Mohammed Bago is the Governor of Niger State. In this interview monitored on Arise Television by ANAYO EZUGWU, he speaks on his administration’s effort to reposition the state, why he declared himself the director-general of President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 campaign, the Shiroro mining episode and his bid to clamp down on illegal miners, among other issues

Bora Port in Niger State was commissioned in 2019 under the past administration and the port has faced what the minister called operational challenges or constraints. What are the constraints?

The Bora Port is the only inland port that leads to the north of Nigeria. It’s a colonial port. However, in the past, governments have tried to fix it. But it’s faced with a lot of siltation. And the challenge we’re having is we need serious federal attention to that port.

That port is going to save our roads. It’s going to bring economic resources to the North. It’s going to be a hub for the entirety of the North. So, Bora Port is central to Nigeria.

Just recently, we received a committee of the House of Representatives led by former deputy speaker, Idris Wase. They came on a fact-finding mission to the Bora; they were received very well and they saw for themselves. The port has the capacity to transform the blue economy of the North and that is what we are already working on.

So, we’re working with the Federal Government to see how the private sector and the public sector will work together to revamp and rebuild that port for posterity.

You said members of the committee promised to get to your state and they eventually did and then paid you a visit. But what they said is quite poignant. They said what they saw on ground was a commissioning done on paper. What are they practically trying to say?

During the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari, there was an attempt to launch the Bora Port but the port itself was commissioned, while the waterways were not done. So, what they’re referring to was that there is need for an emergency intervention in dredging and bank protection of that port, so that batches can come in from the sea into the river.

We have redesigned and planned Bora as a city that’s going to be like an annex to Abuja and it’s going to be a port city. We have over 40,000 plots of land there. So, it’s something that can have spontaneous financing. Once the government is ready to concession the port to private sector, we will have a lot of private initiatives to let it work.

So, we are talking about is for the Federal Government to look at what we are doing as a state for us to have partnership that will bring the private sector to drive this initiative. Yes, the Federal Government doesn’t have the resources, but it can give sovereign guarantee for this kind of project, which is very important.

What is stopping the concession?

Bureaucracy, of course, but we’ve gone to the second step and they are working on it. The President is very determined about it. The dredging cannot start right now.

There are a lot of conditions that are precedent for dredging to start, and one of those things is the private sector involvement. Again, the beauty of the River Niger is that it has a lot of silica, which is used to make glasses.

We have an understanding that power rotates between the North and South…So, we’ll make people understand that the South will do its eight years

We can produce solar cells, we can do glasses, we can do light, fibre glasses and others. So, we need a consortium of people who are in this production to understand that you can use the silica here because once you dredge, what do you do with the sand.

People need to do that, and the Lagos-Calabar Highway needs a lot of sand, the Sokoto-Badagry Highway also needs sand. So, all these they have to do is an ecosystem that you must key in. You must understand it from first to end. It’s very important.

There is this question of gridlock in Bida caused by trailers. What are you doing about it?

We’ve done a lot of statistics, and we want the system to understand that Niger State is suffering a lot from gridlock of trucks. There is about three million truck movement every month through Niger State because the Mokwa-Birinugwari road is cut off.

Though the Minister of Work spoke about it, Aliko Dangote has shown interest in doing the JebaMokwa-Lamba-Taro.

However, as a state, what we have done is that we are building a road to cut off Bida, but this is a state initiative, so we’re going to toll it. The money from the toll will pay for the road. It can’t be too much on the people because it’s for prosperity.

Where are we on the Mokwa incident in which many lives were lost. How have you been able to cope with it and how have you resettled persons who were displaced?

You need to understand Niger State. We’re a riverine state. On the left and the right of Niger State, the two flanks, are rivers, River Kaduna and River Niger. We have four hydropower dams. We have the Kainji, the Djeba, the Zingira, and the Shiroro.

Now, we’ve been hit by an unprecedented flood and a lot of lives were lost. We thank the President for his response. The vice president was there. A lot of people have come in. We thank Nigerians for their responses.

