Asue Ighodalo: We’ll Make Rural Communities Attractive

Asue Ighodalo is a Nigerian lawyer known for his impressive track record in the corporate world. He is the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party for the September 21 governorship election in Edo State. In this interview at the Unuedo Town Hall, he speaks on state police, and the need to provide incentives for teachers to attract them to rural communities, among others. Wale Igbintade was there. Excerpts: 

Will you support the creation of a state police or establishing a regional security outfit like Amotekun?

Thank you very much. Like politics, all security is local. So, this issue of state police is important to me. But then, I noticed that Edo State has a state security network. It is called different names; some call it a vigilante group. But driving through Edo State, you see those guys in different uniforms. They are trained by the police to the extent that the Nigerian Constitution allows them, and they are armed with non-automatic rifles.

So, they are able at the local level, at the village level, and at the community level, to help with the issue of security. I noticed there has been a decrease in kidnapping and local crimes. So, that’s important. But I also fully agree, because if you look at Edo State, you see there are five major entry points. So, I will work with the police and other security agencies, train them, equip them, arm them, and get them ready to work for the state.

Unfortunately, the governor as the Chief Security Officer has limited directives over those security agents. But I’ve also seen, like, Fashola’s Lagos State, and one or two other states, where there are good collaborations between the states and security forces. When you help with the funding of training, with the funding of equipment, with the funding of technology, you will see a marked difference. 

In Edo State, there are five entry points, and we have great security barriers. So, we will work with the existing architecture to enforce it, to empower it, to give them a lot more money, and to enhance their training. That’s what we have in our laws today. Now, if our Constitution changes and State Police are enabled, we would then even equip our state police even more. The same way we equipped our local police department and the same way we’ve been able to get them to help with policing at the community and local level. More importantly, relationships between the state and the federal, no matter how the politics are, when it comes down to the issue of welfare and the livelihood of people, we must come down on that and get ourselves working well for the betterment of the people of our state. That’s fundamental, and we will work on those tracks.

Edo State has invested substantially in having what they called a situation room. I have visited that situation room. When you enter the situation room, you can more or less see the whole of Benin. And that has enhanced and improved the security situation.

From that situation room, they then tell the policemen where things happen, where things are expected to happen, or where they see crime moving between states and other things. So, if they can invest in other parts of the state, it will greatly improve security.

However, the problem with state police, and that was the experience we had when we first had state police before it was removed from our constitution in the late 60s, was that local leaders used the state police to their advantage and to intimidate other people, from different political parties, and that must change. So, we must have constitutional preservative provisions that ensure that the state police don’t overreach itself. And nobody uses the state police to their advantage. Technically, all crime is local, and you must deal with crime at the local level.

What will you do differently to improve the educational system in Edo State?

Thank you very much. Again, I’d like to reiterate what you have highlighted, which is that education is fundamental.  If we want to move to the next level, if we want to move our state into the first world, then we must take education extremely seriously.

Looking at the numbers, I know that in the last six-seven years, there has been a major improvement in education in Edo State, particularly at the primary school level. I remember back in 2015 when Edo State was probably one of the worst states for educational malpractices. Primary schools were not very good. But I know in the last few years, that has changed.

And from a state that was probably 28th or 29th on the educational ladder, I think it is number two today, in terms of primary school education.  I know a lot of investment has gone into the EdoBEST programme. That is teaching, training of teachers, providing tablets and equipment, and reviewing the curriculum.

So, I think there has been a massive improvement in educational standards, particularly at the primary school level. But there is still so much more to be done – so much more. When we talk about physical infrastructure, again, if a state earns only N17 billion a month, you back out pensions, you back out salaries, you are left with N7 billion or N6 billion. There’s a limitation to the infrastructural investments you can make and you have to prioritise. But having said that, I think we need to find the money, particularly for infrastructure that has to do with education and health.

So, as we improve the curriculum and what people learn, as we train our teachers and make them very fit for purpose, where you learn is also important. We must do something about physical infrastructure. That’s fundamental. And we must find the money to do it.

How would you address rising rural-urban migration, especially among teachers?

One other thing that affects our education and it affects health too, is that most of our teachers don’t want to stay in the rural communities for reasons of underdevelopment. I was talking to a teacher the other day and she said because her kids couldn’t find good primary schools to go to or good kindergarten schools to go to, she didn’t like state education and things like that. So, one of the things we need to force through is how we make it attractive for teachers to stay in rural areas.

Are you going to give them some tax rebate or tax reduction if you are teaching in rural communities? Are you going to be able to create some kind of mortgage arrangement for them? If you are teaching and you stay in a rural area for seven years, is that person going to be allowed to attract or get substantially low mortgage rates? Or will the state involve itself in building and spreading the repayment terms? We must make it attractive for people who want to stay in rural areas until rural areas develop.

Also, we will work on curriculum, we will work on infrastructure, and make sure that kids are fit for purpose. And as we’re creating an enabling environment, we also must be ready for the vocational. Because people want to be fit for purpose, to be able to do the work that the investing companies want them to do. If not, the environment is not going to be attractive to where they should go or where they can go to get the kind of labour that will make their investments work. So, fundamentally, we’re going to deal with education from the primary, through the secondary, and the tertiary. By creating environments where tech companies can thrive, Edo can become a leading hub for innovation in Nigeria.

Let me go back to this issue of diaspora, school adoption, and all of that. One of the policies I think we will engage in is number one, returning schools to those in the private sector, former homeowners, who have the capacity and the will to operate them effectively. Because we’re going to have standards for schools, so, those private sectors, we need to have the capacity and meet the standards.

In the diaspora, I have talked to a number of you guys, will you adopt schools? For instance, my family, we have adopted many primary schools around Edo State. Once you can keep the schools to those standards that I have described, you guys in the diaspora, will you adopt schools? And some conversations are ongoing.

So, we might be raising the standard and making sure that we are fit for purpose. Well-trained and well-paid teachers who can effectively train our children.

What are your plans to revitalise primary health healthcare in Edo State?

Health is as important as education. Government must pay, or an insurance scheme must pay. We need to improve our insurance scheme that covers everyone. The most vulnerable must be able to benefit from the insurance scheme. I was talking to them in the nursing school the other day. All the nurses that are training in Benin, without an exception, said immediately after they graduated, they are leaving Nigeria. So, we have a major problem. Our doctors, our nurses, how do we keep them? Because even if we have all the best facilities, and we don’t have the staffing, then that is even a more serious problem in itself.

So, we are thinking through how we are going to be able to keep our staffing. How are we going to be able to build hospitals that can cater to the needs of our people? I know there are primary healthcare centres that are already being developed in every ward in the state. I think the state has gone as far as eight now.

The problem is the staffing of those that have been built. So, we will ensure that we are keeping the staffing. One of the things we were talking about when I was talking to some local government chairmen the other day was, can we still apply to the National Youth Service Corps? It happened in the late 1970s and early 80s when doctors during their youth service were sent to rural areas. While we are trying to get the process right, we probably need to go back to something like that.