 Korgi State is in the news and this time its capital, Lokoja, has been listed as one of the fastest growing cities in the world. And Nigeria's governor's forum says former general Babangida's commitments to patrocesan or anpatrocesan are reference points to younger generations. This is Plus Politics, I am Mary Annacolm. The capital of Korgi State, Lokoja, has been tagged as one of the fastest growing cities in the world. This is according to a report published by the visual capitalists. The first on the list is Guagualada in Abuja at 6.46 while Lokoja 5.93% is at the fourth just after Rumpanj in Bangladesh. Now venture capitalists uses data from the United Nations to rank the top 20 fastest growing cities in the world in terms of average annual growth from 2020 to 2025. Well joining us to discuss this is Kingsley Fong. He is the Korgi State Commissioner for Information and Communications. It's good to have you join us in the studio. Thank you very much. I mean for any state this would be very a very auspicious day. Everybody is excited. I mean I have people saying really Korgi fastest growing. What exactly is happening in Korgi? But let's start by the fact that Korgi is in the news for a very very positive reason. Thank you. We've always been in the news for positive reasons. This one is a bit tricky. We are excited that because of the right policies, the right programs, the right projects, the city of Lokoja is now the fourth fastest growing in the world. But we also know that to sustain that we also need the same quality of projects, programs and policies to be able to ensure that we can cope with that kind of expanding population. So it is something that is good news but also demands more work. Because you know when we talk about fastest growing cities or big cities, cities that are growing, Lagos comes to mind. First Potakot comes to mind, Abuja comes to mind. But nobody would ever think that a city like Lokoja would be in the news. But the most intriguing thing in this report when I was looking through it is that majority of the cities that are fast growing are African cities. We've seen cities like even in Egypt, in fact, we see that 17 out of the 20 of the cities that were listed are on the African continent, which is a plus for Africa. And most of these cities are located in Nigeria. So it obviously means that the governors are doing something. But let's talk about the economy. I read an analysis about the fact that Nigeria's economy we all know is largely based on oil, even though we're trying to diversify, which has made us one of the strongest economies in Africa. But we also know that we have a high bed rate. There's a population boom of sorts, which is not necessarily a plus for us. It should be a plus for us, but it isn't. We have the almost the highest since 2015, the highest unemployment rate and under-employment rate. So let's zoom into Kogi State. Now, what is the government doing in terms of the youth population? We just celebrated World Youth Day. And the research that we did was showed that lots of young people are going into drugs and gambling. And that's because of the fact that an idle man, an idle mind, you know what they say is a devil's workshop. What is the Kogi State government doing in terms of youth empowerment? How to engage young people? Because that is the gold mine for the country. As an administration, the present administration in the state has done a lot to empower the youth of the state. One of the areas is the ICT. We need to build a knowledge-based economy. We need to build an economy through which young people in our state will be able to do a lot to engage themselves. We are not having enough white collages anymore, so we need to create that environment to create the platform for young people to excel. And if you say you want to take young people away from crime and criminality, also things like internet fraud and all sort of that, we need to give them alternatives. And that's exactly what we are doing. We are currently working on what we call ICT hubs in the state. But also we are training thousands of youths on how to conduct businesses online. And that is helping a lot of the youth. What sort of businesses? The X-parties they deploy. What sort of businesses? Because I'm curious. When you say online business, I want to know what kind of businesses. Okay. There are a lot of businesses that are online. For instance, we are training youth on how to help people set up websites. We are training the youth on how to sell their products online. Like if you are a furniture maker, for instance, you can take advantage of the high traffic on the internet to be able to market your product. So we've been able to do this. I know that at a point we've trained more than 100,000 youth in the state on how to do this. And they are setting up their businesses. Also, Kogi has what we call the conference business directory that is helping to promote the businesses of young people on that site. It is a platform owned by the state government to be able to help young people promote their businesses. So if you are going to Kogi State, for instance, and you want to work with the best civil engineers, you just log in there. There's more like the yellow pages there. Yeah. So that is exactly what we are doing to be able to empower youth using the power of the ICT and the explosion in how internet could help to market, to reach larger