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In this interview, the Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, addressed key issues such as local government autonomy, the governors’ lawsuit concerning the legality of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and the current economic situation in the country, with MAUPE OGUN-YUSUF on Channels TV HardCopy Programme.
Your state has come a long way since it was surmounted, or at least curtailed to some local government areas in Borno State. Do you still suffer the scars of that insurgency?
Well, so far, so good at the moment. We have done a lot of security re-jiggling and put in a lot in terms of infrastructure to improve the security of the state. In the last five years, it has been relatively peaceful and calm. Within this period, I think one or two times, we had some attacks, where we are still studying the modus operandi of the insurgents. But since then, I think we have been good. Hitherto, where people had not been farming and cultivating, particularly in the last three years, people have gone about 10 to 15 kilometers deep into this area, where they had initially abandoned their farming activities.
Are the people of Adamawa State now farming in the Sambisa Forest?
Yes. Things are very okay. Particularly in my local government, Madagali, as well as Gombi and Hong, part of Sambisa. People are farming in all these areas.
Some people argue that the armed confrontation was a later part of the Boko Haram insurgency. The belief is that the driving force is that Western education is prohibited and that this gained ground among young people who were not educated, who were not in schools, and who had become radicalized. Is there anything you are doing deliberately to remove this belief?
Adamawa State is above board when you talk about education in this country. In the three subsequent NECO results in this country, 2023 and 2024, we have always come second behind Abia. So Adamawa is at the forefront of education. Even girls’ education is not backward in Adamawa. So I wouldn’t associate crime in Adamawa with not going to school or the Almajiri issue. Yes, we have redundant youth that don’t have jobs, but still, the government is doing its best to create entrepreneurship and other skills for them so that they can be engaged. But to say in Adamawa that our youth joined Boko Haram because of Almajiri activities or not going to school, I don’t subscribe to that. That is not correct.
In the 2024 budget, you allocated something very substantial to education, N48 billion.
Well, since we came in 2019, we made education and security our priorities because we believe these are the driving forces. You cannot build your future if your youth are not well educated. We have seen the bad shape our education system has gone into. Like I just said, when we came, we were almost in 33rd or 34th position in WAEC and NECO in the country. We evaluated the whole system and saw that, one, there were no qualified teachers recruited, the infrastructure in our schools was poor, and there were no incentives like instructional materials or even free feeding for our youth. Also, considering the activities of Boko Haram, we felt even the economic fortunes of our people had gone backward. So we felt that for us to make a meaningful impact, we had to take over the running of the schools. We started by providing instructional and teaching materials. We recruited qualified teachers and trained and retrained the existing teachers. We extended the tenure of Science, English, and Math teachers from retiring at 60 to 65, so that we can still keep experienced teachers in the schools.
Are the teachers happy about that?
Yes, they are. We also ensured that their promotions were done on time so that they could be encouraged. Then we moved to infrastructure. We started with 12 legacy schools that we used to have in Adamawa State to ensure that we rehabilitated them and expanded the schools because of the number of students that have been enrolled now. You know, what we used to have 30 years ago cannot be the same as what we have now.
You have been quite vocal about national issues. Recently, your Attorney General led a number of other attorneys general to the Supreme Court over issues related to the federation account. You seem dissatisfied. Is that matter still in court?
Yes, it is still in court. It has not been fixed for a hearing at the Supreme Court.
What precisely are you asking for?
We want Section 162, subsection 123 to be interpreted. Monies are collected on behalf of the federation, but they’re shared at the discretion of others, which we feel is wrong.
How do you mean?
If you collect money, the provision says you share it with the three tiers of government as per the percentage agreed in the constitution: 52%, 26%, and 18%. That has not been followed. You have seen several times where even your members who attend FAAC see that N2.4 trillion or N2.5 trillion is collected, but what is shared among all three tiers of government is N1.2 trillion or N1.260 trillion. So have you asked the question, where has the rest gone? If we want our democracy to work, if we want to deepen our democracy and our constitution, I think all our laws have to be followed. We are asking, who has the right to deduct or decide what should be shared, apart from what the constitution states?
Have you asked this question at NEC (National Economic Council)?
Several times.
What response do you get?
Nobody seems to commit themselves to the question. I think the right place and the only place to go is the Supreme Court.
On the issue of local government autonomy, we hear that some states are trying to circumvent what the Supreme Court ruled. But a few days ago, the Senate of Nigeria intervened on that matter, asking states to comply. Is your state one of those trying to circumvent or disagree with the Supreme Court order on financial autonomy for local government?
I think the Senate is just trying to overheat the system by trying to make themselves relevant in the present circumstances of hardship, instead of serving their purpose and addressing issues that concern the ordinary citizen.
Why do you say so?
