have 92 dams across the State. I have two major rivers on the left, Kaduna on the right, Niger. So, I am basically agrarian. Livestock in my local market, I sell weekly an average of one million cattle. So, if I sell a cattle and charge N10,000 per cattle, I will be making N20 billion from that market.
So, for you who are in the diaspora, you want to invest in livestock or slaughterhouses or meat business, look at the numbers. They are very clear. So, you know exactly where you want to invest. We have offtake agreements from countries across the globe who want processed meat, cold meat.
Q: So, what does this trip to New York mean to you?
We are not here for the fashion or fun fair. We are here to talk to you. We don’t need to first start to talk to the World Bank for funding. Let us talk to ourselves. How much do we have? What do you have? Bring it to the table. Let it add up. When they see us going that way, they understand we are serious. We have woken up. I went to China last two weeks. I have a Soya bean offtake agreement of almost $500 million. I will take that to the EXIM Bank and I will get the money. I am a Soya giant. China needs Soya. So, what are we talking about?
So, you are in the diaspora, you have resources. Look at what we are doing and don’t invest in things you don’t know. Invest in things you are very sure of. Again, this conversation must continue, not just at UNGA. We intend to create economic dialogue and lines of communication between ourselves and the Diaaporians. I think in the next two weeks I will be in Canada for another diaspora engagement on agriculture. The agriculture value chain is huge. Before the advent of oil, I think in Nigeria we did welj, in cocoa, groundnut, and so on. What happened? It is high time we revived these industries.
Before I became a Governor, I was a parliamentarian for 12 years. I love to talk. And I am an aluminous of Havard and Cambridge all together. It is not time for bullshit, it’s time for work, so let’s make it work.
Q: But how do you expect the Diasporians to support your agricultural revolution project in the State?
Let me make it very clear. My colleague was very emphatic in terms of saying that a dashboard for diaspora investment should be created where far away here, you will be able to see on a dashboard and can invest in. It means a collaboration between the public sector in Nigeria and the private sectors that you know, both in Nigeria and abroad.
Now, in agriculture, I just made an example on livestock alone that in a year, I can give you a return on investment of over N20 billion. This is just the beginning. So, it means that there are different parts of agriculture, crop production, animal husbandry, and aquaculture, which we expect that the Diasporans will invest in, and they are sure, you know, that this will come.
And how do we run it? We don’t run it like government. We run it like a public-private partnership where the private sector is invited to come in. You know that agriculture is now run like an enterprise. It is not the usual Ministry of Agriculture thing. It is just a whole thing where foreign investors will have brought in mercenaries, some will have brought in inputs, and some will have provided the land. You know that like government provides the land and secures the land, and these three or four factors will now make the farms very, very successful.
Q: You spoke earlier condemning the idea of state governors coming to Abuja every month to collect money from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). What alternative would you prefer?
You see first, I have been trying to study the behaviour of other countries and I have seen that their budgets are provided for in two different parts. We had a national infrastructure budget during the military regime, where, for example, a third mainland bridge was built on a fiat of the President, where a Nicon Noga Hilton was built on a fiat of the President as a national asset. You know where airports have been built and railways built.
In this arrangement, everybody like myself is eager to see the end of the month to go to Abuja, whatever is allocated, I take it back home. This is not good for Nigeria. You know, it’s not good for Nigeria. Every country and every State should be able to have a programme of development that is going to be tailored towards the income of that country.
I should be given the opportunity. I have resources abound in my State that I can explore and exploit to bring to the table instead of just coming to take. So, it is not just about oil. There are other very important, you know, things we can do. I don’t need FAAC, I’m telling you, I don’t need it.
Q: So, how are you driving up IGR in the State?
Of course, agriculture. I just told you. I just got a $687 billion agriculture offtake agreement from China. I don’t need FAAC.
