I'll Will End Hawking Among Ebonyi Youths, If Elected

…Says NNPP Guber Candidate By Wi

The gubernatorial candidate of New Nigeria People's Party (NNPP) in Ebonyi State, Prophet (Dr) Chris Adol Awam in an exclusive interview with Citizens' Advocate reporter, Okereke Wilson Ogbonnaya had promised to provide the petty traders with a loan of one million naira, if elected in the fast approaching general election. Excerpts: Sir, why do you consider petty traders your priorities, if elected? It is simply because their sufferings can only be stopped by deliberate strategy and if we can be truthful to ourselves, we will see that Ebonyi children are in most of the big cities as Lagos, Onitsha, Porthacourt and other areas hawking one form of item or another, thus, I want to bring them home and put them in a cooperative set where they will ask the pastors or bishops of their various worshipping places to stand as their guarantors, we will then give a loan of minimum of one million naira to each person. After giving out the loan, we will equally give a target, monitor them by telling the persons the level their individual businesses will be in the next 3 years and by so doing, the successful ones will be supported more because our plan is to produce some of our children who will be into importation and exportation.

Why did you join the guber race? Well, I was actually motivated by the sufferings of the people of Ebonyi State due to the fact that the leadership of this state has failed completely, Ebonyi is being rated as the poorest state in the whole South East and it is very disturbing, that is to show you that the leadership has failed totally and so I feel that I have the capacity to move in there with the gift of God and recover the lost glory mostly as we have missed a lot in the area of development. Do you intend to consolidate on the already existing infrastructure? The development in the state in terms of infrastructure should be taken to the hinterland because the resources to be used in the development of the state are in those areas where we have limestone, lead, zinc and our Agricultural base is in the rural areas, if those roads are connected to the rural area, the people will then cultivate and have access to good road to market their farm produce. What is your plan concerning the mineral resources in the state? In this sector, we will bring investors and also invest into what God had deposited in our soil to build our roads actually and to make the state more viable, companies where the products will be processed into finished goods will be established too, with this idea many of our teeming youths will be gainfully engaged and the multiplying effect will be seen in all nooks and crannies of the state because it shall cause rapid development. In the civil service system where the people are being paid poorly, some of them do not know the exact amount they are to be paid this month because they don't have standard even sometimes the government does not pay or respond to their needs, so the situation is worrisome and as a man of God, I deemed it fit to come in and rescue these my people who are crying every day, there is no peace in Ebonyi State even in the area of security, people are dying but the present government does not want the press to write about it and that is how the officials have suppressing the press freedom. What about the school system? It has collapsed including our university, I listened to an interview granted by one of our big brothers who had attended a law school, really his expression was a cause of concern though I don't blame him because it was what he acquired that he gave out, so after listening to the man's speeches one must surely go back to the educational system and reverse it so that whenever a graduate is produced such person will be comparable to his counterparts in other parts of Africa. Our people are not thugs, we are intelligent because God gave us the gift of intelligence and what we need is a good arrangement process in our school system to get them together. If one goes to Ebonyi State University Permanent Site, the pieces of land over there had been shared for the ruling class and after I had seen all these things, it dawned on me that they don't have future for our children whereas their own children are attending various institutions outside the country, if they have future for our children they would not have shared the land which would have been used for Agricultural practices and farming analysis, the land already mapped out for the future of the children mostly as they don't know how the university will grow by tomorrow. Therefore my plan is to build university that will be more of practical than theory so that when someone graduates, he should be self reliant by practising what he learnt instead of jumping from the university to politics, though it is in that way simply because they have nothing to offer to the society. They did not learn anything to give out and there is no place for them to apply for job, so collapse in the system makes me to be worried and I got to know that we need money so that the educational system in my government involving primary and secondary schools will be free and fair to all. For the fact that more than 5% of Ebonyi State Federal allocation is already tied to debt so it takes someone that has brain and wisdom to be able to look for alternative to that allocation and that is why I am taking the people of Ebonyi State back to what God gave us, we have a lot of oil and gas in this state, presently Nassarawa State is pursuing how to develop its oil and gas sector, Kogi State has developed its own and I know where all these minerals are because I have been a practical miner for more than 30 years now. I have been into the mining business so I know where they are, so my responsibility will be to bring out those things in the ground and then bring in foreign technical partners whom we will jointly establish industry that will bring the end product and export it to earn more than any other