The Director-General, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Niger State, Joshua Bawa, in this interview with ABU NMODU,? says, among other things, that the tremendous political will? from? Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu, has put the office on the path towards meeting the goals by 2015.
The MDGs are supposed to be attained by 2015 and we are already in 2012; what is the hope for Nigeria?
The MDGs, the product of Millennium Declaration in 2,000, signed by 189 countries including Nigeria, who have? the mandate to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the year 2015.
Nigeria, as a major signatory, has reflected this in the seriousness of the country towards attaining the MDGs, especially through the Conditional Grant Conditional Grant Scheme through the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) at the federal level.
We also have what is called Quick Win Projects (QWPs) akin to say constituency projects and then through the states.?
There is this issue of going into local government; again, it is referred to as second track, which is to ensure that the resources are channelled directly to the local governments. We are experimenting in 113 local governments throughout the federation.
The essence is that the Federal Government, through the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President (on MDGs), will give N100million to each of these local governments, which will be counter-funded by both the state and the local government, with another N100million – the state contributes N60million and the local government N40million; now the purpose here is that N200million is going into these local government directly.
This is aside the one from the federal level on which projects are implemented through the MDAs. It is not the QWPs; this is not Conditional Grant Scheme to states, another scale up to local governments.
So you find out that by the time you have all these investments coming up towards attaining the MDGs, you will know that we are almost done. Of course, we know that we have about? three to four years now to go in 2015, and the slogan now at the MDGs Office is ‘No Excuse to Miss 2015” in Nigeria.
At the state level, the state government has the responsibilities too; what are the areas of hope for attaining the goals in Niger State?
Of course, in Niger State you know that when you talk about the country, definitely you have to come back home. I have just given you a broader perspective of what is happening in the country. Now, for the state, one of our greatest investments is the political willingness we have in Niger State because it is one thing for you to have a policy and another to have the drive.
Now Governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu is very compassionate; in fact, we have zero tolerance to not achieving the MDGs in Niger State – we have no excuse. We have Vision 3:2020.
There is a nexus between what we have in the MDGs – that’s the eight goals and Vision 3:2020, and as I said, our greatest investment is the political willingness by the governor because, first, if the chief executive is interested in your own project, you know that he is going to try and drive that process to the end .
And since we have that political will from the governor, especially the payment of counterpart funds, you know that the counterpart funding between the federal and state, just like I have given you the example of what is happening in the second track to local government, we also have counterpart funding by the state, now in Niger state we started operating but prior to the advent of this administration, there was nothing like Conditional Grant Scheme (CGS) to Niger State, we lost out in 2006 and 2007, perhaps, because of the political exigencies at that time, but now with the inception of this administration, it was late for us to access funds from the federal government in 2007, until 2008. Under the 2008 CGS, we accessed N502million from the federal government which was counter funded by Niger State government to the tune of N504million, as it is the counterpart funding is on ratio of 50:50.
The most important thing for us to note is as I told you, because of the political will, while the federal government is giving us N502million the state government has scaled it up to N504million; now in 2009 the federal government gave N906million while the state government gave N1billion.
Now in 2011 the one that has been operated now the federal government gave N656million and? was counter funded by N656million by the state government.
If you look at the total for all these three Conditional Grant Scheme operations 2008,2009,2011 the federal government released? grants of over N2billion while the state government counter funded with over N2.1billion into the scheme.
Now, you can see? that the investment by Niger? State surpasses that of the federal government, despite the fact that the agreement is on 50:50 and, as I have said, it is as a result of the political will by the state government under Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, for us to achieve the MDGs.
We? are in a haste to achieve the MDGs, so we have the second track to local government. We already have N300million for three local governments in the state.?????
What are the specific areas of achievement that could give hope for attaining the goals?
In the area of primary health, Niger state has been able to supply and equipp 100 basic clinics; we construct, equip and supply drugs. The drugs are on revolving fund scheme in Basic Health Centres.
You are aware that we have 25 local governments and what we do in Niger State is that we spread our projects in all these local government areas,? we have constructed basic health centres in the average of four per local government. We also provided 11 incubators with accessories? to General Hospitals in the state.
Before this administration we had only one incubator in General Hospital Minna, and the manual of the existing incubator cannot be explained as it was in foreign language, We have also supplied under the roll back malaria programmes? 50,000 insecticides treated nets, you are aware we provided 50 tricycle ambulances which were distributed two per local government.
The important thing is to make sure that if we have pregnant women and the children and other vulnerable people are transported to the nearest health centre.
We have also constructed, equipped and supplied drugs to 13 Comprehensive Health Centres that are 20 bed hospitals in the local governments under the 2009 CGS. We are constructing additional 13 Comprehensive Health Centres, so before the end of this year we are going to have 26 comprehensive centres that are 20 bed hospitals in Niger state.
The governor directed that before the end of this year there will be no local government with fewer than 20 bed hospitals. This is in addition to the General Hospitals that we have.?
We have? four health institutions to take care? of personnel gaps for these health facilities – the School of Nursing, Bida, Health Technology Minna, School of Midwifery, Minna, and Health Technology Tungan Magajiya.
What we did was to uplift the infrastructural development in these four health institutions, so that we can achieve more intake into these institutions so by the time we provided? ICT centres, library and classrooms in these School it therefore means that they can admit more students.
In admitting more students it will also enhance accreditation by professional bodies in these institutions. It is? very crucial for us to take note of these because after building? all these hospitals we need personnel to manage them. We are not into tertiary hospitals.
What are other areas, apart from health that you have achieved, and the areas that you need to pay more attention?
Let me take you briefly to water: we have drilled about 300 hand-pump bore holes that are spread across the local government areas. As I told you,? what ever thing we do, we distribute evenly.