audience around the world. Also, we've been able to empower our youth through agriculture. Agriculture is where we are going. So instead of just looking at the white-collar jobs, we are also now looking at the green-collar jobs that we can have in agriculture. And it is helping us a lot because security, peace, and security have returned to the state. It is not easier for people to invest in agriculture in the state. Also, because we've been able to stem the tide of crime and criminality in the state, a lot of investors are now coming into the state to invest. You have a very giant one we call Unicame that is working on converting cassava into all sorts of products. So youths are being engaged in these industries. So because we've been able to create- What are the processes? I'm sorry, we need to break this down because I see governments talk about these things. And most times it's on paper. Oh, we're doing this and we're doing that. But in reality, when you go down to the farmers and the young people who are supposed to participate, tell you that the process is so tough and the bottlenecks are so many, the bureaucracies can be so daunting that it's very difficult for the average young person to get access to it. How are you making sure that this is not politicized? Yes, of course, governments will say they have the best interest at heart. But how do you make sure that this is not taken advantage of by the people who want to politicize it? When you look at the administration of Alhagia Hayabelo, it is an administration driven by the youth. So you don't have to go through that bureaucracy to be able to access this. It is made of very young people. You have the average age of people serving in the administration to be 41. So that tells you that even the youth on the street, they can connect. They find it very difficult to connect with people in government. You could access government programs, policies and projects and that's what is working in the state. Before the advent of the president of administration, you discover that crime and criminalities were very dominant. If you are passing through Kogi, you are always afraid of kidnapping, banditry and all sort of things like that. But today, those youth are gainfully engaged in productive ventures. Interesting. Now, let's talk about security because you've been mentioning it here and there. It's a Fumbana issue in Nigeria. We've been talking about it every day. It's one thing in the northwest. I mean, even down south here, we have our own problems. What is that thing that Kogi State has done? Because no foreign direct investment will come if a place is not safe and secure for businesses to be done. What does Kogi State know that the rest of the country doesn't? Maybe we all have to come to you and ask for help. It is a multi-prong approach to solving the security challenges that we faced when we first came into the state. It was the kidnapped capital of Nigeria. It was a very tough one. Banditry, religious crisis, violence, bank robberies and all that. What happened was we deployed practical approaches that could help solve that very serious problem. For instance, we started by ensuring that we provide logistics for security agencies. I could remember that within the first six months of the administration, the governor procured over 240 patrol vans for security operatives to be able to move around. It's going to be very difficult in the modern world if you want to curb criminality and your security agents are not mobile. That was the first thing we did. The next level was to digitalize our security architecture to ensure that if you kidnapped someone anywhere through some of the technology we put in place, we could see where you are keeping them. See where criminals are, anywhere they are in the state from the control room. These are some of the things that were deployed by the administration. Also, we decided to localize our security architecture. You cannot depend completely on the conventional security agents to be able to solve the problem of insecurity. We started with our vigilante service. We dusted that law and ensured that thousands of youth were engaged as vigilante operatives to work with conventional security agents in the state. Also, we are making use of our local hunters and we are one of the first state to start the constabulary, the community policing in Nigeria. All of this, when you put all of this together, it shows that we are able to come everywhere and ensure that we are the safest state in the country today. And in terms of the farmer-header crisis, I do not know how much of that robbed off on Kogi State, but how are you able to conquer that? Because farmers would keep telling you that they are unable to go to their farms and you know we are having a food crisis of sorts. Even the IMF has pointed to it. I think the Kogi model would be able to help a lot of states, a good number of states in Nigeria. If we stop politicizing that issue, we will get it right. What do you mean by if we stop politicizing? Who is politicizing it? Okay, the point is this, when we keep complaining all the time about the activities of herdsmen and how they destroyed farm lands and also disturbed farming operations, then we should stop complaining and take practical steps to solve the problem. What we are doing in Kogi State, let me tell you what we are doing in Kogi State. In Kogi State, we've been