Dr. Mairo Mandara is the special adviser to the Governor of Borno State on sustainable development partnership and humanitarian response.
She also guides the government on the millennium development goals as they affect the health sector and many other sectors which became backward due to the prolonged insurgency war.
Mandara worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a Country Representative to Nigeria before taking up this appointment in her state.
A consultant obstetrician and gynecologist, Dr. Mandara has extensive knowledge of public health systems and management of maternal and child health programmes both nationally and internationally. She spoke to SAM KAYODE before the closure of Gubio camp for internally displaced people in the outskirts of Maiduguri.
What would you say are some of the strong points of achievements within the realm of the humanitarian circle from January this year till date?
I think one of our key achievement this year is that we have been able to settle people from 10 IDP camps in Maiduguri into homes and now they are beginning to pick up pieces of their lives. This is really unprecedented because it has never happened anywhere in the world. So that is our pride, that we were able to take people from IDP camps into homes and all the major IDP camps except two in Maiduguri have been closed. The world is still shocked and they are not sure it is real or not, but for us it is real. This is the biggest achievement. We have started implementing the 25 year Borno State strategic development framework and 10 years implementation plan. We found our self were we are now and now have a 25 year plan to rebuild Borno. It is what now decides our budget, that is tremendous, even some states and the federal government are looking at what we have done and they are using it as a yard stick for our development.
The third thing that we have been able to successfully achieve is that markets have started, if you remember the history of Borno, prior to 1985, this state was the center of international trade in Nigeria, not Lagos. Baga, Banki, these markets have began to work. Baga is open, Banki is now working with the export processing council to see that we are now in the African free continental market. So we are beginning to get Borno to the stage where it was in 1985, a regional trade hub.
And the fourth?
The fourth is human capital development. If you remember, since the beginning of this administration, we built a lot of schools, we built a lot of infrastructure. This year the Governor turned to human capital development by hiring nurses and doctors. A hospital without nurses, is not a hospital, it is a building. Classroom without teachers is not a school. We are getting nurses, we are getting teachers, we are retraining our teachers, all of our teachers in Borno State have now gone through examination, we have known those that are qualified and those that are not qualified, they have been retrained, those that are totally not fit to be teachers, the Governor is looking at getting them into administrative functions. We are not sending out anybody, similarly on nurses, most of the nurses that have been retired, that are the good ones that are still strong have been absorbed back not only to come and provide services but to teach the new nurses that are coming up. So for me, that is very important. And in that way, we have also focused our attention on young people, we are now discussing with young people. We have started a social orientation of young people, we have had citizens outside of Borno that are coming to build human capacity. A month ago we had Alhaji Ahmadu Musa Kida, who was the first African man to be the Vice
President of Total. He came and spent the whole day from 9 to 6pm with young professionals here just talking to them. Last two weeks we had the former minister of Agriculture Alhaji Bukar Tijjani, he spent one whole day with all the newly recruited civil servants in Borno, talking to them about ethics of civil service that you can be ethical and be a civil servant, actually civil service requires you to be ethical. So we are growing a new crop of civil servants. So the new human capital development space is something that we’ve done a lot about this year.
The Governor has been very unhappy with the accountability system within the humanitarian sector. Have you been able to fix this?
Indeed, I am actually his adviser on sustainable development partnership and humanitarian response. When I came here over 3 years ago and an agency was set up for coordination of sustainable development and humanitarian response. The Executive Secretary actually reports to me, so what we have done since we came is we now know exactly the number of non governmental organizations (Ngos) in Borno. Actually before then we did not know the exert numbers of NGOs. We know what every single NGO is working on and what sector. We know every Local Government, if you come to my office and say you want to know how NGOs are in Bama, I will just give you the numbers and what exactly each is doing Their focal points? And what is in their budget. So we know every single thing about them now. And we get them, it doesn’t matter where you are registered, whether you are registered with, or who ever, when you come to Borno you have to do a registration with us. Or you have to register with us, we have to know what you are doing, if your focus changes, you have to come and register, and each one of them give us report every year and we do analysis of the report every quarter and we share, in fact what we haven’t done is to share with journalist, we will start sharing with journalist now. But the thing is now whatever they publish, we do an analysis and you can compare and see. We do our analysis independently. They do their reporting, and then it’s up to you to analyze and compare on what is happening around, how much they spent on their administration, that is their organizations policy. What we do as Borno State, is to record. If you come with 100 naira and you spend 40 naira in Borno. What will reflect as you have spent is 40 naira, we don’t reflect the 60 you used on yourself in the place. That’s for you and your organization. We record exactly what you spent on our people. That’s how we do it. I believe that is how it should be handled, and we found out a lot of strange things in the process. And we tell the Governor, this is what they do. Like I told you, this week we are going to have a major meeting with one of the biggest founders and we will be asking them what are you doing in Borno. So we are calling all the relevant ministries to come and hear what they are saying and will say yes this is correct this is not correct, this is what accountability and transparency is about.
So that complain the Governor made in government house recently about some of the humanitarian community is that you would have to sit down and rationalize?
We give him report, we say ok this one they brought 100 for instance, they spent 50 and he sees so it’s transparent enough.
But what if they tell lies to Washington or where they came from that they spent 100 when indeed it’s 50 for instance?
No, Washington knows that they spent 50, the other 50 they would say it is part of work to flying every three months and to also fund headquarters for technical assistance.
What about Gubio camp are there people left there?
Yes, in Gubio camp we have removed some people, but there are still people most of the people are from areas like Marte where there are still some challenges which is why they were kept behind up till now.
Which means Kalabalge is better than Marte or can we say Damasak we know should be better than Marte in terms of security?
Damasak is now fully active they are very much in Agriculture. They are very, very active.
Finally, Doc, you said you have been around for three years. What are some of challenges you encountered doing this job?
If you have to stamp all over your challenges you wouldn’t see them as major challenges. Challenges are meant to be embraced, if you don’t see challenges you can’t grow better, when you have challenges, that is why they are called challenges, you find ways of dealing with it. I mean whatever challenges come, you do your best to find ways of dealing with it and they are gone.
