The governorship candidate of the Labour Party in Enugu State, Barr Chijioke Edeoga has said his mission is to restore the social, cultural and economic fortunes of the state if elected governor.
Edeoga, who spoke shortly after appearances on two radio programs broadcast on Solid FM and Family Love FM, lamented the attempts by his opponents who, according to him, have been making political capital by fanning the embers of disunity among the people, said his mission is also to heal the state from years of disunity and social and economic regression.
He said the people of the state are united and share a common cultural bond that cannot be discountenanced by the actions of desperate political actors.
Decrying the efforts to pit the people of Enugu East Zone against their brothers in the Enugu North Zone of the state, the Labour Party flagbearer urged the people to cast their votes for him, because he is in the best position to heal the state of the imaginary divisions orchestrated by people whose only intention is political profits.
“It is unfortunate that a number of people have been laying emphasis on what divides us, rather than the multitudinous factors that prove we are one people. But I have dedicated my life to making our state better.”
working hard to wrought imaginary lines of division between and among us, but I am here to blight those lines,” he stated.
Continuing, the journalist-turned politician said: “I am from the Enugu East senatorial zone and I maintain cultural ties with the Enugu North zone. This peculiar position puts me in good stead, better than any other candidate in this election to see everyone as one and the same. As God had made it, my Deputy Governorship candidate, Charles Nwokeabia, is from Enugu West zone. This means that in the Labour Party, we have the type of rare balance that gives everyone in every part of the state, a sense of belonging. We do not speak in zones. We speak of Enugu State as one united constituency in need of transformation, and this, we are determined to do.”
During the radio program, Edeoga spoke on his readiness to intervene in a number of critical areas, including the challenge of water scarcity in the state capital, the deplorable state of education in the state, housing and urban renewal, minimum wage for workers in the state, among other issues.
On solving the intractable water challenge that has seen the state be dependent on water vendors, Edeoga said his approach will be the decentralization of water supply to remove focus on the exclusive reliance on the Ajali water scheme for public water supply to the capital.
In doing this, he said he will explore the disparate of rivers, lakes and water bodies in different parts of the capital to ensure that each area is supplied with clean water.
“The state has been too reliant on Ajali Water Scheme and this is wrong. The Ajali Water scheme as served the capital since the days of old Anambra State, when Governor Jim Nwobodo was in charge of the state. Since then, Enugu has grown bigger and we need a different approach. There are rivers all around us. We have the Ekulu River, and thankfully, the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army has exploited this to provide water for the army formation. This is a lesson we have factored in our plans and programmes, and we will leverage this to source clean water from similar places around the city to ensure that in the short term, water can be sources at low cost for all communities around the city, and in the long term, to see to it that we reticulate water to all buildings and homes in Enugu.”
On enhancing the business environment in the state, Edeoga said his mission is to improve the social and economic environment by improving security and removing the various bottlenecks to business operations.
“We will energise our people into industry. My administration will do away with the multiple taxation regime currently discouraging enterprise and build an administration that is receptive to investors,” he stated.
Lamenting the deplorable minimum wage regime in the state, he pledged to enhance the earnings of public servants in the state. This, he said, he will achieve by reducing the cost of governance, blocking revenue leakages and making sure that the savings are transferred to workers in terms of higher monthly take-home.
He said Enugu State is in need of sustainable employment generation and called on the people of the state to rally behind him in the onerous task of setting the state on the path of enduring prosperity through enterprise development and business-oriented public resource management.
