Ebonyi gubernatorial candidate of the Labour Party, Architect Edward Nkwegu.
From Victor Nwegede, Abakaliki
Ebonyi gubernatorial candidate of the Labour Party, Architect Edward Nkwegu has reiterated his determination to fight the root causes of communal clashes in his state if emerged victorious at the 2023 general election.
Arc Nkwegu who assured to raid off communal crises in Ebonyi, by introducing satellite imagery, maintained that his administration would delist his state from the poverty chart with his economic transformation agenda through industrialization, agricultural modernization, job creation, among others.
He pledged this while interacting with journalists at his Okpoduma Nwofe Agbaja country home in Izzi Local Government Area of Ebonyi State on Sunday, the 2022 Christmas Day.
He noted that the communal clashes across the state, are the results of certain things that have not been done well in the past.
Nkwegu observed: "One of the major challenges we have in this part of the world is that we devote our energy, fighting the result, instead of looking at the cause. The communal clashes are the results and I hope to look into the causes of the crises rather than fighting the results.
"Just like insecurity, is a result of certain things that have not been done well, but instead of researching the causes, most government agencies spend their energies in fighting the results and I will not toe that line. I will look at the causes of communal clashes and streamline them, by nipping them from the bond because there are so many reasons for their prevalence in our state.
"There are so many communal clashes which have to be dealt with the National Boundary Commission intervention, and that's why in my manifesto, I noted that I will acquire satellite imagery within 100 days in office to the state to enable us to develop a Land Use Act. It is because, without the satellite imagery of the land in the state, you won't know the land space to be used for agriculture, the places will be reserved for farming, building, those to be used for market development, and so on.
"When we have satellite imagery of the land in the state, we can know the size of our land and anything happening in our place, and even if you are in the office, you can know where the problem is coming from and why it is happening."
Intimidation of oppositions by ruling party in Ebonyi State
The Labour Party governorship candidate decried the high-level intimidation of the opposition parties by the ruling party in Ebonyi and however, attributed the choice of violence in seeking the support of the electorate by any political actor to a sign of timidity and underdevelopment.
"Intimidation of the opposition parties by the ruling party (APC) in our state has to be attributed to its level of development. It is a sign of ignorance and intolerance when you resort to violence. Violence is a sign of a lack of confidence. Violence is a sign that someone has inherent problems. The level of development is determined by the level of tolerance you exchange with one another. You and I know that violence doesn't solve any problem because violence begets violence. So, there's no single violence that can solve the problem, and when a political party or group of people resort to violence, we see it as a sign of timidity and underdevelopment. It is a kind of primitive approach and it's also a sign of helplessness."
Moving Ebonyi State forward
On his plan to move Ebonyi forward if emerged victorious at the 2023 governorship election of the State, Arc Edward Nkwegu urged the citizens of the state to hold him accountable with his four-point development agenda.
He said: "Remember that in my four-point development agenda for Ebonyi state, the first is economic transformation with five enablers and one of the enablers is rapid industrialization. I want to create jobs. I said specifically that I will create 13,000 Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in two years, which will give indirect employment to about 250,000 people on average.
"The second is what I called civic program, and number one there is education. In education, we shall have access, quality and relevance. What I mean by access is unhindered access to our educational infrastructure, because now Ebonyi people have no free access to even basic education in the state. Before you can enrol in primary school, you have to pay tax, but I will give you unhindered access to our education sector. It is because for you to talk about education there must be access to the infrastructure first. I hope to do curricular reformation so that what school children are taught in this area will be able to give them self-sustenance. We are going to turn our curriculum to skill acquisition in primary and junior secondary schools. We are going to make sure that what we learn in our schools is relevant to the present-day needs in the society.
The increasing poverty level of Ebonyi State
Arc Nkwegu disclosed that Ebonyi is still among the ten poorest states in Nigeria and expressed dissatisfaction over the increasing number of stunted growth of children in the state due to malnutrition.
He said: "Bureau of Statistics report indicates that Ebonyi is among the ten poorest states in Nigeria. We don't know whether we are number two now or not. It is true because the second indicator - malnutrition level is very high. If you go to the rural setting you will see that children are of stunted growth now. If you go to the churches, schools, marketplaces; even our various towns and homes, you can see that children are developing stunt growth now.
"You can hardly find people above three feet now. You are a journalist, go to the rural setting and you look at the sizes, it's understood that the people suffer from malnutrition. You see that the struggle we are in is not personal. When we who are Obidient people say go and verify, changing our consumption to production, and all that is about bringing down old structures of poverty, hunger, deprivation, and intolerance and enthroning a new order of tolerance, growth, development, production, consumption, employment for the teeming population of Nigerians. That's the mission of the Obidient movement. We can't continue to live like this, amid plenty. We can't be talking about poverty levels where rain falls at least eight months of the year. It's abnormal, and we have to tailor our projects - government programs to suit the people.