We have also re-activated 900 existing hand-pump boreholes across the 25 local governments, and now the? 2009 CGS? we constructed 75 solar powered boreholes because we found out that one borehole can not take care of a community so what we did was that we go into this rural water with solar power whereby we can reticulate to all the nooks and crannies of a community.
What we are trying to achieve by provision of rural water is to also manage the issue of man and woman? hours wasted whereby the children will have to leave school in the morning to start going to well to fetch water. So what we decided to do is to advance from these hand-pump boreholes to solar power boreholes.
So, now we have also received approval for additional 75 and we just awarded contracts last month and, for now, almost half of that have been completed and we have ordered that the communities can start using the solar-powered boreholes.
What we are going to have in Niger State through the Conditional Grant Scheme for 2011 are 150 solar powered boreholes, an average of six per local government. By the time you multiply, that it will give you 150 solar powered boreholes – that’s for water.
And we also have some water works in Niger State and then the Bi-water scheme. What we only did was to give them some interventions. Because of the meagre resources that we have, we cannot go and reactivate all of these schemes.
So what we did was to give some palliative incentives so that at the end of the day all these water schemes that we have in Niger State can complement the effort of MDAs.? In addition, we have women development and youth empowerment scheme.
We have 10 women development centres which we renovated and equipped to take care of women and youths; and then we also have the Works Training School, Minna, under the youth empowerment scheme. We have also renovated and equipped that, and provided incentives? in terms of instructional materials to these institutions.
Under the agric extension service , we renovated, refurbished and supplied instructional materials to Farm Institute , Tegina, and? supplied 60 motorcycles for extension services, because there is the need for our rural farmers to be conscientised in respect of the new agric methods.
That farm institute, in Tegina, we also provided them with a tractor because we found out that we have three farm institutes in Niger? State, the one at Nasko, Tegina and Kuta, so what we are trying to do is to take them in phases. We are done with farm institute Tegina.
The essence is that it can be used for practical demonstrations and then to also enhance their skills. By and large, these are some of the interventions. You are aware that Niger State today hosts the North-Central zonal office for MDGs.
Today the statistics released by Bureau of Statistics showed that Niger State and Osun are the least as far as the poverty situation is concerned. If you aggregate all these things we now tie them up the issue of poverty alleviation, which is paramount.
It therefore means that we are doing well and that these interventions are living up to the expectations of our people.
As I have told you, the most important asset that we have is because the governor is very compassionate about all these things and that he has given us a marching order that there will be zero tolerance to non-service delivery. The people of Niger State deserve well articulated service delivery.
Which areas will you people focus your attentions , if you have the wherewithal in the next CGS?
On the issue of this poverty alleviation. When you talk of poverty alleviation you are referring to human beings; what are those things? They are to be provided? with basic necessities of life. That have to do with health care, water, because by the time you have given people all those, you have solved so many problems.
So by the time people are healthy, you know for sure that they will be very productive people. I want to focus on is rural water supply; that’s going to take care of our people and of course when you talk about rural water supply, you cannot divorce it from the issue of health.
These are some of the things that when you provide them to people, you have solved? most of their problems and that is why our approach is integrated – integrated in the sense that by the time you provide one, you are solving the other.
Let me give you an instance of the integrated approach we have in Niger State; or instance, a health clinic is being built, it’s a health issue because the final outcome is to have people coming into this health centres and then assess whatever health requirement or challenges they have, but then before building the clinic you have to bring people that will work on the clinic, either as carpenters or bricks layers or painters or electricians or so.
Now while you are doing that, you are trying to build a clinic; the clinic you are building you have already taken care of some people because you have increased their capacity (income). By simple arithmetic you have taken care of poverty that is goal number one, as far as MDGs is concerned, while you are taking care of goals number four, five and six that are health related – that is what we are doing in Niger State.?
While we are trying to solve one problem, we are integrating another aspect so that people can benefit from it. We want to concentrate on that.
What is the synergy between the MDGs and the ward development project which is another agency active in Niger State?
Yes, there is a synergy between MDGs and Ward Development Project. I am a member of the state advisory committee on the Ward Development Project and, of course, it is by virtue of the position of MDGs because? what we want to avoid is the overlap of functions or duplication of projects in a particular place.
So by the time I am doing my own projects, we have to sit with ward development and see (what are they doing) and we also try to assist with capacity, because we already have technical staff on ground. We have Desk Officers in all our local government areas and whatever thing they are doing at the ward level, our desk officers are also at the ward level.
All MDGs projects have to undergo what we call Needs Assessment and Baseline Inventory Survey. This is very important because we provide whatever technical assistant required.
We also do peer review. What? is you are doing that is good so that we can adopt,? even the Universal Basic Education in the state. We are all working together because by the time you look at all these things, you see that all the MDGs are the same regardless of who is doing what.
These are the things we are already used to, because in our approach to projects identification, we adopt a bottom-top approach; we don’t sit down in our offices and say we have to provide this or that. By the time we bring up things together, there is that synergy between the MDGs and the Ward Development, so that we can provide quality service to our people.
What are the mechanics and systemic approach you adopt here to ensure effective monitoring, inspection and evaluation?
In my opening remarks, I told you that the MDGs office in Niger State is one of the most capitalised – if I can use that word, because of the number of vehicles that we have. They are not for decoration in the office; they are meant to go to the length and breath of the 25 local government areas; and that is why we adopted the bottom-top approach.
This simply means that, before starting a project,? we have to do what we call community advocacy:? we sit down with them; the community buys into the project because we are trying to achieve three things – the ownership of that project, the sustainability of that project,? the security of the project, and then whatever monitoring and evaluation we are going to have, by the time you have these things on ground, it will be easy.
This is because our monitoring start from the inception of the project, not when the projects are been executed.
?