He said Zamfara had been in the news for the wrong reason and they were making conscious effort to restore peace and continued development in the state.

The Governor who stated this during an interview with journalists,  said despite meeting a dysfunctional state in 2023, he had to return to the drawing board and tried to bring relief to the people.

According to him, “let me give you a brief history of how we started. When we took over on  May 29th,2023, we inherited a very dysfunctional state and what we saw can not even be explained. We can only do a bit. In the first place, we met an empty treasury with just four million Naira total. And with a backlog of three and half months salary.”

“For six months, there was no a drop of water in the state capital. Electricity was disconnected in all government offices, including Government House. Our children in school did not write WAEC or NECO for two years and so many other debts that we had to start thinking of what do we do?

Not to talk about the gratuity and pension that was not paid since 2011, to the tune of N13.6 billion.”

“When we took over, the minimum wage in Zamfara was N7,000,with so many other challenges and a very huge debt profile that we are still paying from the previous administration. With not a single official vehicle to use, either as a Governor or Deputy Governor or any other person. Everything was taken away. So we had to settle that three and half month salary— that was the first thing we did…To clear that backlog. We had to pay N1.3 billion  to settle the electricity bill. We paid KEDCO who is the supplier.”

“Having realized the condition of our students, we had to go into negotiations with WAEC and NECO. We agreed to pay WAEC N1.6bn in order for us to get the certificates of the previous students… Not to talk of the ones to write exams. We had entered an agreement with NECO, to settle N1.3bn in order to get the certificates of over 2 years. As a matter of fact, that 2023, our students did not write WAEC because it was late. We were fortunate they had an undertaking and we wrote NECO exams because it was sometimes in July.”

“And within one week, we were able to restore water in the capital. There was no money for water treatments, in-terms  of the chemicals and most of the machines in Water board were obsolete, so we had to fix them. And we are able to restore water within one week or 5 days.And since then, there was never a day we went without water.After negotiating with KEDCO and agreed to pay all the debt, that was when electricity was restored in all the government offices.”

“Our residence in Kaduna was in court in Kaduna and we had to pay garnishee of 600 million to get that property back. As we speak, we are still trying to fix our Liaison office in Abuja because everything was taken away, including curtains.  The only thing we met was some few non-functional air conditioners. Everything was taken away. That was the Zamfara we met. So we had to really go back to drawing board. At the same time, when we took over, we had 48 commissioners and 52 permanent secretaries, the first thing we did was to trim down both the ministries, merge them together and we only have about 16 ministries after restructuring.”

“We had to let those permanent secretaries go. We were able to maintain about 22 at the time, but a lot of them are retired now. So we had about 17 or there about as we speak.”

“Forget about the fact that we had children out of the country on scholarship, they are not settled. We had people in India, Sudan, and still have people in Cyprus that we are still battling to bring back because the whole thing was a scam. About , over 90 students were sent to Cyprus to study, but after going through the whole thing, we realized that there was no agreement between the state government and the school. Initially we settled about almost €200,000 for them to continue with classes. We sent the second batch of over N100,000,000 equivalent.”

“Having realized the whole thing was a scam,..a delegation, I sent the Commissioner for Education, Adviser on Economic Matters and Commissioner of Finance to go to the school and sat down with the school authorities to ascertain the extent of the debt.. they were not ready to cooperate. We realized we are just spending money. I’m sure you may recall that sometimes last month, there are a lot of issues on Cyprus students. And we are still on it.  And finally what we have agreed to do is to bring them back and give them scholarship here.”

“We had to make conscious effort to really make calculated decision for what is best for the state. Because we have been in the news for the wrong reasons. Of course insecurity has been an issue. For over 11 years, we have been having security challenges. So we had to make conscious effort to think of what  do we do immediately that will bring relief to our people? That was what informed our decision to create  the Community Protection Guard that was backed fully by law, because we had to make the law by the state assembly. These people were fully trained in conjunction with all the security agencies like Army, Police, Civil Defense, among others. It is more like community based group because we involve… from the 14 Local Governments of the state, having gone through the security training and so on—for them to be able to guard those communities and they have done wonderfully well.”

