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Highlights of the Media ‘Meet & Greet’ with Enugu PDP Gov Candidate, Mbah & Deputy Gov Candidate, Ossai

…We envision a state that will become one of the top 3 states in the country in terms of GDP

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Chetanne Chinelo, Enugu

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Governorship candidate, Barr. Peter Ndubuisi Mbah and the Deputy Governorship candidate, Barr. Ifeanyi Ossai, played host to members of the Enugu On-Air-Personalities and Online Publishers, in quite an interactive meet and greet session, held Monday, July 25, 2022 at The Base Landmark Event Center, Enugu.

Emphasizing that the interaction wasn’t an official unveiling of his campaign manifestos but the first in a series of such interactions which will continue, even when elected as governor, Mr. Mbah asked that the people hold him accountable when elected as governor.

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In his words, “We are very pleased to have you honour this invitation. This sort of interaction is necessary for us to get our people informed so that they will know what to get from us as their government.

“The event of May 25, 2022, saw to my emergence as the PDP governorship candidate for the 2023 elections. It’s important that you understand the implications of that for Ndi Enugu.

“If you look at the last seven years, you would have observed an appreciable growth in a number of sectors. We have seen brand new infrastructures across the 3 senatorial zones. We are one of those few states where her workers receive their salaries promptly and fully. We’re also, arguably, the most peaceful and secure state to live in in Nigeria today”.

Harping on governance as a continuum, Mbah stated his willingness to, not minding the existential threat facing the nation, not only maintain the gains and achievements of the PDP government since 1999, but to also build on them.

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“Three days ago, the Minister of Finance said that 6.7 trillion will be projected for the payment of subsidies next year. If we spend this amount on payment of subsidies, the rest of our revenue won’t be enough to service our debt. We may go to Abuja by next year and be told that there’s no money. As a government, we cannot come back and tell our people that there is no money to put food on the table.

“Someone with a good head is required to take our state to that point where we can insulate ourselves from the troubles of the federation and harness our natural resources to create wealth and employment. I ask our people to give us the benefit of the doubt because we know we can do this, we understand what we are talking about clearly”, Mbah said.

Here are some highlights of the interaction as curated by our correspondent:

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Citizens Charter: We are making it clear that we have a mission to have a quality, people focused governance and to make Enugu state the preferred destination for investment, business, tourism and living.

We will provide and codify a Citizens Charter. It will contain a comprehensive plan of action. When elected, we want our people to hold us accountable on the things we have promised we will do. We hope to foster trust and participation by the citizens in the process of governance through the Charter. Social services like Education, Health, Water, Youth employment will abound in our administration.

Enugu’s Economy: We envision a state that will become one of the top three states in the country in terms of GDP.

We will grow Enugu’s GDP to 30 billion dollars from the current 4.4 billion dollars. We will do this by growing our economy in seven folds. It is neither a walk in the park nor a tea party. It would require an exponential growth, a quantum leap. We will not do this by doing things in a better way, we seek to do things differently. Doing things in a better way will only secure marginal or incremental growth but doing it differently through what we refer to as the disruptive innovation, as we did with my signature brand, Pinnacle Oil & Gas Limited, will amount to an exponential growth.

Strategic Objectives: We have clear strategic objectives. Coincidentally, our strategic objectives are also anchored on the acronym of our party, PDP, which stands for Peace, Development and Prosperity. These 3 items are integrated and mutually reinforced. We will sustain the current peace that we have and build on it. You cannot have sustainable development without peace, and cannot have peace without sustainable development. We will have a 3 pronged approach to the issue of peace and security. There will be 4 core values of our governing principles.

Community Policing: We will be deploying technology in community policing schemes to enhance security.

Oil, Gas and Coal: Enugu is a coastal state, not a land locked state. There is water in the state, there’s also a huge deposit of oil and gas. We have an Oil field jointly owned with Anambra and Kogi. OPL 905, 907and 914 can be accessed in Enugu state and we will explore these to get Enugu to become one of the oil producing states in the country.

We have the very best deposit of coal and our state have already obtained mining rights from the federal government. We will mine the coal and generate funds for the state.

Agriculture: We want to achieve a 0% rate in our poverty headcount index.

Our administration will scale up agricultural production in the state as a part of means to achieve it. Small scale and Large scale agriculture will be encouraged so that we can achieve a Net exportation. Agriculture is our crude oil and we shall attract investors in that sector despite the challenges in the land tenure systems and make sure investors go to the rural areas. We have an ambitious programme for agriculture where the state would be earning up to 10 billion annually.

IT: We will seek advancing Information Technology so that Enugu will be the Data centre of the Southeast. We will do this by enabling a favourable business environment to attract investors and allow the private sector to invest. A business environment that’ll enable Google, Microsoft, Facebook, to locate offices in our state. Our government will be government enabled-private sector driven.

We hope to Implement E-governance and offer quality, people focused governance to take the government to the people through their handheld devices.

Tourism: There will be an Afro Disney, a replica of what is obtainable in the US. We will seek the intervention and partnership of the Ministry of Aviation to resuscitate the International wing of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport which has been unused since construction.

Our Slogan: Growing up, we realize that as students, assignments given to us were always pushed to be done tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, we push it to the next day, delaying things till the last hour, until we are choked up. By saying ‘Tomorrow is here’, it explains that activities will no longer be procrastinated till tomorrow. They will be taken care of now, here, today.