Comrade Isa Daniel is the Director-General of the Prince Abubakar Audu campaign organisation. Yesterday, as the APC gubernatorial campaign was being officially inaugurated at the APC national secretariat, he spoke briefly to omojuwa.com about the upcoming election, the prevailing circumstances in Kogi state, and the current wave of decampings from the PDP. Excerpts;
Prince Abubakar Audu has served as governor of Kogi state before. Why should the people of Kogi vote for him now?
The fact remains that Kogi state is our home and we know what we need at this particular time; as I speak, the state that was once the fastest developing state in the country is now a shadow of its former self. During Prince Audu’s tenure, even though he was in the ANPP and the PDP was the ruling party then, the president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, asked the other governors to go to Kogi and learn the dynamics of administration. The state is presently nothing to write home about and he is the only one who has been tested and gave tangible results. We trust that he will do better than what he did before and Kogi really cannot risk trial and error now.
There have been a lot of decampings from PDP to APC in Kogi state in recent times. Is this a good sign or should the people worry about infiltration?
In politics, the more the merrier. All I can say to that is that once they were blind, but now they can see. We all care about the progress of our people and those who have just joined us did so because they know that PDP has not lived up to expectations in the state.
Recently, there was a petition against the candidacy of Prince Abubakar Audu and his eligibility to contest. Has this been resolved, or is it a cause for concern?
Our campaign is issue based; negative comments and propaganda are the PDP’s stock in trade and you cannot expect people who have lost out to not try to sabotage the process. The campaign has just been officially inaugurated at the APC national secretariat so any comments about eligibility are clearly invalid.
What should the people of Kogi state look forward to in terms of development if the APC candidate wins?
As far as Kogi state is concerned, everything is in a terrible state; schools, hospitals, civil servants haven’t been paid, our roads are bad. All that is on ground presently are the things that were done during Prince Audu’s tenure and successive PDP governments have not even been able to maintain these, not to speak of doing more. If he returns, he will put Kogi on the map once more by focusing on infrastructure, education, healthcare, security and job creation. Kogi has so many natural endowments but all these are just going to waste because of the failure of leadership. These are all areas where he made remarkable progress during his previous tenure and he will do even better this time around. He will restore Kogi to its rightful place.
A lot has been said about transition in government and youth inclusion in governance. Why should young people vote for Audu?
Ours will be a government of the youths, by the youths and for the youths. Again, I make reference to his previous tenure. Job creation was a priority and one of the many proofs of this is the Obajana cement factory which his administration brought to Kogi state. Presently, many of our youths are okada riders despite being graduates because there are no jobs. Take our schools for instance, teachers are not being paid and one can only imagine the quality of education that an unhappy teacher imparts into the next generation. It was due to his concern for young people that prince Audu focused on education while he was governor, established a polytechnic and a university, renovated secondary and primary schools and built even new ones, and trained teachers. It is impossible to care about the youths and not make efforts in all of these areas.
Take farming for instance, that is also one area where many jobs can be created with the right level of support but even the existing farmers cannot work on a commercial scale and also face difficulty getting their produce to the market because of poor infrastructure.
For all these reasons, our youths need to dust their PVCs and come to the field on the day of elections, and use their PVCs the way referees use their red cards and sack Wada from Lugard House. They have to vote for the man who has displayed an ability to get results so that the future can be brighter.
Kogi state has been in the news over unpaid salaries and recently, civil servants blocked major roads over this. What is your take on this situation?
I can tell you emphatically that in Kogi state, there is no week that we do not witness protests over non-payment of salaries and non-implementation of promotions and allowances. Before, civil servants were paid 50% of their salaries, later this reduced to 40%, then 20% and now 10%. In some local governments, the workers aren’t paid at all; we call this zero allocation. Yet, the state has received so much in terms of allocation and the governor has also collected over N20bn bond, yet, they have nothing to show for it. He (Wada) is asking for a bail-out, for what exactly? The people of Kogi don’t even want the bail-out to be given before the election because they believe he will use it to finance his election. Recently, there was a protest to this effect, urging the federal ministry of finance to delay releasing the bail-out until after the election. This is because the people want accountability and don’t trust Wada to do anything meaningful with the funds if released to him.