oil and gas. Once we develop our oil and gas, we put to an end the sufferings of our people and improve their standards of living, I have a lot of good plans for the state. In the area of Trade and Commerce:If one looks at the government of the day, its officials are bullying some petty traders whose wares are not more than #500 or #1000 because of tax payment without minding that the government responsibility is to help people stand not to destroy their future, so this sector is interested in those petty traders and as I earlier said I want to support them with loan. If Anambra State could have a lot of millionaires, we should be able to have them and I know what to do afterall God himself created everybody with a gift, no state is empty. As a human being, the supreme being gave each person two hands to be used for every meaningful activity. That is why I am interested in building human resources by bringing the best in them and give the person more support to go for more trainings. In this regard, there will be a committee as we have Bank of Industry or we can go to the Bank of Industry on behalf of our people and get a loan for them, that is what we want to do, by building people, in the next 8 years these people will turn out to be millionaires, by then we don't need to be chasing people who sell vegetables. Another thing is that they will come back home and build industries of their own and employ other people and again, we will send people outside to go for their educational pursuit in various special courses then we will sponsor them in the university, this will be based on the people's performances, we are looking at every person in Ebonyi as an investment and such persons depend on us to build them, what I'm going to do in Ebonyi, I may not be the one to reap it but the ones after me but I will be happy that I have built an economic foundation. As an ordained servant of God, what is your plan in the religious sector? All the negative spiritual activities will be stopped, we must serve a living God and when the people notice that the demonic kingdom cannot give power again they will face the living God, one can attest to the fact that some people are dying mysteriously but when the righteous is in the throne people will rejoice because killings and hardship will stop and pertaining to the youths being the leaders of tomorrow, there is a plan for them. If one does not build the strength of the youths in the community, the person won't have anybody to stand for him in the future, on this note we must establish and build the youths, some are gifted in various sporting activities, I can recall that when I was the council chairman of Ebonyi LGA, I had a football club where the officials of Golden Eaglet came and collected some players because my boys played both home and away matches without losing any, we also took the challenge cup for 3 years consistently. Now, I found out with that little experience that they are gifted and need just a helper who will help them to stand and upon my emergence as the governor of Ebonyi State in the nearest future, I will organize sports frequently and build an academy in that regard so that whoever that is gifted in sports will go there and develop his talent, this is to show that my government will not leave any stone unturned in reshaping the future of Ebonyi people. When I was in Ebonyi LGA as the council boss, I used to say, if Ebonyi State is the salt of the nation, that Ebonyi LGA is the taste of the salt which means that we are leading others. In order to boost the economy of the state, I will divert our Agenda by developing and dregging our own Ebonyi River which was used as a route for slave trade in the olden days connecting Calabar and build our own seaport and also railway since Federal government may not be disposed to do it for us and the money for the projects will be gotten from the resources which God had deposited in our soil, thereafter, I will build good motorable roads. With all these plans in place, someone from Onitsha in Anambra State will prefer our seaport to others because it will be closer to him than others, so importers will use this side instead of Lagos. Charter of Equity: I usually compare it to what is happening in the South East and that was what raised the issue of Biafra, when we started in Ebonyi State there was no arrangement for the equity and I started in 1998, then I was a member of G-34 and we had an agreement even though it was not written but it was a gentleman resolution indicating that if government comes to the North, next to the Central and another to the South but surprisingly some persons say no, that they are talking of competence and capacity and they have money and higher educational qualifications degrees and based on the degrees, it should be regarded as a sign of competence, this is how some people will continue to give reasons to deceive the public but the truth remains that there is equity. There is equity and when you talk about the equity, it is the turn of the North unless they are telling us that nobody is competent person in the whole North Senatorial zone, then we will know that what they are telling us is that there is no qualified candidate in the North but if that is their argument, I will authoritatively say that among all the contestants none of them has occupied any executive position or had even studied government as a course and leadership in higher institution, one may be a successful businessman but that does not make him a good leader. I have been there as Ebonyi LGA chairman and I did a lot of work and I am determined to do more before now I had studied both government and Public Administration in the university which all about leadership and I went to Ugbodo and put the knowledge into practice and that is competence. About charter of equity, the best advice is that it should be maintained because stopping it will bring bad blood and even if the person does not react, the person will start praying and likely such government will begin to encounter problems.