“Now, coming back to Almajiri school, having realized the gap in education and nature of our people, we came with this idea… how do we have a synergy between government as well as the Islamic scholars? The most difficult thing was convincing them that we need to marry the two— and we gave them.. all the assurances that we are not trying to take away their usual Quranic school but we want to integrate modern education with Islamic teachings — having realized Zamfara is predominantly sharia state when Yerima introduced it. So we came with that concept and say let’s have a trial and construct one Tsangaya school, we call it Tsangaya school, and it’s built across all the 3 senatorial districts. We did one in Kaura Namoda, we have one in Gusau, the other one in Gumi. I’m sure if you go round, you will see that the model is the same.”

“That is why we full equipped those schools and not just planing, we need to teach them skills, because we are introducing skills development for them to be able to learn skills if they don’t want to further their education, at least they have something to hold on to, so that they can sustain themselves.”

“So we did that in collaboration with the Ulamas and all the Islamic scholars before they even allowed this integration, which so far is working fine. We are still in the fine tuning process in terms of asking how do we provide full scholarship? How do we feed them.And how do we train them? So we are doing that in conjunction with the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology. Now other governors are calling to find out how did we do that? So that they can also integrate that kind of system in their respective states.”

“So sustainability in everything is key. We are making conscious effort to see the Operation of these schools we have just started. We are seeing how we can improve on it in terms of feeding, adjusting the curriculum, skills development. That is what we are doing now. This is happening despite all the security challenges I pointed out earlier. We don’t limit ourselves because there are security challenges that we won’t do anything. No.”

“First of all we understand what are the root causes of this insecurity. It’s a combination of so many factors. Poverty is key, lack of education is key. So as responsible government, having realized some of the challenges and then we begin to address some of those challenges by engaging the communities right from the ward level to the local government level and state level… To understand what we going through, despite the fact that this state is one of the most blessed in terms of solid minerals.”

“If we are able to get it right, we don’t even need to wait for FAAC allocation for us to be comfortable and make any kind of development without any limitations.”

“If you are talking of gold, Zamfara gold is a hot cake. If you are talking of lithium, we have the highest grade of lithium. Name any minerals.. it is in Zamfara. So we have to begin to think of a way out, having realized this is where we have comparative advantage. Then we must capitalize on our comparative advantage to develop this state. That is why there is this engagement between the state as well as the Federal Government. Having realized that solid minerals is on Exclusive List but also the land….So there must be synergy.”

“Now coming to the airport, we realized no matter how we want to move fast, no matter how you want to bring investors, no right thinking investor will come to Nigeria, land in Abuja or Kano and drive 7 hours to come and invest his money with all the negative security reports. Insecurity has been a major concern, so no meaningful investor will take his money and come and invest in Zamfara, considering the fact he has to travel for more than 7 hours to get to this place. We realized we need to open up the state, and the only way is to make transportation more easier, where anybody can fly in.”

“Initially it was going to be just cargo airport, but we realized that we need to go beyond that. We say let it be a combination of both cargo, as well as passenger airport. We have the domestic terminal and we have the international terminal and by any standard, I’m sure if you come to Zamfara in the next 5 months you will see a different thing all together. So the economic benefits cannot be overemphasized, because we need to open up the state. And that’s the only way you can bring meaningful investors. And not only that, right now, anytime I’m going to Abuja, I spend the whole day traveling.. when I can easily fly to Abuja, attend the meeting and come back to be with my people. We take time, two days. I would spend one day, the whole day traveling to Abuja, when I finish it takes me another one day to come back to Zamfara. So honesty it’s a must if really we are serious and want to tap from the potential the state has at the moment . Otherwise, only very few people will stop by to come and see what we are doing  when we have their money.”

“Apart from opening up the state, it provides employment. Because the airport, you have to employ people to work. Revenue generation is also something. Zamfara is an agrarian economy. By the time you go into agreement with the Qataris , Saudis in terms of some of these.. farming, believe me it is just a matter of time. We are able to get it right, you will see the number of cargos that are taking off from Zamfara. There was a time the Saudis wanted to build an airport , because there was a kind of short grass they need and they find it here in Zamfara and so they were ready even then to do the airport , so it will be an easy task for them to evacuate the grass to Saudi.”

“So we are exploring all those potentials and opportunities. Without the airport, you cannot think of that. So it is important. In the entire county, it is only Zamfara state that has no airport.”