But what we’ve come to understand is that we cannot continue to put people in IDP camps. So, what we’ve done? We have done an enumeration of people who have been affected. We have been able to compensate them with cash, food items and other materials for them to resettle, while the federal and state governments are trying to build them permanent residences somewhere.

So right now, there is nobody that is living in the IDP camp. People have been given money. They have gone to resettle themselves, and incidentally, 80 per cent of the people who were hit in that area are not even from Niger State. They are from the far north. And basically, why the idea?

Over time, when these dams were constructed, there was siltation. When you want to build a hydro dam, you block water flow. So, a lot of siltation happened. Over time, people thought it was just a place for them to build because they do a lot of dry season farming around there. There’s so much water there but this time around, the water was so strong and it blew up the bridge. We want to thank the president because he has been magnanimous to Niger State.

What he did was unprecedented and it has given us reason to dismantle other IDP camps, where we have people affected by natural disasters and banditry. Right now, we’re settling them so that they can leave the camps and go and settle down. We are also giving them some start-up capitals as well as teaching them some trade, so that they can moved on.

Whenever one hears about flooding, what one always from hear authorities is relocate. The question is: Relocate to where?

To the highlands and if you heard me rightly, I said where, as a state, we don’t even farm during rainy season in some plains, because they get flooded and these people live on the hillside, the upper Niger.

But in the lower Niger, you have a lot of floods. So, the advocacy by government is, go back to the highlands, let the water pass, bit they will not even want to transition or leave that area because they think it’s their birthright.

So, what we have done in some places is to build some accommodation for a lot of them. But you see, our people are kind of difficult, because they are fishermen and farmers. So, they want to be by the river. They’ve been there for quite a long time. So, what we do, the advocacy is, move temporarily for six months.

Six months in, six months out. And even their schools, their syllabuses are different. They don’t do the normal curriculum everybody does, because during the dry season, they won’t be in school. So, use the wet season now to put them in school. And this is how we’ve been able to do it.

Locals are saying that government negligence has paved the way for the thriving terror groups in Shiroro. Why has government left locals at the mercy of terrorist groups?

Niger State is 11 per cent of Nigeria in terms of size. It has a lot of forest reserves; it has a lot of ungoverned spaces, Over the years, these migrants have become emboldened. So, they found themselves safe havens where they’ve hidden for a long time. They built capacity but the government of today has been working assiduously to degrade these people.

We’ve achieved a lot. People have gone back to their respective homes. There is no place that is governed by any terrorist group anymore in Niger State. We just had an election in the local government area after Shiroro called Muya, where APC swept 100 per cent, and everybody’s back there. We have built roads there, we are doing a lot of bridges there and people are living their normal lives.

But over the time, people have been hit badly. Right now, the UNDP and Niger State government are building about 200 houses to resettle these people. And we’ve gone very far in this. So, life is back and people are back to their lives. Do not listen to people who say that those places are ungoverned. However, the activities of illegal miners have been an issue. Degrading of the land and so many other vices is happening.

But with the Ministry of Mineral Resources, with the federal government of Nigeria and the state government, we are working for a responsible mining regime, so that we can miners who understand what is called responsible mining. We’ve gone very far in that; a lot of advocacy and education has gone into that. Niger State has a lot of minerals. We have the largest deposit of lithium and gold.

We have hydrocarbon, we have gas, we have petroleum, we have gold and we have diamond. Niger State has got everything. So, activities of illegal miners are responsible for all these crises. However, the Federal Government is working very hard in that regard. The security agencies are also doing a very fantastic job.

Four miners lost their lives recently. The same company was involved in an earlier incident that took about eight lives. What actions have the government taken so far since these two incidents?

They’ve been banned from mining. The Federal Ministry of Mineral Resources and Niger State government are also working on it. They can’t mine again. We have been able to get some assistance from the federal government to assist the families of those that lost their lives.

Also, we have now been able to re-register every other mining company that is in Niger State. We have another register of all mining companies that are legally permitted and we have done some kind of research and assessment on what they do.

