For the Chairman, Contact and Mobilization Committee of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Imo State, Chief Jerry Chukwueke, Imo
needs a governor from the core private sector to fully return to its
past glory.
This is why he sees himself as the man suitable for the job in 2015.
Chukwueke who is also the chairman/chief executive officer of Germaine
Group who disclosed this in a chat with newsmen in Owerri, the Imo State
capital said that as a private-sector person, he would bring his
experience to bear in Imo, which he claimed has not grown economically.
He also assured that the PDP despite numerous challenges would carry
the day and win the governorship of state in 2015. He claimed that the
Boko Haram insurgents are only targeting to stop President Goodluck
Jonathan in 2015 and also weaken his support base in the South East.
Excerpts:
Imo after President Goodluck Jonathan visit
Our great party, the PDP is strong and on the ground in Imo State and
our people are being mobilized day by day. Without any doubt PDP will
win the 2015 elections in the state. We have successfully exposed all
the weaknesses of the current administration in the state and their lack
of performance, which is the consequence of poor vision and
unpreparedness to govern. Imolites now believe that we have an
accidental government that thrives on deceit. Imolites are also now
aware that the House of Assembly has been emasculated, that there is no
due process, that the community government system is a ruse.
In Imo today, there is massive unemployment, as general unemployment
is over 55 per cent and youth unemployment is over 90 per cent. The
educational system has collapsed. Imo State University, for instance,
which ranked among the top 10 in Nigeria only a few years ago, is
currently ranked a 111 out of 112. To compound this awful situation, the
state university has lost 12 programmes accreditation within the last
three years, including Law and Medicine. Imo is 98 per cent dependent on
federal allocation and Governor Rochas Okorocha has racked up debt
profile of over N140 billion. No wonder he has refused to publish even
one Imo financial statement/report since he became governor.
Our governor does not understand the importance of due process and
does not respect court rulings and resolutions. You will recall that
one of his maiden unilateral decisions was the sacking of the 27 local
government chairmen and councillors. And now with the recent Supreme
Court ruling, the state is hugely indebted to those elected chairmen and
councillors whose sack was illegal. The Supreme Court has ruled
recently that state governors have no right to dissolve local government
councils or sack local government chairmen and councillors.
The state is now liable to pay all 27 local government chairmen and
305 councillors backlogs and other emoluments throughout the period of
their illegal dissolution. This will further add to the financial burden
and stress on the state.
Rising insecurity
At the national level, Nigerians have come to realize that Boko Haram
is largely political. Their sole aim is to make Nigeria ungovernable
and to hound President Jonathan out of office. But apart from President
Jonathan, the Igbo are the next target of Boko Haram because they know
that Jonathan’s major support base is the South East and they,
therefore, imagine that they can by intimidation and with terror coerce
the South East into abandoning Jonathan. But the Igbo are resolute and
will vote for Jonathan in 2015. At the formation of the political party,
APC, many Nigerians were excited about the introduction of an
opposition party that would spur our great party, the PDP, to greater
performance.
But APC has disappointed most Nigerians . So far it has no ideology,
no interest and wellbeing of Nigerians, it has been a gathering of men
and women whose common interest is to pull down President Jonathan as
they see him as a common enemy. I commend Mr. President on the setting
up of the Danjuma committee to raise funds to assuage the hardship of
the victims of Boko Haram nd the hundreds of thousands of displaced
Nigerian (internal refugees).
As for our internal security in the state, the way out is to upgrade
the community policing from what we currently have to a high standard
security organization in terms of quality of personnel, equipment and
tools and proper coordination of their activities at the state level.
What we have now as Imo Security Network is a group of ill-trained and
poorly equipped young men without strategic coordination. Besides, their
orientation is more political and less professional.
Okorocha giving stipend to school children as a form of empowerment
Instead of adopting strategies to fight unemployment and poverty, the
governor resorted to glorifying and perpetuating the culture of poverty
and dependence. He goes about public primary and secondary schools
sharing stipends of between N100 and N300 to innocent school children in
public. Now, he has ordered that parents queue beside their children as
they receive these scandalous handouts. These handouts, he claims, run
into hundreds of millions of naira monthly.
The governor should have channeled our scarce resources into
investments that will create economic opportunities for Imolites instead
of destroying the psyche of our innocent generation and perpetuating a
dependency syndrome which is both dehumanizing and alien to Igbo
culture. Besides, these stipends shared is unbudgeted and unaccounted
for.
Okorocha and private-sector experience
In all fairness Governor Rochas has improved the road network in the
state, whether or not they are of good quality. He has also built
useless roundabouts all over the state. What Imolites need is human
development and empowerment and not walking on Governor Rochas’ roads
and roundabouts on empty stomachs. I am a key private sector player with
expertise in auto sales/services, logistics, agriculture, oil and gas
consulting, fast food and retails, hospitals and pharmaceuticals.
