POLITICS TODAY

Kaduna State Governor, Uba SANI who was at the Presidential Villa late on Tuesday had a closed door meeting with President Bola Tinubu and other relevant stakeholders. He spoke to newsmen at the Presidential Villa shortly afterwards. Excerpts:

What important issues did you discuss with the President?

Gov Uba: Many issues. But we have some areas where we need Mr. President’s intervention and support, especially in the area of Security as well as all other important programmes of our own government that has to do with agriculture and healthcare. I came here to discuss with Mr. President who has been supportive of what we’re doing in Kaduna.
So it is just a follow up, what he has been doing for us and today I came also to remind him on other areas.
The meeting was very successful. And of course, I am happy because Mr. President has also been able to call some ministries and agencies that we need to collaborate at the level of federal government.
As a leader, he has been certainly very supportive of what we’re doing in Kaduna. I’m happy also to informe some people of my own state that we have a president that has taken Kaduna very seriously, and he is helping us in areas where we as a state cannot be able to attend to or maybe to handle.
We need the federal government’s support. He has been supporting us. He has been giving us the leadership and guidance. And I want to say here that most of the things we’re doing in Kaduna without the federal government support and Mr. President support we might not acheive a few of them. So I’m happy particularly like I said in area of security. So I that is what brought me here today.
What specific commitments have you gotten from the president regarding the security you mentioned?
Of course, I had a series of meetings with the service chiefs, only recently. And of course we need some some more boots on the ground in areas like, Birnin Gwari, Giwa, Idebi as well as some local governments around Zangon Kataf, Kaura and some axes of Southern Kaduna. And of course, he has stepped up his effort of ensuring that the military generally have considered Kaduna as one of the most important states that needs this serious security, support and intervention because as you’re aware, security is something to do with the federal government, particularly when it comes to issue of the service chiefs, the police and the DSS and, of course, as someone who have been in National Assembly for four years before being the governor, I know we need the support of the federal government and Mr. President, in particular for us to be able to address the problem of insecurity in our states.