Kogiflame
As voters constitutionally empowered by our votes to recruit leaders for our state ,there is a need for us to developed a new approach towards understanding behind the prevailing level of insecurity in our state the way to go to nip our multi-faceted problems in the bud.
Our state is in the group of various destructive tendencies and forces that are coalescing to give it the toga of a failed state status.The current state of insecurity in the state is a direct manifestation of deep rooted and structurally entrenched crisis of development which has created the environment for the present conditions of poverty,unemployment,and inequality in our dear state.
These in turn led to frustrations, alienation and ultimately,social discontent that Sparks violence and the insecurity we witness today.With the enabling environments, these conditions couldn’t have metamorphosed into the security problems threatening to tear us apart today.
Although our state have all today the traits of a failing state,the trends leading to it’s fulfillments are reversible if serious proactive and sustainable measures are adopted by a functional leader. Our leaders have a duty to arrest the drift (instead of blaming others),through social justice and development.
As a concern citizen of our state and one who is concerned about the future of the state,I feel challenged to write this letter to you,my fellow voters so that together we can examine the core issues of our present situation and the type of leadership to recruit to take us there.
This are crucial issues that we need to examine because of it’s linkages to security challenges and leadership that confronts us today as a people.I write this letter to you,fellow citizens because of the urgent need for a critical analysis of the leadership and governance in the state so that we do not make the mistakes of recruiting the same type of leadership that have led us to where we are today.
Our failures in the state have come about largely as a result of leadership ineptitude,lack of ideology, policy reversal and weak institutional patterns.Our leadership recruitments processes makes it I’m possible for growth and development in the state because of the leadership imposition pattern that makes leaders come to their positions with limited experience and the education to make them lead.
Hence, the decline in morals and discipline caused by bad policies,eroded professional standard,corruption and bad ethics that weakened the system of governance in the state. Therefore the quest for good governance and leadership is a sine-qua-non for governance and sustainable development in our state because it is our collective future,growth and development that we all should be concern about we are talking about here.
What our state needs urgently is a leadership approach that highlights issues of the state responsively and accountably and the impact of this factors on our political stability and economic development.It is instructive to note that no state anywhere in the world achieved meaningful development socially, politically or economically without the input of an effective leader.
Despite over fourty years of it’s creation, our aspirations and hopes remains largely unfulfilled.The Leadership questions has becomes a recurring issue in the discourse on the Benue project. Today,make no mistake about it as the common man in the streets of Gboko,Otukpo and Alaide et Al sees the system of the state as rigged against them.
The governance class of the state has been the target of pillory, virification, condemnation, and disdain in view of the pervasive and persistent socio-economic policies that have retarded our growth and development.The economic domain has been characterised by huge debt overhang, disinvestment, collapse of social infrastructures, food crisis, insecurity, pervasive poverty,unpopular,repressive and alienating economic policies.
It is today recognised that our state failures have largely come about as a result the progressive distancing of our leaders from the masses of the people,inadequate preparation of it’s leadership that assumed the responsibilities of governing the state by imposition.
What we need urgently is a leader in the true sense of the word who can fight the symmetric and asymetric warfare of our people.A leader that from day one develop for the state a process of organising and managing legitimate power structures in the state entrusted by the people to provide law and order,protect human rights,ensure rule of law and due process,provide for the basic needs of the people in the pursuant of their happiness.
WHO IS THAT LEADER?.
Simple.The leader I am talking about is no other than Professor Been Angwe. Professor Bem Angwe is that leader which as Governor of our great state knows that yet from the ashes we rise and shine as we look towards the light.
The light of knowledge and intellectualism that the Benue people are known for,which illuminates our minds and reflects in the good character and pristine values we hold dear.
This are the same values that have been eroded in recent years which he seeks the office of the governor of the state to come and restore.His mission is primarily to reclaim the state and restore it’s values for the good of all in the state.It is therefore a Clarion call on all in the state to embark on this journey with him as voting him into office as Governor of the state will put us on the crisp of charting a new course of sustainable development out of the quagmire we find ourselves today.
As governor he would strive to make the state a place where people can strive and live their lives in dignity,A place where it’s workers do not labour in vain.A place where the people are safe,healthy and prosperous. His governance agenda would therefore be compelled to focus if elected on areas through which he can deliver his promises to it’s people.
The pillars of his administration would be; Social Investments, Knowledge Economy,Infrastructure and Industrial development,and Agriculture and Rural developments.
SOCIAL INVESTMENTS.
Professor Bern Angwe knows that the state’s greatest resource remains the people as human beings are the measures of all things.Only a healthy and enlightened people can drive the sustainable development he wants to see in the state.
He shall be committed from day one of his administration to instituting social safety nets that would bring succour to the most vulnerable segments of the Benue society this is because of his believe that every one in society must be supported to live out his dreams to their full potentials in their youth and have a dignified and comfortable retirement in their old age.
This is going to be one of the fundamental responsibility of his government.Delivering qualitative health Care is a priority because he would ensure our hospitals are once again well-equiped to attend to the needs of our people.
KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY.
Professor Bem Angwe knows our people love,seeks and celebrate knowledge.The state already have many of her citizens as leading lights in every field of human endeavours as well as those who are frontiers of research in the academics and scholarstic all over the country.It is therefore a logical choice to turn to knowledge in the state as one of our primary product in which we can trade successfully.
This is because to survive and thrive in today’s world our state must be committed to using our brilliant minds to promote sustainable development.
Therefore he would be committed to strengthening our tertiary institutions and support educational entrepreneurship.He would be the first governor to build the state knowledge zone to establish the critical linkages in our knowledge economy and he shall be counting on the inputs of our people.
INFRASTRUCTURE AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.
The advancement of our economy is pivotal to wealth and job creation for our citizens.This is relevant and crucial to the poverty reduction and revenue enhancement mission of the administration of Professor Bem Angwe.
In order to advance an economic an industrial revolution in Benue state and further our commitments to jobs and wealth creation,he would revisit the commercial and technical viability of abandoned projects scattered across the state with a view to completing them.He shall also carefully take on new Infrastructural projects that would be strategic in advancing economic growth and industrial developments in the state.
This would be targeted to enhance and advance the inflow of foreign and local investments flows into the state.
AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT.
Benue state is essentially an agrerian society with soil properties condusive for growing a wide variety of crops.In order to achieve food security,create employment opportunities and foster agro-based industrial development for poverty alleviation and wealth creation, our approach must change from the current focus on farming and agriculture as a government social services in the state to a commercial and private sector driven approach called Agro- business.
The government of Professor Been Angwe will be adopting a sustainable and commercial value change approach which will lead our state to transformational agribusiness development that would enhance and personal security, create employment opportunities, empower women and youth, reduce poverty, and create wealth through viable agro-allied industrial developments.
Our people are eager once again to feel the impact of purposeful and egalitarian government.A vote for the NNPP and Professor Been Angwe as Governor of Benue state come 2023 is a vote for the recreation of our state,a vote for the reclamation of the state back to it’s people and finally a vote for the restoration of our values.We need to vote wisely because Professor Been Angwe is our best foot forward.
SIMON OBOCHI.
SECRETARY OTUKPO LOCAL GOVT.NNPP.