We’ve achieved a lot. People have gone back to their respective homes. There is no place that is governed by any terrorist group anymore in Niger State

I don’t know what they call it in Geography, I think it’s a survey of the land, for what they can do. So, we have now on our palm, the location of every mining company, we know where they are, what they are doing, and when they are doing it.

What we understand is that the mining site was closed down by the government after all these incidents but operations resumed without authorisation. Is that what is going on?

Not by the company because they have done a lot of blasting, so artisanal miners just go there to pick from the rubbles. But the company has not resumed because we are working with the Federal Government and the security agencies on the security of that area, because that place used to be worse hit by terrorist groups.

Now that there is calm and people are living in harmony, we have a lot of renal failures, a lot of lead poisoning, and so many other things. So, the advocacy is there. We have banned it unless, of course, we have investments that will come and do a responsible mining regime.

Let’s talk about your agriculture revolution. Your state is big on agriculture and about 80 per cent rely on farming. Let’s get a brief on what you call Livestock and Agricultural Modernisation Project (LAMP)?

When you talk about LAMP, we have provided ourselves as a lead state to anchor agriculture. Looking at our land size, looking at our water resources, we know that what we can do with agriculture is not something that you can undermine Again, we don’t have tsetse fly, so it’s easy for you to have grazing reserves for livestock to thrive. On crop production; because of our size of land and water, you can farm all year round and you don’t need too much of manure or fertilizer.

The land is fertile, and our people naturally are agrarian. Niger State is the global headquarters of Shea nut in the world and this Shea are not planted by anybody. They are wild.

Sixty per cent of global Shea comes from Niger State. So, if you are deliberate about planting Shea, you can imagine what you can be. We just commissioned the largest Shea production factory in Niger State in Mokwa.

Mokwa is blessed with both water and disaster. Mokwa is a plain because it’s at the edge of Niger, so it’s a plain at the edge of Niger. After the valley of Niger, you have Mokwa. It has a lot of land and water resources, so a lot of agricultural initiatives happen there.

You said you’re the director general of the president’s campaign, headquartered in Niger State. Was it responsible for the impressive voter turnout in Niger State in the recent by-election? The people are happy with the government. There is no hardship in Niger State. What used to be the price of food items and what is the price today?

It has significantly dropped. That’s why I’ve taken the responsibility to drive the campaign. How much is a bag of rice today? How much is minimum wage? We’ve tripled that. Minimum wage used to be N30,000, now it’s N80,000. That is what we’re paying in the state and local governments.

So, we’ve done a lot as a result of the reforms of the President and I’m proud to say it anywhere. So, I have taken it as a responsibility to become the director general of the President Tinubu’s campaign for 2027 and that is why the turnout of voters for the by-election was massive.

People are happy. We’ve built their roads, they are secured, nobody terrorises them again and they’re happy. This place used to be governed by terrorists, but we are now living peacefully. The people are excited. They’ve gone back to their farms, production has increased and everything is working. You see, when you have economic policies, the shock will come in but it depends on how you also adjust.

So, the adjustment is what people don’t want to see and that is why we need to educate people. Did the President spoil the schools? No. Rather, he’s trying to fix them. Did he spoil the hospitals? No. But he’s trying to fix them.

Did he spoil the roads? No. So, when somebody is coming as a Mr. Fix It to fix the economy, I think Nigerians should support him. And let me tell you, we have an understanding that power rotates between the North and South. Unless somebody is an enemy of Nigeria, you will not want to truncate that arrangement.

So, we’ll make people understand that the South will do its eight years. I’m from the North; the policies of the President are working. I have so much money that I’m doing a lot. I’m fixing the roads. I’m building bridges. I’m doing 1,000 kilometres of road and it has not stopped. If the policies were not working, I wouldn’t get this money. Right now, I’m going to Brazil with the president. I’ll meet him in the Brazil.

We’re taking out of the $2.5 billion dollars that the Brazil is bringing. Another $1.2 billion is coming from the United States for livestock. Every state will benefit and as the director general of the campaign, the time will come when I will bring out the report card of every state and I will tell the people what we have given them and what they are doing.