By Paul Ukpabio and Sola Olugbemiro
Recently Ibrahim Dosara, the Zamfara State Commissioner For Information was in Lagos to attend the 16th edition of the Nigeria Media Nite Out Awards event and some other official functions. He seized the opportunity to grant us this interview.
We don't see you often in Lagos...
Yes, I’m here in Lagos to attend some functions and to meet with my colleagues the Editors and other members of the pen profession that we can have good rappour and relationship. To also let them know that if I fail they fail because I am from that body
As Commissioner of Information, how does your background relate to what you are presently doing?
Oh, it is very much interrelated (he laughs) I am what you will refer to as a round peg in a round hole, very fitting! I used to work with our local state radio station, before moving to the BBC. Currently I am a Publisher of the Standard Voice newspaper and I also own a television station and Standard FM community radio station.
How long have you been a Commissioner in Zamfara state?
I have been a Commissioner for the past 3 years. Before then I was a Special Adviser on Media and Communications to the past immediate governor of the state and afterwards, I returned to my television station, before I was invited to join this present government in Zamfara state.
You have been a Commissioner in Zamfara State, in the last 3 years, coincidentally, those are the years that the state has witnessed various dimensions of insecurity, what can you say about that, and how has the challenge been?
Yes, insecurity challenges are not only limited to Zamfara state, it’s all over Africa and all over the world. And in Zamfara state where I belong, and where I am very much a stakeholder, we are tackling the problem. It has been a series of challenges, right from the year 2011 to date, but by God\s grace, it has been subsiding, and we thank God especially the waves of killings, attacks and kidnappings and raping of women has drastically reduced to the barest minimum. You know, these issues are not something that can be stopped all at once. It has to be followed up with to end, consciously and gradually till we totally get rid of it. That is what the present government under the leadership of His Excellency, Governor Bello Matawalle is doing.
He came on board at a time when the insecurity was at its highest peak where about two hundred people were losing their lives almost on a daily basis. But within one hundred days of his stay in government office, he was able to tackle the insecurity problems in the state. And one can recall that for a period, Zamfara state was in space of nine months, was without a single incident of insecurity issue. No kidnaping, no attacks or any controversies regarding insecurity.
So what gingered back the issue of insecurity in the state after the so-called nine months break?
The activities of conflict entrepreneurs surfaced. It stepped in to cause mayhem where cultist and bandits, returned with their mayhem and we immediately took measures to tackle the problem with different kinds of actions which included but not limited to the shutting down of all mobile networks services in the entire Zamfara state. And we also moved and ensured the blockage of all ways by which the bandits are getting their supplies.
How successful has that been?
Well, that has been very successful. Before we used to have about 200 people being killed daily but now no such recorded large numbers of victims. Perhaps one or two a day, but not more than that and less number of people being kidnapped daily too, against 200 or 100 daily like it was before.
Your governor has been in the news in recent times for innovations. For people who have not visited Gusau or other parts of the state in recent times to see, can you tell us what these innovations are?
The innovations are mainly in the health sector. He has been the number one governor in the whole of Nigeria, to implement the federal government health policy which requires each ward in a state to have a hospital, at least a Primary Health Care Centre. He constructed 147 Primary Health Centres in the 147 wards in the state and also supplied them with 147 Keke Napep (tricycles) and 147 ambulances, so that each ward had one each. The ambulances were all well-equipped. The essence of this was to make the access to good health treatment facility easier to people who ordinarily were finding it difficult to access or finding it difficult to reach the hospitals due to non-access to transportation.
Not only that, His Excellency was able to initiate peace talks with bandits and a large number of the bandits gave up their profession when they renounced it and handed over their weapons to the government, and that helped a lot in bringing down the level or the scale of banditry in the state. As well as using the surrendered bandits to fight the other bandits through information as well as using them to bring in the other bandits to embrace the peace talk.
More importantly the Governor Bello Matawalle administration has been providing infrastructure in the educational sector, health sector, the building of roads and provision of electricity, His Excellency has done so magnificently well that the people are so happy with his administration.
The shutting down of the network system, don’t you think that it disrupted the social life and culture of the people?
Our people are very social, cultural and tradition is real in Zamfara state. However, the clampdown of the network companies has been lifted. But during the period of the shutting down of the telephone networks, our people found it difficult to get on with their normal social lives. But again, before we embarked on shutting down the phone networks, we carried out a series of enlightenment campaigns, road shows, where we educated the general public why we were shutting down the telephone networks, not because we wanted to bring hardship to them but rather because we wanted to tackle insecurity that is bedeviling the state and people understood and supported us and were even praying for us to succeed. It was difficult though but people appreciated because they saw bandits who previously were attacking and maiming people, forced to surrender their weapons and also forced to start eating various leaves and trees in the forest because we cut short supplies of food, alcohol, and drugs and what have you, all that these people use to take to become crazy and start to kill people. In fact, it was difficult but it was very beneficial.
We are going into another election in 2023, what is the landscape looking like for Governor Bello Matawalle who is also contesting to remain in government house come 2023?
Honestly His Excellency the governor has been carrying everyone along and preparing for a second term in office by first of all providing dividends of democracy to the people in all ramifications, and secondly by carrying people along he has an open door policy welcoming anybody who really wants to contribute to the development of the state. Also inviting other people to join him especially with the issue of banditry. When he was in the PDP, he tried as much as possible to unify all the politicians to come together, to help him in fighting banditry. And the best way he could go was to decamp to APC where the major stakeholders in Zamfara state are, he went to the extent of bringing them closer to him buy decamping. That has been very much useful, people are moving together now and we are succeeding, particularly in our campaigns in the rural areas, people are very much supportive of what we are doing and ready to support us in winning the next election.
And lastly, what would you say is the general outlook of Zamfara state now? The sight and sound of Zamfara state?
We have a business environment where the land and people are business friendly. Visitors are at home in Zamfara state. More importantly our state is endowed with natural resources along with human resources. Our people are agrarian in nature. We take to farming, agriculture is in our blood. We are also into mining and other industrial activities that bring about development in the state. And the government is ready to support them.
To support women, the government through the Office of the governor’s wife has been empowering women with N20,000 and encourages them to go into politics, along with a monthly empowering of the youths with N10,000. He also encourages business people in the state to engage in business activities that brings development to the state. So, businesses across the state is in a fair shape presently.
I will seize this opportunity to appeal to the people of Zamfara state to be cool and calm, to support the government to bring sanity to the state in terms of security. They should also be supportive and cooperative of government in its bid to bring about employment to the people especially the youths and support the government as it tries to harmonize and unite the people together to be one happy family helping each other so we can mobilize together.
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