living with all these Fulani people over the years. They've always been with us. But they've been with us in every other state across the country. It means that if some people are now criminals among them, it's easy when you work with the leadership of the Fulani's in your state, you'll be able to see out those that are criminals among them. I'm sorry, I'm going to push you. Let me tell you this. Let me tell you this. No, let me tell you this. Let's use, for example, Kaniff State, Kaduna State, I beg your pardon. It seems to be a kidnapped haven right now. And so they keep doing it time after time. Let's also look at Governor Zulum. You're telling me that a Governor Zulum is not working with the Fulani chiefs in his state. You're telling me that an El Rufai is not doing the same. You're telling me that all of these states that are experiencing the banditry over and over again, that they do not know that they should be liaising with these guys. I would not. Or are you saying that the Fulani men in those states are uncooperative? Which is it? Okay, I would not be able to speak for those states. I can only speak for Kogi State. What we are doing in Kogi State is to work with the leadership of the Fulani's in the state. In every community, there are community committees dealing with security. These Fulani's are part of the committee. So if anything happens anywhere, you could bring them. They will get those who have caused that problem immediately. So it is working. When you localize your security architecture, it will work for you. So instead of complaining about what is happening, we decided to call them and say, yes, every society has criminals, every society. It is not just the Fulani's. Every society has people who would always want to act contrary to the norm, to the other in that society. So because of that, we need to always strive to ensure that criminals, whether they are Fulani's, regardless of the tribe they belong to, we are able to sieve them out and deal with them appropriately. So we are not covering any Fulani criminal in our state just like we do not cover anybody that is a criminal. Either you are from the state or from anywhere. So when you work with the leadership of the Fulani's, then you will be able to achieve a peace and security. Let's talk about infrastructure development because in the main city, which is Lakota, the reason why we are having this conversation, we know that Nigeria is a one city country where the states have just one city. It is very difficult to see Lagos have Lagos and they bear more cities. You always have Kalaba, which is Cross River, Lokoja, which is, and so we do not have too many cities in one state, which is rare. So this also now attracts a lot of people from the rural areas into the urban city, which also causes a population problem, housing and all of the other problems. Of course, insecurity comes along with that. What is the government doing? Have you initiated any policies and programs to grow the main city? What is the infrastructure like? The last time I spoke to somebody about Kogi City that was years ago. They talked about bad roads. They talked about non-payment of salaries, owing of salaries. So what is the government doing now? Because if it is the fastest growing, then there has to be certain policies and programs that have been put in place. Thank you very much. As far as we are concerned as a state, I would even say we have concentrated efforts more on the need to develop the rural areas. I would say that 80% of our capital projects are in the rural areas. That is why if you go to places like Angpa, you see the Township Road there. Kaba Township Road is ongoing in Adavi, in Nijawa, in all those places. They are rural places and all these big projects are there. We know that we are going to pay a lot of price for this growing population in Lokoja. Because when you are the safest state among about 12 states that are surrounding you, then you should expect that there will be a lot of migration. That is going to place a lot of demand and responsibility on you as a state to be able to do that. So we are expanding on our infrastructure in Lokoja. A lot of road construction workers are ongoing. When people complain about the roads in Lokoja, the main place where they complain about is where we call the Ganaja Junction. If you are going to the south, south, south-east, south-west, you must pass through Ganaja Junction. It has always been a very big problem. I can tell you for free that as we are speaking here, the project to put a fly over there is going on steadily. We hope that before the end of the year, we will be able to complete that very massive project. In terms of water supply, we are doing a lot to be able to provide enough water for the green population of Lokoja. We are also upscaling medical facilities and equipment and infrastructure to be able to cope with the green population. The specialist hospital is being upgraded as we speak. The project is ongoing. We are also doing a lot in terms of providing schools for our children. I am going to come to that. Thank you for going into that. Before we talk about the schools, let's talk about the health facilities. I am not going to be speaking from head knowledge. I have visited many hospitals across this country and they are mostly an ISO. Especially state hospitals, general hospitals, health posts. When I was growing up, for every mile