Kaduna—GOVERNOR Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, yesterday, said though his re-election for a second term did not occupy top priority in his scheme of things, as available indices from a scientific point of view indicated that his victory at the poll in 2019 was “almost a done deal.”
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Speaking in Kaduna as the special guest of honour at the 2018 National Council on Finance and Economic Development, NACOFED, conference, Governor el-Rufai said despite the risks he took by embarking on far-reaching reforms in various sectors, the people of the state had confidence in his leadership and the sustai-nability of his reforms.
He said, his immediate and utmost priority was to put the state on the right track and sound footing, while his achievements and reforms in all sectors would naturally take care of his re-election to consolidate on the achieved successes.
According to him, “from all indications, because we are very scientific, the election on March 2, 2019, as far as Kaduna State is concerned, is almost a done deal.”
He said in the last three and half years his administration undertook far-reaching reforms in the education, economic and health sectors with outstanding results.
In the economic sector, he said his administration created lots of jobs and empowered women with soft loan with plans to do more going forward.
el-Rufai also noted that plans were under way to recruit no fewer than 3,000 health workers to further boost the health sector.
He said from 20th position on ease of doing business in 2014, Kaduna State is now first.
The three-day NACOFES conference organised by the Federal Account Allocation Committee, FAAC, in collaboration with Ministry of Finance is expected to, among other paper presentations, look into alternative sources of revenue generation outside oil.
Ben Akabueze, Director-General, Budget Office of the Federation; Shettima Gana, Acting Chairman, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission; Tue Mab Lee, Senior Economist, World Bank Group; Asishana Okauru, Director-General, Nigerian Governors Forum and Tunde Abdulkareem, FAAC Post Mortem Consultant, all gave goodwill messages at the opening ceremony.