The issue of electricity tariffs, the various taxes that they are about to introduce now that are before them, the issue of oil subsidy— they are busy talking about autonomy that has already been ruled by the Supreme Court. Nobody is against that. We are all happy to have received that. For me, even though the ruling has come with excitement, I think I am five years ahead of that judgment. Since I came, I have been implementing autonomy for my local government. I have been publishing their monthly allocations in newspapers. So I think for them to come out yesterday to debate that the states are trying to circumvent the system, how? Are we the ones sharing the money? Are we the accountants of the federation that post money to the local government accounts and have stopped her from doing her job? So where are they coming from?
Have you seen what is happening in a number of states? One of them is Anambra State, and the other is your dear friend, Governor Makinde of Oyo State, who says that no one can come and dictate to them what should happen in Oyo State.
What Makinde said is that they have pulled out of ALGON. He did not say he is not respecting the Supreme Court judgment.
What does that imply?
Why are they pulling out of ALGON if they are happy with the judgment?
It is a voluntary association. I can decide today not to be a member of NGF.
Yes, but why would that come from the governor? Why shouldn’t it come from the local government?
It came from them.
Just re-echoed by the governor?
Yes. If his local government wanted
Your state has come a long way since it was surmounted, or at least curtailed to some local government areas in Borno State. Do you still suffer the scars of that insurgency?
Well, so far, so good at the moment. We have done a lot of security re-jiggling and put in a lot in terms of infrastructure to improve the security of the state. In the last five years, it has been relatively peaceful and calm. Within this period, I think one or two times, we had some attacks, where we are still studying the modus operandi of the insurgents. But since then, I think we have been good. Hitherto, where people had not been farming and cultivating, particularly in the last three years, people have gone about 10 to 15 kilometers deep into this area, where they had initially abandoned their farming activities.
Are the people of Adamawa State now farming in the Sambisa Forest?
Yes. Things are very okay. Particularly in my local government, Madagali, as well as Gombi and Hong, part of Sambisa. People are farming in all these areas.
Some people argue that the armed confrontation was a later part of the Boko Haram insurgency. The belief is that the driving force is that Western education is prohibited and that this gained ground among young people who were not educated, who were not in schools, and who had become radicalized. Is there anything you are doing deliberately to remove this belief?
Adamawa State is above board when you talk about education in this country. In the three subsequent NECO results in this country, 2023 and 2024, we have always come second behind Abia. So Adamawa is at the forefront of education. Even girls’ education is not backward in Adamawa. So I wouldn’t associate crime in Adamawa with not going to school or the Almajiri issue. Yes, we have redundant youth that don’t have jobs, but still, the government is doing its best to create entrepreneurship and other skills for them so that they can be engaged. But to say in Adamawa that our youth joined Boko Haram because of Almajiri activities or not going to school, I don’t subscribe to that. That is not correct.
In the 2024 budget, you allocated something very substantial to education, N48 billion.
Well, since we came in 2019, we made education and security our priorities because we believe these are the driving forces. You cannot build your future if your youth are not well educated. We have seen the bad shape our education system has gone into. Like I just said, when we came, we were almost in 33rd or 34th position in WAEC and NECO in the country. We evaluated the whole system and saw that, one, there were no qualified teachers recruited, the infrastructure in our schools was poor, and there were no incentives like instructional materials or even free feeding for our youth. Also, considering the activities of Boko Haram, we felt even the economic fortunes of our people had gone backward. So we felt that for us to make a meaningful impact, we had to take over the running of the schools. We started by providing instructional and teaching materials. We recruited qualified teachers and trained and retrained the existing teachers. We extended the tenure of Science, English, and Math teachers from retiring at 60 to 65, so that we can still keep experienced teachers in the schools.
Are the teachers happy about that?
Yes, they are. We also ensured that their promotions were done on time so that they could be encouraged. Then we moved to infrastructure. We started with 12 legacy schools that we used to have in Adamawa State to ensure that we rehabilitated them and expanded the schools because of the number of students that have been enrolled now. You know, what we used to have 30 years ago cannot be the same as what we have now.
You have been quite vocal about national issues. Recently, your Attorney General led a number of other attorneys general to the Supreme Court over issues related to the federation account. You seem dissatisfied. Is that matter still in court?
Yes, it is still in court. It has not been fixed for a hearing at the Supreme Court.
What precisely are you asking for?
We want Section 162, subsection 123 to be interpreted. Monies are collected on behalf of the federation, but they’re shared at the discretion of others, which we feel is wrong.
How do you mean?
If you collect money, the provision says you share it with the three tiers of government as per the percentage agreed in the constitution: 52%, 26%, and 18%. That has not been followed. You have seen several times where even your members who attend FAAC see that N2.4 trillion or N2.5 trillion is collected, but what is shared among all three tiers of government is N1.2 trillion or N1.260 trillion. So have you asked the question, where has the rest gone? If we want our democracy to work, if we want to deepen our democracy and our constitution, I think all our laws have to be followed. We are asking, who has the right to deduct or decide what should be shared, apart from what the constitution states?