you took, you would find a health post or public health post. But those things seem to have been disappearing in the country. This is detailed for every state in the country. What is Kogi State doing about reviving those health posts? I remember between 2009 and 2013, if I am not mistaken, Kosovo used to be number one in terms of public health. What is the public health system like in Kogi State? Thank you very much. You are very correct with that assessment. We inherited such a public health institution in our state. But we will not complain. What we will do is to rule the slaves and immediately hit the ground running to ensure that we provide healthcare to our people. It is the responsibility of the government. Right now we are doing a lot in that regard. In 2018, we did massive work on the specialist hospital which provides medical services to a very large number of our people. But we have moved away from that. That is not enough. We need to ensure that we do not have to bring somebody from Ida to the specialist hospital in Lokoja. What we are doing right now, the Ida Zona Hospital which has been upgraded to a specialist hospital, we have just upgraded it and it is fully functional now. So you are telling me that if I go to Ida now? Yeah, also, if you go to Ida now. It is up to the par of a proper specialist hospital. Proper specialist hospital. Because I have seen many hospitals in terms of structure, in terms of facilities. In terms of very commissioned hospitals that you cannot use. In terms of equipment, it would rank with any specialist hospital anyway. I will come to Lokoja because I want to follow up on this. Everything you said, I have it on tape and I will do it. I will take you around so that you could see all of this. And you are saying this on camera, I will be in Lokoja. We will do it and I will be sure to check. No, it is not a problem. And also in Isolu, in Kogi West, we are also putting the Zona Hospital there in the next six months. We should be able to commission that. Apart from that in Gegu, because when you are coming to Abuja from Lokoja, you pass through Gegu, it is a very heavily trafficked road. So we are putting the same model of hospital there at Gegu. And in the next six months, we are doing all of this simultaneously because we released over four billion in January to ensure that we are able to complete all of these projects this year. And also you have the referral hospital in Okene, which is going to be, I am not going to say the best, but one of the best in this country, because of the kind of facilities that we are currently putting there. As I was sitting here, they sent me pictures of taking delivery of the kind of ambulances, the life support, advanced life support ambulances that we are going to be using at the hospital. These are some of the things that we are doing to ensure that we make our people have this confidence in public health institutions. They don't have to go to private hospitals. We are developing our public health institutions to be able to deal with all kinds of health emergencies that we might have. Let's talk about education and public education. I am a product of public education. I went to public schools as compared to my brother who went to private school. I went to public school. I went to a federal university. And just before I graduated, it became watered down the whole system. And this also goes for primary and secondary education. In so many states, so many states have jettisoned the upgrade of these schools. I have gone to schools where there are no roofs. I was in Kaduna State. I saw some schools that the UN is trying to help to re-roof. UNICEF, I beg your pardon. I have seen states like rivers where there are schools that children still sit on the floor for education. And I think this happens across the country. So I don't think Kogiz left out of it. Most times you see politicians pick a few schools and refurbish them because they have an agenda, especially your governor wants to run for president. So I'm guessing that he must have done that. If I were to go to a totally, somewhere very far away from Lokoja to take a look at your public education, your secondary and primary schools in your rural areas, will I see an abandoned education sector? No, you won't say that. We inherited the education sector that was likely in Shambles when we came into office. But the governor also went through public schools, public schools, right from primary school to secondary school and the university. And he perfectly understands the need to be able to ensure that our public education institutions are in great shape. As I speak to you, we started what we call the Blue Roof Revolution in our primary schools. And if you go to any village in Kogiz today, I'm not just talking about Lokoja. I'm talking about any village in any ward, in any local government. You will see brand new blocks of classrooms. Which schools are every school? Every school. Every school. Go to every school. Go to any village. Any village in Lokoja. I will go. You will see the Blue Roof classrooms. We have done this so that we will make public schools attractive. That is better than most of the private schools that you have around. And also, we've been able to ensure that our teachers go through periodic training and, you know, welfare incentives that will make them to be able to deliver on the job. That's from that, we are doing