Governor Uba Sani has advised states that want to copy the Kaduna peace model to first find out the symptoms and drivers of their peculiar security challenges to enable them succeed.
The governor further said that having done that, the states should also allow the communities to own the peace model, believe in it and drive it to achieve positive results.
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He gave this counsel when the Implementation Monitoring Committee of the National Economic Council came to Sir Kashim Ibrahim House on a courtesy visit to him.
Governor Sani recalled that when his administration came into office, there was a lot of trust deficit between the government and the people, adding that ‘’this was the first thing we addressed.’’
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According to him, the second area that his administration addressed is the issue of justice, equity, as well as fairness because a lot of politicians were exploiting them for selfish ends.
The governor said that in the past conflict entrepreneurs hiding under the canopy of religion and ethnicity had a field day with their foot soldiers wreaking havoc in Kaduna State.
He disclosed that the security challenges in Kaduna State used to comprise ethno-religious crises on the one hand and kidnapping and banditry on the other hand.
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‘’From our statistics and data, we realized that we lost more lives as a result of the religious crises in Kaduna State, than even banditry. And that is the reason why we sat down and looked at the situation,’’ he added.
According to the governor, his government has solved the issue of ethno-religious crisis in Kaduna State, through his policy of inclusion and even development across all the 23 local governments.
‘’I make bold to say that there has never been any incidence of ethno-religious crisis in Kaduna State since I became Governor on May 29, 2023, ‘’ he disclosed.
He said that the Kaduna peace model has drastically scaled down the twin security challenge of banditry and kidnapping because the model is home-grown and community-driven.
The governor disclosed that many states have been reaching out to him to replicate the Kaduna peace model.
‘’What do we tell them? You have to relegate politics and focus on governance. When we came in, we said the issue of politics is over. We focused on governance; it has nothing to do with political affiliation, religious affiliation, or geography,’’ he disclosed.
‘’Today, as we are speaking, we have reclaimed over 500,000 hectares of land that were abandoned because of insecurity. Now our farmers have gone back to their farms.
‘’When we came in, over 100 schools were abandoned in some front line local governments because of insecurity. As we are speaking, we have opened all our schools.
‘’Our primary health care facilities, more than 150 of them, were closed because of insecurity. Today, as we are speaking, all of them have been opened. And they are operational,’’ he maintained.
Governor Sani also said that his administration is focused on four main sectors, namely education, healthcare and agriculture as well as infrastructural development.
On education, the governor noted that his government is not just focused on formal education but also on skills acquisition and development.
‘’Kaduna State is leading in skill-based education in Nigeria. The Vice President, if you can recall, three months ago, sent a circular, urging other states to copy our policy on skill-based education.
‘’In line with that, the Honourable Minister of Education also, only a few months ago, made it clear that our Institutes of Vocational and Skill Development, are more equipped than any University of Technology in Nigeria.
‘’We have graduated about 4,300 trainees in our Institute of Vocational here in Kaduna. And all of them have been given certification by the National Board of Technical Education that will enable them work anywhere within and outside Nigeria,’’ he added.
Governor Sani recalled that there were about 550,000 out-of-school-children when he assumed office but based on UNICEF and Bureau of Statistics records, ‘’we have taken back at least 300,000 of them back to school.
According to him, ‘’education is one of our major priorities, and that’s the reason why we always budget at least 26% of our budget to education since we came in.’’
He further reaffirmed that quality healthcare is not for a privileged few in Kaduna State but ‘’a fundamental right of everyone, particularly the downtrodden.’’
He said that Kaduna State is the only subnational to have moved all its 255 Primary Healthcare Centres to level 2 status in the country, adding that the PHCs are manned by qualified personnel.
‘’When we came, we had about 20 secondary health care facilities that were completely moribund, obsolete, and were not really functional. We have been able to re-model and equip 16 of them,’’ he said.
According to the governor, his administration had invited President Bola Tinubu to commission the 300-bed hospital last year, which is about the best health facility in the north.
He described agriculture as the mainstay of Kaduna State’s economy adding that it employs 60% of the workforce and contributes 43% of its Gross Domestic Product.
‘’When we came in, the budget of agriculture was about N1.4 billion. That’s what we inherited in 2023. Today, our budget in agriculture is about N123 billion. It has superseded the Malabo Declaration.
‘’In 2014, there was a Malabo Declaration, where it was agreed that states should earmark not les that 10% of their budgets to agriculture but in Kaduna, we’re talking about 13%,’’ he said.
‘’We are leading, as of today, in maize production in Nigeria, we are leading in tomato production in Nigeria, we are leading in ginger production in Nigeria,’’ he disclosed.
The governor said that his Government has been supporting small holder farmers, adding that ‘’last year, we distributed 900 trucks of free fertilizer to over 240,000 of them. No state has done this in Nigeria.’’
‘’In the next one week, I want to repeat the same thing, at least to support nothing less than 240,000 smallholder farmers again with fertilizer,’’ he disclosed.
Mr Sani further disclosed that Kaduna State was the first subnational to launch a Special Agro-Processing Zone, which promises to be a gamechanger in the agric value chain.
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