By Ebute Mathew, Kaduna
The Special Adviser on Media to the Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Usman Ododo, Ismaila Isah has said that the State is witnessing speedy development in every sector of governance in the last over one year in office.
Isah specifically pointed out that the transformation in the security and agricultural sectors was unprecedented which has drawn the attention of investors to do business in the State.
He made this known to journalists when he visited the Kaduna State Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists, (NUJ) Secretariat.
“What we have succeeded in doing as an administration, is to create a trajectory that probably has never been seen in the history of the State. There has been some kind of dynamism in government, there have been deliberate attempts to bring governance closer to the people.
“We are doing a lot in securing the lives and property of the people in Kogi State. We take the fight to terrorists because there’s no time to start negotiating with them because they cause a lot of havoc and this approach has been copied by other states like Kwara, Ekiti, Ondo, Benue and even to some extent, Niger and Nasarawa.
“We increased our logistical support for security agencies by providing over 300 vehicles for security agencies in the last one year. We have also provided over 1000 specialized motor bikes that can navigate almost every terrain and that has assisted us to do a lot in terms of ensuring that our security agencies are well armed and supported.
“In the vigilante service, I am proud to note that it is enhanced and a lot of improvements have been made. Apart from the recruitment of well over 3000 people both for the vigilante service and man hunters group who are very well complementing our conventional security agencies in the State.
“The Government has also been gracious enough to increase salaries of vigilante service and they now earn over 100,000 Naira. They are well kitted, probably more combat ready than some of our conventional security agents and our neighborhood watch has been rigid with a robust network that provides almost minute by minute intelligence to our security agencies.
“We are very grateful for the support we are enjoying from our top military and paramilitary leaders who are really pushing their men to put their lives on the line to make sure our people can sleep with their two eyes closed”, Isah said.
Speaking on the agricultural sector, the Media Aide disclosed that, “We currently have about 76 farm clusters in Kogi State covering up to 10,000 hectares of land that has been cultivated by over 8,000 farmers in the immediate past wet season.”
“For the coming wet season, we are planning to do between 25,000 to 50,000 hectares of land and there’s something unique about what we are doing in agriculture because unlike some other States, we have been able to recover and refurbish over 150 tractors with all the components that enable us to prepare land, tilt the places and also deploy planters and even harvesters in preparation for the new farming season.
“What is also interesting is that, Government is providing all the implements, all the seedlings, the inputs including fertilizers for free. Our round the year farming which was flagged off recently with our dry season farming witnessed a lot of input from the government.
“So far, we have invested over 10 billion Naira in agriculture and with the refurbishment that we did of over 150 tractors, the government under the Administration of Alhaji Ahmed Usman Ododo, saved well over 20-50 Billion Naira that would have been spent in buying all those tractors anew.
“On education and human capital development, Kogi State is the first State in Nigeria to have inaugurated a Human Capital Development Council, just about a few days ago. That Council is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that we ramp up investment in education which we have been doing, up to 30 percent in the last one year.
“Just last week, the Government approved about N1.2 billion to pay for all external examinations of over 74,000 students and pupils in the State and they are already getting registered for WAEC, those registering for JAMB are also preparing”, he added.
