INSECURITY NOT PECULIAR TO NIGERIA -YUGUDA

Bauchi State Governor, Mallam Isa Yuguda has described insecurity as a global challenge and not one peculiar to Nigeria alone. Yuguda, who stated this at the weekend while speaking with aviation correspondents in Lagos said all hands must be on deck to deal with the malaise.

He advocated for massive job creation as a way of engaging thousands of jobless youths, who were easily manipulated for evil missions. 'In any country all over the world, there are security challenges. Let me assure you that some states in the developed world, one state's budget on security is twice the size of the annual budget of Nigeria put together. So it is a natural thing and that is why you have the government, the force, soldiers, the police and other security outfits to secure lives and property. And that is why on taking the oath of office, if you are a Christian you take the Bible, if you are a Muslim you take the Koran and you tell the Almighty God that you swear that you will protect lives and property, life is the human life, the property is the treasury right,' he said.

The Bauchi Governor, however, assured that President Goodluck Jonathan was on top of the security challenge. 'Nigeria is not an exemption, but Mr. President is on top of the problem together with all the security operatives and also the governors are also on top of the problem and by the grace of God, we will see an end to this situation or problem,' he said. On what the state is doing to improve its economic fortunes, Yuguda said plans were afoot to tackle the power challenge retarding the state's developmental momentum, a development he said would create more jobs.

'Right now power is our major challenge and we are looking forward to having a power plant that will generate a minimum of 75 megawatts within the next 12 months. We are working closely with the Federal Government and also we believe that the finances are going to be forthcoming. Once we have that on ground, then those investments that we intend to do in agriculture, construction of dams and so on and so forth will lead to production of vegetables, crops etc.

So with power, we can add value and then we can either export the food or use it locally here and also there are lots of skill acquisition programmes that we have engaged our youths in and which will eventually be translated into more jobs being created. Agriculture is one of the heaviest employers of labour. So we are planning to construct the Kasin Zaki Dam and when that is constructed, we can start giving Nigeria our food as well as exporting some,' he said.