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 Daily Independent Online.
* Tuesday, August 10, 2004.
Government
should review laws on joint account
- Garba
John Danladi Garba
is a frontline politician of repute. He is second time chairman of Kurmi
Local Government of Taraba State.
He was also elected into the Taraba State House of Assembly on the
platform of the defunct United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) in 1996, but
was sacked alongside others by the regime of the late General Sani
Abacha. In this interview with Taraba Correspondent, JANET NYAJON, Garba
spoke on contemporary national issues, especially the controversial joint
account between states and local governments. Excerpts:
This is the
second time you are serving as the executive chairman of Kurmi Local
Government, an indication that you are the people's choice. What do you
think people cherish more about you?
Well, politics is
a game. If you know how to administer your people, you have no problem.
My people cherish me because I am always with them. We mix together; I
know their problems. I have their interest at heart. They love me because
of the programmes and policies I have embarked upon.
Your council has
been identified as a cocoa-yielding area, in addition to other resources
that abound there. How has your council been able to exploit and harness
these resources?
Throughout Taraba
State, I think Kurmi is the only local government where people cultivate
cocoa. But before now people knew little about the value of cocoa in the
early seventies. Many people thought they were joking but right now, many
people have come to know the importance of cocoa and have embraced it. If
you go to Abong, Sabon-Gida, Asha, Akwente areas, they know the value and
they know it is highly marketable. Even right now, there is an on-going
programme by the Federal Government to supply cocoa seedlings to the
people here. We were supposed to have workshop here for the people.
Unfortunately, it could not hold because of other commitments. It will
soon take place by the grace of God.
Taraba State has
been identified as crisis-ridden state occasioned by communal crises.
This is not the case with Kurmi. What is responsible for the relative
peace in your area?
You see, when you have
enlightened people who know exactly what they are doing, there are fewer
problems. And if you know how to mobilise them, then the problem is
definitely going to be less. At the same time, if you try to embark on
programmes that will minimize these conflicts, peace will be prevalent in
your area. What we have basically done in the council is to evolve
measures that will prevent conflicts. We have formed peace committees
that try to enlighten the people on the need to stay together. We have
inter-religious committees that have been meeting often from the ward
level. We also have a security committee that meets frequently. Above
all, we have provided an interactive forum where we meet among ourselves,
identify our problems and strive towards solving those problems.
Politically, if you don't alienate people, there will be less problems
irrespective of the political party they belong to. You know we contested
elections with them, some of them were aggrieved because of one reason or
the other, but we have tried to integrate them into the system.
Yesterday, when some committee members came from Jalingo, you saw what
took place. All political bigwigs in the local government and those who
were in the other parties were also given the opportunity in certain appointments
even though they are not from the ruling party. This is because we
believe that the local government belongs to all of us and we have to
stay and salvage it together. It is not a matter of winner takes all. So,
I think it is the style of the administration. Everybody is being given a
sense of belonging and pride. Leadership is a collective responsibility
and that has always been on my mind whenever I am in position of
authority. Perhaps, that explains why according to you, I am seen as the
people's choice.
Local government
councils in the country have always complained of paucity of funds and
used this as an excuse for non-performance. What is the magic in your own
case?
As a matter of
fact, I have to be sincere; fund at times is a problem. But at times it
is not the case. It is a matter of management. If you know how to manage
the funds available to you, you will have no problem. There is a saying
that ‘cut your coat according to your size’. A lot of chairmen embark on
programmes and projects that they cannot execute. A lot of us will not
say the truth; if you know you cannot do anything, say you cannot do it
but at times we go to the extent of committing ourselves. I think these
are the problems. So, the magic we have is that if I have N12 million,
we prioritise our projects.
We use our scale of preference. And what we cannot do, we tell our
people: sorry we cannot do this because we don't have these resources. We
have to plan things. We have our minimal way of spending. So people think
we have money in Kurmi Local Government. No! It is the same money we
receive, but we have been managing it properly so that we don't run out
of money in embarking on programmes that we can’t execute. That is the
secret.
State Joint
Account has been described as a cog in the wheel of local councils. Do
you agree?
Yes, we have been
having a joint account. The constitution says there must be a joint
account between the councils and states. And what is done at the joint
account meeting is the deduction in the statutory allocation. Any time we
meet at the joint account meeting, they make sure that they deduct 15 per
cent for National Primary Education Commission, and seven per cent for
traditional councils. All these deductions, before they finish, you
discover that the subvention has come down. Joint account per se was a
problem during the caretaker period but not during this period of elected
council chairmen. All the deductions are legal. And unless the
constitution is amended and the House of Assembly sits down to reduce the
burden, the deductions would continue to be huge, because there are laws
made by Houses of assembly and the traditional council which limit our
funding. So, there is nothing we can do. The problem is not with the
joint account but with the laws we make. If these laws are not reviewed,
we will continue to suffer. At the joint account meeting, what we do
there is that we sit down, deduct all these statutory allocations and if
there are other problems, we serve as a clearing house, where we sit down
and say: ok, this and that, let’s see what we can do before we can get
our final subvention of the local government. I want to call on the
Houses of Assembly to look once again at some of the laws to minimise the
problems local government councils are facing because of the joint
account. If they say they should deduct 20 per cent of our subvention, we
have no say, if they say they should deduct two per cent fine! Some of
the percentages they deduct are too much.
You are a
teacher-turned politician. What is your reason for abandoning the
classroom and joining politics?
I am still a
teacher by profession and I will always be a teacher by profession. But
one thing is that when you look at my own area before I joined politics,
there were no people who wanted to join politics. And anytime a person is
elected into office, he or she merely sits down in the house and does
nothing. So when I look at what is going on in other states where people
that have solid background decline to serve, I am amazed. There was this bank
accountant, my friend, who was called by his people to leave his
accounting job to serve his people; he refused. That was what informed my
choice in politics. So, I told my friend that if it was his people that
were calling him to serve that he better answer the clarion call. He
refused. But, all of a sudden, his people wrote a withdrawal letter and submitted to his
employers and he went. He was a chairman of a local government in Kogi
State. In Kurmi Local Government, we have people that could go into politics.
I don’t know why they are running away from it. And most of the time we
elect people who cannot speak good English into the House of Assembly.
People who can go there and sit down and at the end they don't have
anything to show for it, resulting in criticisms about their
representation in the house. This is the reason why I left my job and
joined politics. And I did join politics and was accepted by my people.
Like a joke, I contested for a seat in the House of Assembly and was
elected. It was then that I tendered my resignation letter to show that I
was fully into politics. So the desire to serve my people in different
capacities influenced my choice to go into politics and here I am today,
a professional politician.
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