"The normal person aspires to satisfy physiological needs first. What this means is if you don't have air if you are not breathing well, a person using oxygen to breathe, will not look for water to drink. It's when you are breathing oxygen normally that you will feel tasty and look for water to drink. It is when you have air and water, you will look for food to eat.
"From there you begin talking about shelter, safety and all that, and then you go to the next level of love and belongingness. It's because a person who has not satisfied his physiological needs, can't remember that he belongs to a community, or he has a brother or sister, that's human nature for us. When you passed that level you go for self-esteem, and now begin to admire artworks, streetlights, and other things. If you have not satisfied all these, it's out of place, and if you go to the developed nations you see that they have satisfied these things before they go to the next level. If you go around where we have streetlights you see very few people taking pictures there in a day because many people are hungry.
"There is no pipe-borne water in the town, and you know that water is life. Our administration will focus on satisfying these physiological needs so that people can find food, water, security of lives and property, and these are the basic needs before we begin to face artwork because I don't think a reasonable person will try to see the colour of the walls if he is running for his daily life.
"Like I stated earlier, if you fight results no matter the level, it will not take us anywhere. You have to look at the causes, when we talk about insecurity, it's because of hunger, and unemployment, and that's why there is restiveness. If you like employ millions of security people and hand over guns to them, you are worsening the situation, because they are fighting results. It is like someone who have malaria symptoms and decided to open a chemist shop for malaria drugs, and you will see if the person has not solved the problem of a mosquito bite, he will finish all the drugs, and malaria will not go. It's because the mosquito will keep biting the person and you have to look at the causes of our problems and get them solved once and for all.
Agriculture Modernization
Nkwegu assured the Ebonyi people of an agricultural revolution by introducing the mechanized farming system to guarantee food security and economic stability of the state if emerged as governor in 2023.
He noted: "One of the enablers in our economic development agenda, is improved agricultural practice. Our ancestors were great people, they manufactured hoe and cutlass, but since then, it's been hoe and cutlass, and even up to today. All of us sitting here were fed with hoe and cutlass that our forefathers manufactured and used in farming. At that time, the nation, like the place called Ebonyi now, was not up to ten thousand in population. Now, we are getting to 400 million, and the worst is that the youths are moving away from labour-intensive jobs to lesser ones. That's why you see many of our people going into hawking in the cities because they are running away from hoe and cutlass. Until we improve our agricultural system by introducing mechanized agriculture, there will be no difference. We have to look into our land tenure system, that's why I said, we can't run a state like Ebonyi without having the satellite imagery of the whole place to be able to know the land area that is free for farming. That's a starting point in my administration. We have to know the number of streams in our state, to be able to develop dams. Imagine, we have rainfall in eight months of a year but we don't have enough water, for just the remaining four months, immediately the rain stops; everywhere becomes dried up because we don't have dams, canals, a water reservoir that can retain water for farming.
"When I talk about Micro, Small Medium Enterprises, I will incubate MSMEs to develop them around agriculture, and the government has to ensure we have enough dams, canals and land space by looking at our land tenure system."
Christmas and New Year Message
Arch Nkwegu wished the Ebonyi people a peaceful celebration as they observe the 2022 Christmas and 2023 new year festivities.
He described the yuletide seasons as a time of Thanksgiving, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation with one another.
According to him, the unconditional forgiveness of Jesus Christ is necessary during this festive season because "we don't forgive because the person you are forgiving deserves forgiveness or that he/she is not planning any evil against you, neither has he/she has repented from his/her evil act, but it's a directive of the God Almighty God."
He added: "Our people should forgive their enemies to free themselves from the psychological torture of the bad and other evil things done against them.
"That's why our Lord Jesus Christ chose to forgive unconditionally to have free access from the continuous torture of the evils that are meted on us, not the evildoers have repented but it's a departure from the dark world."
Expectations in 2023
Arc Nkwegu predicted that there would be peace, noting that 2023 is an electioneering year, saying his party (Labour Party) and as the governorship candidate of the party in Ebonyi, have to continue preaching peace, and tolerance for one another.
He prayed that the 2023 general elections would be conducted in a peaceful atmosphere, and commended the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC for its repeated pronunciation to conduct credible, free and fair elections.
He, however, urged other political parties especially the ruling party (APC) both at the state and national level to toe the line of peace and tolerance in the forthcoming elections.
