Nasarawa is a home of solid minerals, which has great potential in terms of revenue generation. What have you done in that space since you came on board?
There are some companies that are doing solid minerals operations in Nasarawa State that have not paid any taxes or tenement rate whatsoever since their inception. That’s the truth. The biggest solid minerals conference that takes place in Africa is called ‘Mining Indaba.’ It takes place in Capetown, South Africa. I was the only governor that attended the event last year. It’s all because I’m interested in solid minerals. The Minister of Solid Minerals was there and so many miners and finance houses were there. That is one step.
Secondly, we took the case of solid minerals to the National Executive Council (NEC) because you see the solid minerals belong to the federal government but the land belongs to the state government. So what the companies have done in order to exploit is to obtain what they call consent letter. They just go to one community, bribe their way here and there and obtain their consent letter and come and start operating there. The state government would not even be aware of what is happening anywhere. So we took this matter to NEC. Our chairman at NEC is Vice President Yemi Osibajo. Thankfully, the Vice President, as a lawyer, understands these legal issues and he said such can’t stand; that it’s not within the purview of the community to stand in place of the state government. So, he sets up a committee to review how mining licenses would be given and I’m a member of that committee. We are working on that. One of the things we achieved is that no new licenses would be given until an original landowner gives consent. Because some other people, for instance, somebody who just bought a land and then doesn’t have any document for the land says it’s his land. But by law he doesn’t have access to the land. So by extension, no licences are being given presently until the state government gets involved. So that’s what we achieved.
Also, we have been going round the state to see things for ourselves. Thankfully, I have a very experienced Commissioner for Environment who has been going to mining sites for inspection across the state. The moment the commissioner arrives for inspection at a site, they (companies), tell him, oh, we’re just getting ready to go to Lafia today. In fact, we have N15million that we have set aside for the tenement rate we have not paid in the past seven years and all that. So we’re going to pay now. The commissioner would say, no wait, I want to even see what exactly it is you’re doing here and all that. Some people, once they hear he is coming, will rush and come and pay. So that’s what we have been going through. But that’s not the end of it. Because for me, a license for mining activities in the state I’m not just looking at the revenue that is coming to the state from the industry, I’m trying to see the entire business plan. How would you want to reclaim the area after the mining activity is done? How many people are being employed? What is your development plan? How much corporate social responsible (CSR) are you willing to do for the local community? What are you giving to schools? Are you giving them scholarships? Are you providing borehole water for them because you have already contaminated their water and all? What are you doing to protect the environment in case of any environment hazards? What is the protection against the people, against some diseases and what have you come 15-20years from now? So that is what we are checking rather than just collecting tenement rates and taxes from them.
You must have been following the story about how COVID 19 is impacting businesses globally. Imagine crude oil now trading at less than $30, which is by the way below the oil benchmark by the federal government. Having played in the business environment for this long, what other areas are you looking at in view of the massive potential for real estate development in Nasarawa State because there is near absence of government presence of any kind of infrastructure to warrant tenement rate or land charges. Do you have any plans to look into these areas as a way of creating alternative and viable sustainable revenue streams of income for the state so that you gradually move away from these global activities that prevent the states from meeting up its obligations?
In fact, the civil servants in the state negatively call me a revenue collecting governor because they strongly believe I’m trying to make the state independent by generating its own revenue. Nasarawa State is so lucky that if you have revenue income of anywhere between N3-4billion in a month, the state can survive on it. That’s how lucky we are. So, I keep telling them that my aim now is to see how we can be generating that. Like you have mentioned, every area from Nyanya, Masaka, and the border towns, you will see all kinds of businesses; somebody is generating revenue from them and pocketing it.
It’s not that revenue is not being generated. Most of those markets generate anywhere between N15-20milion in a day. People are generating that revenue and pocketing it. So the first thing we did on assumption is to ensure that we consolidate all our revenue sources. We appointed a commissioner responsible for revenue and we set up a committee which is chaired by that commissioner. The aim is to ensure we generate revenue. He went to identify new buildings across the state that were not paying tenement rate to find out if they had their documents and C of O. We asked the Nasarawa Geographic Information Service (NAGIS) the agency to go ahead to process these documents; we signed and we gave to them. So today, we have actually grown and even overtaken five states in terms of revenue generation. Our revenue has grown twice more than what we used to generate. We used to be No. 33-34 or somewhere there. But today, we’re around 27-28 position. Our revenue generation has gone almost twice to what we used to generate. That’s where we are. But by the next two-three years, my target is to see that we are actually the top 10 states in revenue generation. For me, then I’ll be comfortable and say we’re now generating revenue. The moment we begin to generate about N3-4billion, we will be among the top 10. That is the direction we are going. Apart from the collection, we are blocking all the leakages we have seen and constructing other structures that are revenue generating streams. So, if you go from Masaka to the border, you will notice that we have about 22 motor parks. As they’re generating the revenue, we don’t know where it goes to. So, we now have a site, about 70 hectares which we cleared and we are constructing a mega terminal already and by December this year, it will be ready. It will have about 900 vehicles there. So all those motor parks are now going to be relocated to this terminal. That way, the government is in a position to now collect revenue. In there, you’re going to have banks, restaurants, and all kinds of business.