also model secondary schools. We've not been able to cover every ward in the state, but we are doing, we are going at our own pace because of resources. And we are very sure that before the end of this administration, we will be able to complete a good number of those things. Also, we've done a lot in the tertiary institutions. If you go to Kogiz State Polytechnic today, let them give you pictures of how the school was in 2016. You will see a departure from the past. The Kogiz State University is witnessing the same thing, and we established the Conference University of Science and Technology to be able to provide manpower because we are the Minerals Capital of Nigeria. You have more than 20 mineral resources in Kogiz State. And we know that we have a lot of these industries there. We know that the Ajaputa State Company is also there. So we need to provide manpower to be able to feed these industries. And that led to the establishment of technology in Osara. Let's talk foreign direct investments. According to reports by the National Bureau of Statistics Kogi Delta, Bayelsa, Eboni Gumbay, Jigawa, Oyo Oundo, Bologna and Cross River States, in fact 15 other state governments failed to attract foreign direct investments in 2020. Now it means that none of these states and their governors contributed to the $23.988 billion the other states and the Federal Capital of Territory attracted in 2020. A development contrary to the electoral promises that all of these governors have made. So can you help us understand why you made this list but then you are not attracting investments? We are attracting investments. It takes... But this is an NBS report. There will be another one in 2021. There will be a process. It's a whole lot of process before some of these things could come into fruition. We are working on an agricultural processing zone at Alapa and we know that within the next one year it is going to be a massive one because it means that even all the cassava produced in Kogi Benwe will not be enough to feed the plant there. They want to be combating it to ethanol to be in office because you are saying it will... It will still be in office till 2024. Exactly. When you say we will... When they are talking about 2020 have you seen the report for 2019? Have you seen the report for 2018? Well, 2019 is behind us. 2020 is just yesterday. Unikane just came. I am still in the middle of 2021. Unikane just came. It is a foreign company as I said today. That will not be listed for 2020. So it doesn't mean that this administration has not been attracting foreign investment into the state. We have been doing that. This is the report for 2020. Exactly. You knew perfectly what happened in 2020. What happened? The issue of COVID-19. That your state doesn't believe in and even if you don't believe in it, those that are supposed to bring their investment, don't they believe in it? What was the traffic to Nigeria from all these foreign investors in 2020? Okay. We can't use that to rate. We are attracted in 2017, 2018, 2019. What happened in 2020 probably affected all of this state that we have mentioned. They have been attracting foreign direct investment. We are always running out of time. Aside from the effect of COVID-19, you know, could this also mean that, either the necessary steps were not taken by governments to attract this investment, or could you also mean that investors saw no attraction in your state or your environment? You have told me that your security is up to par. You told me that infrastructure development is number one. We really need to go there. I'm going to tell my producer we have to come to Kogi state and do some feasibility studies to be sure that everything you told us. But going forward, what is the plan of you? Because one minute your governor wants to run for president. How do you hope to carry on with all of these things that I can tell that are still ongoing without it being stopped? Government is a continuum, but of course it's all on agenda and projects. How do you hope that you will continue this project? Let me tell you this. Kogi is very attractive. After the about the mineral resources that we have, and just I think this year, early this year, the goat processing plant for the entire North Central was cited in Kogi state. So this is going to attract a lot. Also you are talking about a state that is hosting the biggest cement factory in the entire Africa. So it's attractive and they know that it's attractive and they have been coming to the state. Like I said, it's just the 2020 report. We expect that this year it's going to be a lot different and we did a lot in 2017, 2018 and also 2019. Having said that the governor is focused and that is why he's still doing all of these projects. Despite the call on him to run for the 2023 presidency, he remains focused. As I'm talking to you, you can put a call through anybody in Kaba. The Kaba Township Road is undergoing massive reconstruction as we speak. So he remained focused and he's going to continue to do that until his last day in office. I cannot show you that. We'll keep our fingers crossed. King's Defile is the commissioner for information and communication in Kogi state. Thank you very much for being our guest. Thank you. We'll take a short break and when we come back, the Nigeria Governor's Forum tells us what they think about IBB's legacy as he turns a year older. We'll be right back.