Have you asked this question at NEC (National Economic Council)?
Several times.
What response do you get?
Nobody seems to commit themselves to the question. I think the right place and the only place to go is the Supreme Court.
On the issue of local government autonomy, we hear that some states are trying to circumvent what the Supreme Court ruled. But a few days ago, the Senate of Nigeria intervened on that matter, asking states to comply. Is your state one of those trying to circumvent or disagree with the Supreme Court order on financial autonomy for local government?
I think the Senate is just trying to overheat the system by trying to make themselves relevant in the present circumstances of hardship, instead of serving their purpose and addressing issues that concern the ordinary citizen.
Why do you say so?
The issue of electricity tariffs, the various taxes that they are about to introduce now that are before them, the issue of oil subsidy— they are busy talking about autonomy that has already been ruled by the Supreme Court. Nobody is against that. We are all happy to have received that. For me, even though the ruling has come with excitement, I think I am five years ahead of that judgment. Since I came, I have been implementing autonomy for my local government. I have been publishing their monthly allocations in newspapers. So I think for them to come out yesterday to debate that the states are trying to circumvent the system, how? Are we the ones sharing the money? Are we the accountants of the federation that post money to the local government accounts and have stopped her from doing her job? So where are they coming from?
Have you seen what is happening in a number of states? One of them is Anambra State, and the other is your dear friend, Governor Makinde of Oyo State, who says that no one can come and dictate to them what should happen in Oyo State.
What Makinde said is that they have pulled out of ALGON. He did not say he is not respecting the Supreme Court judgment.
What does that imply? Why are they pulling out of ALGON if they are happy with the judgment?
It is a voluntary association. I can decide today not to be a member of NGF.
Yes, but why would that come from the governor?
Why shouldn’t it come from the local government?
It came from them.
Just re-echoed by the governor?
Yes. If his local government wanted something and they asked him, this is what we want, what is wrong with him echoing that for the public to know?
Talking about Anambra State, you said that states are stopping local government from getting their direct funds as ruled by the Supreme Court is different.
No, I didn’t say that. I said a number of states are trying to circumvent it. A number of states are not happy. If the local government decides, this is their money. Who is dictating to the Federal Government how they spend their money? Who is dictating to the National Assembly how they spend their subvention? If the local government decides that we have a joint project that we want to do collectively and they have budgeted for it and they move this money into a consolidated account, what is wrong with that?
You have said you are complying with what the Supreme Court has said and you are agreeing with it 100%. Are you one of the states also questioning the existence of the laws setting up the EFCC?
As of yesterday, I am not.
Do you intend to join them?
I am still going through it with my Attorney General. If necessary, I will join. But at the moment, I am not.
You don’t see the need now?
Well, I was not aware when they went to court. Now that I am aware, I will look at the documents. I will consider the issues involved. But for me, it is not the right time that we should kill the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, whether it has come wrongly or rightly. At least, we need to strengthen it. We need to make it work better. We need to remove the politics within it that sometimes makes people cry that they are being witch-hunted instead of addressing the real issues. But regarding the Attorney General of Oyo, who spoke after the court session, he was complaining that even where money under the federation— which we practice in Nigeria— is shared between the three arms of government, federal, state, and local government, the federal government takes it upon themselves to ask questions about how the state and local government are spending their money. And even where it is misappropriated, assumed, and recovered
Recently, the NNPC announced that it would no longer be the middleman. So right now, they are saying we are entering a full deregulation regime, whereby citizens are going to be paying the full price of PMS. From what we have seen so far, there has already been hardship, even when we are not paying the full price. As a result of the floating of FX, things went a bit awry, and we have seen that the Federal Government had to step in briefly. People say that state governments can do a lot more to ease the burden on their citizens. Is this something that you agree with?
Yes, quite true.
What do you think they could be doing differently?
We need to invest in and subsidize education, healthcare, agriculture, and transportation. If we do these four and improve the welfare of citizens and pay salaries promptly, I think this will reduce tensions at the state level. Like I said earlier, we need to invest heavily in security because people still can’t go to farm, and at the end of the day, they don’t have the wherewithal to make ends meet. There will be hardship. I am not against the policy of removing subsidies, but I am saying the federal government should moderate the hardship. They have a significant role to play. All over the world, people moderate the hardships of their citizens. They have to bring some sort of subsidy indirectly. We are talking about CNG. There is a lot of noise about it when we have not laid the infrastructure for the takeoff of these CNG vehicles. Assuming today they give you a CNG vehicle, where is the gas station? Even in a city like Abuja and Lagos. So why should we jump the gun ahead of our policies? If we are implementing our policy, let us do it systematically in a way that will work well for us.
