Abia: Eke vows to prioritise education, youth employment if elected governor

An All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant in Abia State, Chief Daniel Eke, says he will prioritise quality education if elected governor of the state.

Eke said this during an interactive session with journalists in his Igbere country home in Bende Local Government Area on Wednesday.

He further promised to introduce special training programme to help the youth acquire skills that would meet critical areas of need in the Western world.

The governorship aspirant also said that his administration would be borrowing workable initiatives from other countries of the world to develop the state.

“We are not going to reinvent the wheel,” he said.

Eke further stated that he would build a knowledge-based industry, tailored after the Indian youth training programme.

“India trains a large population of its youths to specialise in certain software programming which is being exported to Western countries.

“The huge outcome of the Indian initiative includes job creation and foreign exchange earnings for the nation,” he said.

Eke said that Abia youths would be trained on specialised skills that could be deployed in solving problems.

He further promised to utilise a public-private partnership (PPP) approach to commercialising what he described as “filth in the state,” if given the mandate.

The politician said that creating wealth from waste had become a trend across the globe through a sustainable PPP arrangement.

“My administration will partner with companies that will recycle plastic wastes, using them to produce new products, such as plastic bottles.

“Other bio-degradable wastes can be isolated and converted into manure which will be sold to farmers,” he said.

The governorship hopeful said that regular 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 by government and not an achievement.

“It is only in this part of the world that it counts as an achievement by a governor,” Eke said.

He also promised to initiate policies that would help re-ignite and unlock the huge economic potential of Aba, the commercial nerve centre of the state.

Eke said that the enormous revenue that would be harnessed from the city would be deployed in developing other parts of the state.

He pledged to initiate a foolproof accounting system to secure all the loopholes and leakages through which government had been losing substantial revenues.

“The system will help to monitor capital inflow and outflow from government’s treasury.

“We are poised to changing the negative narrative of the state, if elected,” he said.

Eke, an American-trained chartered accountant, said that he had worked with several federal, state and local government organisations and agencies before his return to Abia to join politics.

He said he was inspired to join the governorship race to help bring rapid socio-economic and human capital development to the state.