Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State recently invited journalists for a fact-finding mission on what his administration has been able to achieve in the last two years. Later, at an interactive session he fielded questions and explained the nuances of governance in the state and what he has been able to achieve. He also talked about his role in the botched Anambra PDP congress, EMMANUEL IRIOGBE was there. Excerpts:

There is this general belief that Benue politics is all about sharing government money among political leaders, how have you fared in the past two years?

Benue State is a rural environment.  Since we were created in 1976, what we have done in Benue is basically to play politics with the rural people.

There have not been meaningful developments in the rural areas.

Since it was created, all we've done since then is sheer politicking.  Infrastructure you see here are those either put together by the military or the one Aper Aku put together.

Once we win elections, we are fighting ourselves and completely diverted from providing for the people.  When I came, I insisted that the first two years there was not going to be any politicking and I stood by it. What you see is a result of that stance.  Otherwise, if I start politicking, everyday  somebody will come and say wait, there are people holding meetings in this place insulting you and I will say what. Let me show them that I am governor.  That will divert completely from what you are supposed to do.  There should be a beginning. Any other person who comes after me would have no option but to key in on it because the  people will start asking, this was done, why are you not doing this?  I am raising the bar, somebody must raise the bar otherwise we remain where we are.  If I engage in politicking, we will be nowhere so everybody will start from ground zero as the Americans will say.  I want my predecessor to start at a pedestal.

Anybody who takes over from me will start at a pedestal.  We should have an appropriate government lodge where you can sleep and think.  These are fundamentals that were not on ground that we need to put.

Benue like many others parts of the country is noted for its bad roads, how have you tackled the road network of the state?

My target when I came in was to concentrate on these rural infrastructures, basically rural roads.  I decided that instead of using mushroom companies, let us bring companies that can deliver and they are performing because they have been well mobilised.When I came in, there was no way you could drive on the roads in Makurdi because they were not motor-able, so I decided that let the capital look like a state capital.  Now we  see evidence with some of the roads we have started with.  We are planting trees, so that the town can have a different landscape and knowing that we have issues with PHCN, we are using solar to provide street-lights in the state capital.  We are extending this to Oturkpo and other major towns in the state.

For this, we are doing some major streets in Oturkpo.  There is one particular town in Agatu local government area that was not considered a part of the state.  In actual sense, there was no road, so most of the people in Agatu had never lived in that place. They either lived in Oturkpo or Makurdi because there was no way they could go there, so what I did was that I decided that those people should be part of Benue.  I decided to make sure that the road is done. It is almost completed.  What I have done is to do the rehabilitation of roads across the entire state and most of the roads cut across the Local Government areas.

The funny thing was that when I started,people were asking, are we going to eat roads. It was a very serious matter in Benue, even at the highest level, but now people will start sending me text messages that they have stopped the road once a contractor stops work or move equipment out .

How have you tackled the water problem?

Water has dried in our pipes for the past 30 years, so I am building a major 100,000 cubic metres of water treatment plant.

The fact that I receive so many encouraging text messages gives me inspiration   In the next 20 years, these water works as projected would last 70 years, that means that children yet unborn will enjoy pipe-borne water and they will know that there was a government.

How have you sustained the state as the food basket of the nation?

One of the areas we pay serious attention to is agriculture.  I decided to adopt an integrated approach to agriculture.  The issue of agriculture in Benue is that because most of the farmers remain at the subsistence level, they could not move their produce anywhere.  When people produce what they can consume, what do they do with the rest? The market is not there because it is inaccessible.  So that is the part of agricultural development. When any of the roads is completed, you see a lot of trucks and the people are now happy because such roads are now motor-able. This is because they can now move their produce. I signed a memoranda of undertaking with the state of IOWA in the US.  IOWA is a small state like Benue with almost the same population.  It is a 100% agricultural state and we have gotten some modern equipment we intend to use on some of the demonstration farms that we will start in Benue.  We want people to imbibe modern techniques of farming otherwise we will not be able to go beyond subsistence farming.

We need to mechanise agriculture but it not an easy thing given the land holding system but what we are doing gradually is to educate the people. We encourage some of them to go into mechanized agriculture.  Right now, we have some Benue sons and daughters being trained on this technique in the US. They will be there for about three  months.  About two sets have gone and returned.  Some Americans left here last week.  What we are trying to put together will take off next year.

At the end, there will no need sending people to America. This is because those that have been trained will impart the knowledge of what they have learnt to the local people here.