On the one hand, you agree with the removal of subsidies; on the other hand, you do not?
Yes, I agree, but the infrastructure is not in place. We are in a hurry to put them in place. There is nothing wrong with that. We wouldn’t be able to move forward. This is what has killed this country for a long time; 30, 35 years ago, these subsidies should have been removed. After all, nobody is complaining in Cameroon, which has a lower income and economy than Nigeria, even when they are buying a litre of petrol above N2,000. Nobody is complaining in Ghana because they have allowed this in their system for a long time, and they are done with it. But when you allow these prices to jump by hundreds and thousands, from less than N200 to N1,300, how do you expect an average family man to cope with that in this country? It is coming too soon. Within the span of 16 months, you are paying from less than N50 per kilowatt of electricity to N265 per kilowatt in this country. Now they are introducing taxes. If not for the outcry from Nigerians, they would have raised VAT to 10%. Are these not too much for us to bear at the same time? Are you happy, if I may ask?
When you look at what state governors can do, would you say that you and your fellow governors are doing enough based on capacity? We understand that as a result of the fuel subsidy removal, a lot more is accruing to states by way of revenue to do much more for their citizens.
With what value? If I was collecting N6 billion in Buhari’s regime, and today I am collecting N9 billion, by your calculation of the Naira value, have I gained anything? Of course not. If I was collecting N6 billion in Buhari’s regime, that translates to more than $15 million. Today, if I am collecting N9 billion, it is less than $5 million, so where have we gained?
What do you say to the accusation that it is governors who are actually putting pressure on the dollar?
How will they do that? With the transparency in the budgeting system? With the SIFTAS program that has improved the coding of our budget? Every item has to go according to law. How will a governor take money? How will a governor put his hand into the coffers of the state and then take it to the Bureau de Change? How will that happen?
You have heard the accusation before?
I think there is more corruption at the federal level than at the state level. I think that should be addressed. If you are collecting 52% of the budget and you did not use that to devalue the Naira, how can you accuse the person who is collecting 26% of being the one devaluing the Naira? I don’t think this is an argument that can be agreed upon by anybody. And let me tell you, in the federal budget, every item is tied to an individual. That is not the same at the state level. Every item in our budget is tied to a community. So how will you steal money at the state level that they are not stealing at the federal level to make the Naira devalue?
So you reject those accusations?
Completely.
In the last election, your state was one of the states where we saw an example of what shouldn’t happen. Recently, you led the team of PDP governors to the Edo state election, and it was quite controversial. You were accused of reeling out figures. These were accusations which you denied very vehemently. Shortly after the elections, you released a statement on your Twitter handle saying our democracy indeed is under attack. We must condemn this rape of democracy and demand accountability. The world is watching. Interestingly, I read some of the responses to that particular tweet. Those who felt that what happened in Edo was less than stellar, as supported by a number of CSOs, also felt that governors have had their way for too long with what they did in the local government elections. So when we talk about democracy, is it only when INEC conducts elections that we should talk about it?
What I saw in Edo, like you said, is terrible.
What was terrible about it?
Because it did not reflect what the people wanted. I was in charge of the Situation Room. This is a technology-driven process which INEC made us believe. They were supposed to be posting these results to the IREV, which anybody all over the world can see and download. As of 9 PM, 98% of the result was on IREV and the PDP was leading. As of 11 o’clock, they had already collated and announced results in 12 local governments. By 1 o’clock, the REC asked that the three local governments within the metropolitan area stop collation and bring it to him at the headquarters. Is that his job? Is that his responsibility? Has he been empowered by any of our laws to do that duty?
So the process was truncated?
Completely. And we decided to tell the world that INEC, suspecting what you have started doing from 1 PM last night, is likely to do the wrong thing. We are suspecting you. We are saying that you will go the route of Adamawa. Coming with that experience, I tried to put a stop to it so that I could draw a line by reiterating what they had already said. I did not do anything new.
What they had already said or what was on the IREV?
What was on the IREV and what they had collated and announced at those local governments.
For the people of Adamawa State, what do you think they can look forward to in the next three years that you occupy the seat as governor of that state?
In the next three years, I will ensure that I build the state better. We are targeting to raise our IGR in the agricultural sector, especially leveraging cattle. And it’s already paying off. It has raised our IGR from less than N250 million when we came to close to N1.5 billion.
So you think you have the solution to this farmer-herdsmen conflict?
We already have. Have you heard of any incidents in Adamawa State recently? People are living in the same community, and there are no issues. Yes, there are small ones that we are still trying to find solutions to, but that has gone down completely, to less than 1%. So we are doing a lot. Adamawa has never seen things as good as they have in the last five years, and they will see it better in the next two and a half years.
