An All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant in Abia, Chief Daniel Eke, says his priority area will be to give quality education to the youths of the state.
Eke said this during an interactive session with journalists in his Igbere country home in Bende Local Government Area of Abia.
He further promised to introduce special skills training programme for the youths, which will help them to acquire skills that would meet critical areas of need in the Western World.
He said that his administration “will be thinking out of the box” to borrow workable initiatives from other countries of the world to develop the state.
“We are not going to reinvent the wheel,” he said.
Chief Eke said he would build a knowledge-based industry, tailored after the Indian youth training programme.
He said that Abia youths would be trained to acquire specialised skills that could be deployed in problem-solution.
He said that India trains a large population of its youths to specialise in certain software programming, which are exported to Western countries.
According to him, the huge outcome of the Indian initiative includes job creation and foreign exchange earnings for the nation.
Eke further promised that he would utilise the Public Private Partnership (PPP) approach to “commercialise filth in the state,” if given the mandate.
He said that creating wealth from waste had become a trend across the globe through a sustainable PPP arrangement.
“My administration will partner with renowned recycling companies that will recycle plastic wastes, using them to produce new plastic products, such as plastic bottles.
“Other bio-degradable wastes can be isolated and converted into manure, which would be sold to farmers,” he said.
The governorship hopeful said that payment of salaries and pensions would be guaranteed under his administration.
According to him, in other climes, paying workers and pensioners is a statutory obligation of government and not an achievement.
“It is only in this part of the world that it is counted as an achievement by a governor,” he said.
The Chartered Accountant promised to initiate policies and programmes that would help to reignite and unlock the huge economic potentials of Aba, the commercial nerve centre of the state.
He said that the enormous revenue that would be harnessed from the city would be deployed in developing other parts of the state.
He also promised to intitiate foolproof accounting system to secure and plug all the loopholes and leakages through which government loses substantial revenues.
“The system will help to monitor capital inflow and outflow from the government’s treasury.
Eke, an American-trained chartered accountant, said he had worked with several federal, state and local governments’ organisations and agencies before his return to Abia to join politics.
He said that he was inspired to join the Abia governorship race because of the rot he saw happening in the state, which included poor management of resources and the lack of accountability.
“I joined the race to help clean up the mess and bring rapid socio-economic and human capital development in the state.
“We are poised to change the negative narrative of the state, if elected,” he said.