The University of Agriculture Makurdi  is also here. We are partnering with them because they are also involved.  Right now they have constructed a machine to harvest yam.  Once we have those kind of machines. We will be able to encourage farmers. We have planters and harvesters that we bought.

Also, before the end of this year, we are setting up a marketing board because marketing is a major challenge.  If a farmer has no market for his products, he becomes discouraged.  So we must have a board  to take the produce from the farmers and let government be saddled with the responsibility of marketing them.

The rural infrastructure is very fundamental because it is easy for young men to now drive from the village into town and go back. So the infrastructures we are providing are to encourage farming. Fertilizer is also highly subsidized yearly.

How about the housing scheme of the state?

We are partnering with different developers to engage in housing.  There are some on-going projects. The aim is to enable civil servants and middle class people to access this and pay over a period of time.

What of power generation?

The issue of power is one I believe I don't have the competence to comment on but I will give an insight into what is going on.

The NIPP, of which, I am a member, is supposed to come in as from next year. NIPP projects are about 13 generators on ground.  Some of them were government projects.  Gereky was  sponsored through the budget, also Omotosho Obaranto. They were taken in by the NIPP making 13 because what the former president gave was about  seven  all of them in the South-South and for thermal generation. Those projects mis-managed because they were ill-conceived, so when we came in, the president wanted them to be resuscitated and asked us to join money together with the  federal government,

The 6,000 megawatts is going to come from power holding. The addition that will come from NIPP will be from next year. Most of these generating plants will now be completed. Gereky is actually completed but the problem of gas is holding it back. It is supposed to give 414 megawatts, Omotosho has the capacity of 313megawatts same as  Obalanto. Aladja is the highest of them all, but will only in the first quarter of next year. We have substantially moved in money, though most of them have not accessed this money.

NIPP has released money to the Niger-Delta holding company to pay contractors that have finished their paper work.

I know that power holding has issues of gas which are very fundamental. It was not anticipated that there will be sabotage in the Niger-Delta because with thermal plants, you cannot generate power. But I believe it is being sorted out. There are transmission issues as well but not as grave as that of gas. They have attained about 5,000megawatts but cannot yet transmit, which makes no meaning.

Education is the bedrock of development. How do you motivate teachers?

The training of teachers is a major issue apart.We have turned about 30 secondary schools into pure science schools. What I observed is that most of our children have moved away from pure sciences to social sciences and arts. They want to take the easy way out, but for any country to develop there must be technology.

We are setting up training structures. We have some institutions that have written to us on the need to partner with us in terms of training of teachers. Most of the teachers are not qualified and this is a very serious problem. We are looking at the issues of teachers. You know they just called off their strike. It is an area we must critically look at because a lot of them are not qualified.

What is your comment on the PDP congress that you headed in Anambra State and insinuations making the rounds that you and president Yar’Adua had a favoured candidate?

It is unfortunate that a journalist took me up on some comments I made but they were comments from a genuine heart and what I said is what is happening now. I went there and the president said I should do the right thing and have a genuine candidate with no interest in a particular candidate. On the eve of the congress, I had about 200 buses, I got the police, SSS and we agreed that presiding officers in the vehicles were going to take the materials. The president ensured that ministers, senators and House of Representatives members were drafted to help me. If I or the President had a candidate, all these efforts wouldn't have been necessary. The candidates, 47 in number, unanimously agreed that they would not accept people from Anambra State, so I picked 326 young men from Benue State to go and conduct the congresses. If we had interest as they have been accusing us of, why would I put in such effort? It was Benue money that was expended, the party did not have money. If there was a candidate, why would I waste money to do all of that? When I went, I insisted that materials  go to the wards, which confused them because I think it is an area where people are used to sharing votes or hijacking them. The vehicles left at the same time to different wards, so it was difficult for people to hijack them. They started attacking some of the vehicles. At the end, I collated the result. In some areas there were serious issues.  You go to a ward there will be 12 voting centres in that ward, and different stakeholders insist that theirs was the correct one.

I took back twotruckloads of registers instead of the 326 for the total wards. All the candidates were complaining that they did not know what happened because the people on ground genuinely won these congresses.

Look at what is happening now. When they couldn't conduct congresses, the appeal panel went and said there was a need to change two or thee  local governments. That was done. They were ready to conduct congresses and there came an injunction but looking back, it is instructive that there was no way they could have gotten the injunction since it was a public holiday. So, I advise Anambra people to sit back and look at themselves (very educated people) and save their own state.  The Anambra situation is a peculiar one that the PDP should look into.