Katsina State governor-elect, Umaru Dikko Radda, has indicated that he would not want to be addressed with the title, “His Excellency”, while in office as the state’s chief executive.
Instead, he said he would prefer to be addressed as Mr Governor or simply by his name till he leaves office before citizens of Katsina can decide whether he is excellent or not based on his administration’s performance.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Dikko Radda who contested the 2023 governorship election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the poll in the Katsina, saying he polled 859,892 votes to defeat his closest rival, Yakubu Lado of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who got 486,620 votes.
Speaking at an interactive session with journalists in Abuja, the governor-elect said there was nothing spectacular about being a governor.
He said: “I don’t like the word Excellency because one can only be called an Excellency after the administration has ended, at that time people will determine whether I am Excellent or not. So, I think it’s better people should call me Mr. Governor than to call me His Excellency, I will prefer that and that will not put my head somewhere.
“I want to be as normal as anybody because I don’t want that thing (Excellency) to get into my head, that’s why I don’t want the world Excellency attached to my name now but I will prefer if people can call me Mr. Governor or my name Mallam Dikko Radda.”
Radda, the immediate past director general/CEO of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), said he received news of his victory with mixed feelings because of the mandate given to him by people of the state.
He noted that his administration’s focus would be the security of the state, civil service reforms, health and education, among others.
His words: “I think it’s just a responsibility that someone has to do. And when I was declared the winner and when I saw the overwhelming victory that I received in my state, it gave me joy but sometimes with a mixed feeling that the people of Katsina State have now given me the mandate. What is left is for me to deliver on the mandate and I know that the people of Katsina have a lot of hope in me; they believe in me, they have given me their mandate.”
On the blueprint for his administration, he said, “I think a year before I aspired to become a governor, I already had my blueprint. We call it Building a Future. Our focus area is insecurity. We Want to tackle the issue of security in Katsina State. This is our major area of concern.
“Secondly, we want to also reform the public service. Public Service needs to be reformed. We need to digitalise it, we need to provide training or retraining of our public servants because they are the bridge within which you can be able to carry out your policies. If you don’t reform the public service, you cannot be able to carry your policy down to the local level.
“We also want to look at education which is also a cardinal part of any development in any nation. Healthcare is also our major concern because when you look at the social aspect of our society, because of this insurgency, there are so many people who are displaced from their houses, there are so many old men who cannot care for themselves. They need the help of the government.
“So, we want to also establish a public care scheme and this public care scheme will need at least 15 Public Social Care Centers that will cater for those categories of people in Katsina State.
“We also want to prepare the local economy and MSMEs because this is the engine room for any economic development and that is the only way you can provide the job opportunity for our teeming youths. That is where I will bring the experience in the lives of the people of Katsina State, which I did when I was the DG of the Small and medium scale enterprise development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDA).
“I also want to establish an agency like SMEDA which will be under the office of the governor so that I can handle it seriously and ensure that it’s effective down to the people. And then we also want to look at the internally generated revenue.
“We don’t want a situation whereby the state will continue to rely on the federal allocation for its activities. We also want to look at the internally generated revenue and land reforms.