“Now people alway ask this question. With meager resources, how are you able to do that? As we speak now, out of the 13.6 billion pension, we are able to settle about 10.4 billion. The remaining 2.4bn will be settled in the next two months. So that we know we clear all the backlog. We are still paying our debts which is something we inherited, so as a responsible government, the assets and the liabilities are all yours. So on a monthly basis as we speak, deduction is coming directly at source of over N1.2bn on a monthly basis to settle the previous debt of the previous administration.”

“But we are  not complaining, what we did was to sit down ask what we should do to augment the shortfalls.Internally Generated Revenue was 90million as a state when we took over and 90% of the money was PAYE , so we realized that something fundamental was wrong and we need to block all the leakages and we made conscious efforts in blocking them. We gave ourselves a target that within 6 months , we want to grow the revenue from 90million to at least 1.5bn and thank God we have achieved that. Every day there is incremental changes as far as IGR is concerned.”

“Schools, we had to declare state of emergency in education early January, having realized that what we saw  as far as schools is concerned is an eye sore. Schools in Zamfara are always at the bottom, 36/36 and that is not good. Thank God now with the declaration of emergency, if you go round the 13 local government areas, primary schools alone, we have done over 300 schools fully reconstructed with furnishing and everything. We have done over 200 secondary schools across the  14 LGAs  in the state, fully furnished.”

“Having realized also that in the entire country it is only in Zamfara that is not having the required number of universities to be able to accomodate our students, so we are now building the Talata Mafara University, which is a state university and as well as Audu Gusau Polytechnic which is also a state…If you go to Tsafe, we have the College of Health Technology. Go and see what is happening there also. Because while we are busy building hospitals and bringing in equipment we also need manpower. So we have to make sure we are doing something to ensure that even before we bring doctors, we have nurses that will be able to take care of both primary and secondary healthcare.”

“So far we have done the .. hospital, upgraded from primary Healthcare to a full hospital. We have done …, fully equipped, we have done Maradun, we have done Kauran Namoda fully equipped and we now doing Gusau General Hospital and we are now doing Tsafe. We are also doing the Yariman Bakura Soecialist hospital because we have upgraded that hospital to a Teaching Hospital because we have university and every soon they will start studying medicine and if you have medical students, you have to have a Teaching Hospital.”

“That is why if you go down there, you will see the number of constructions that is ongoing in every aspect. But the time we finish we are going to remove all old equipment and bring new technology into that hospital- so that we don’t need to be going to Sokoto, Kaduna , Katsina or Zaria for treatment. Give us the next four months, you will see a different Yariman Bakura upgraded to a Teaching Hospital.”

“So all this things we are doing apart from urban renewal, in the past , if you drive into Gusau, you can’t move 200 metres on a good road, but these things are changing. So.. in the next 3 months and you will come and see a different Gusau city.”

“All these we are doing ,very transparent and we are being accountable in terms of our resources and the good thing is up till today, we have not borrowed a dime from anywhere. It is the resource that we got we utilize in doing all these. And let me also confirm to you that every project you see ongoing, the funds are there.”

“So, these are some of the things we are doing and it’s an ongoing process within the last one year and seven months of our administration.Apart from the attitude of people, the mindset of people is changing. Before if you come to Zamfara, you will see all the teenagers and everyone carrying one form of weapon or the other, but we’ve engaged them. We provide basic employment for them. The first thing we did was how do we take them off the street? Most of them don’t have skills, we said come and do environmental sanitation and we will pay you . We are paying them.”

“All is an ongoing process and project. My team and I are always here . We spend most of our time in the Government House. We do have council meeting every week to discuss issues and what is the way forward for development of the state.  The good thing is, everything is changing, and even the most difficult one which is mindset of the people is changing. People are beginning to realize even if government has the responsibility, they too have responsibility to the government.”

“Even the budgeting system, it wasn’t the usual way of doing the budget. We did bottom to top approach. Last year we sent the commissioner and a team to various Local Governments to get to understand what do they want… like I said in my previous speech, there are certain LGAs who don’t need roads, maybe what they are looking for is portable drinking water, schools and hospitals and we realized it and gave it to them. Here we deficit in terms of road network and that is  why we are doing roads . So our budgeting system is bottom top,” he said.