I understand job creation, wealth creation and economic empowerment,
and I have continuously created jobs and empowered people in the last 30
years. In fact, my partners and I are employers of over 20,000
Nigerians nationwide with an average of four dependants each. To
create jobs is not to allocate or share employment; it is to create an
enabling environment for private sector investment and businesses to
thrive. It is to identify the natural assets and endowment of our people
and systematically develop and convert them to economic opportunities. I
have a track record of a good manager in a tight economy. I make
willing people able and able people willing and that is the key to
human development.
PDP wresting power from Okorocha in 2015
Virtually all the people that matter in Imo State are members of the
PDP, and those who left earlier have returned, and our party is swelling
in numbers by the day and with strong grassroots support. I am proud to
say that my grassroots support in Imo is growing
tremendously and the victory in 2015 will be grassroots based. The
question now is, how we in PDP will manage our success and that will
depend on the existing understanding in terms of power rotation or
political balancing, and the quality of the candidate that will fly
the party’s flag. From my field experience, both in mobilizing Imo
for PDP in all 27 local government areas and my ongoing campaign
consultation visits of the local government of the state, Imo people
are looking for a grassroots candidate. More importantly, they don’t
want recycled old names. They are desirous of a new direction and are
fed up with the same old story by recycled politicians. They want a
focus on Imo economy, economic empowerment, jobs and more jobs.
Grassroots will be the key. In my view there lies the future of the
PDP in Imo State. Imolites appreciate the fact that I personally
funded the entire mobilization of Imo PDP and devoted 12 months at a
huge opportunity cost of being away from my businesses and took a
personal risk of challenging the policies of an opposition party
sitting governor.
Many aspirants from Owerri zone eyeing governorship instead of Senate
We have had delegations offering us the senatorial seat. I have only
one answer to that; I’m running for governor of Imo State and I believe
that today’s governance should be private-sector driven. Those whose
only experiences have been legislative and appropriation should go to
the Senate and let operators like me run government. I am not a sharer,
I’m a baker and my desire is to bake for Imo.
My priority within the first 100 days in office if elected
My priority will be jobs, more jobs and more jobs, and how will I
achieve that? We will immediately set up an Imo Economic Council that
will include distinguished Imolites from the private sector, top
professionals and representatives of government. All Imo billionaires
will be part of this council which will fashion out an economic
development plan and investment strategy for our state. We will start
with local investors who will also attract foreign investment.
We will set up agricultural zones in each local government of the
state and focus on commercial production of cassava, yams, corn, palm
produce, fruits and vegetables, in order to achieve food security for
Imo and for export to other states and abroad. These will now give us
the opportunity to set up agricultural processing centres to add value
to our agricultural products and create even more jobs. We will focus on
a joint venture approach to leverage on Imo hydro-carbon, i.e, gas to
attract an independent power plant. This gives Imo the opportunity of a
predictable level of power supply at a predictable cost with the
ultimate objective of creating industrial layouts. We will turn the Imo
Concorde Hotel into a training facility for hospitality industry.
This will include bringing the Concorde Hotel up to at least a
three-star level with internationally certified staff, so that young
Imolites can be trained in customer service, bar-tending, catering, chef
services, house-keeping, etc. We will turn the Oguta Blue Lake and its
environs opportunity into a true tourist resort of international
standard. We will create thousands of good paying jobs and Imo will
become a safe and viable tourist destination in Nigeria.
We will quickly achieve a pool of trained and qualified manpower to
deploy to the hospitality industry locally and internationally, thereby
providing jobs for our people. You know, of course, that I’m an
automobile man; we will immediately take advantage of President
Jonathan’s new Nigerian automotive policy. We will set up a fully
equipped and functional automotive engineering department at the Imo
State University in partnership with major vehicle manufacturers. This
will be a training ground for our youths in automotive engineering,
particularly in engine overhaul, transmission repairs and overhaul,
brake systems, air conditioning repairs, etc, and this becomes a
launching pad for the setting up of an automotive assembly plant in
Imo State. We will also set up a School of Nursing with European
Union and US certification where young graduates can be trained by
globally certified staff in nursing and health care delivery. This will
not only provide qualified and competent nurses for our health care
system, but we will have a pool of globally certified health care
providers for export to Europe and America where on the average, a
certified nurse can earn as much as 50 to 80 thousand US dollars
annually. We will have to move to immediately begin to provide health
care delivery to Imolites as well as regaining full Imo State University
and Polytechnics programmes accreditation. This is just a tip of the
iceberg. A hundred days is too long to begin to perform as Imo
governor, I am ready to deliver from day one.
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