Hon Stanley Odali is a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairmanship aspirant for Ukwuani local government council in Delta State. In this interview, he speaks on the reason he is contesting for the Delta council chairmanship, his programmes if elected and the administration of Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan. Excerpts:
What prompted you to vie for the seat of local government chairman?
Nigeria as you can see today has a lot of leadership challenges and my LGA is not an exception. Having been in the political scene for over 10years serving and learning the ropes, I have come to observe some challenges that we are facing especially in the local government. First, we have a situation where allocations coming to the LGA are not properly accounted for or no equitable distribution of our commonwealth.
Nigeria as you can see today has a lot of leadership challenges and my LGA is not an exception. Having been in the political scene for over 10years serving and learning the ropes, I have come to observe some challenges that we are facing especially in the local government. First, we have a situation where allocations coming to the LGA are not properly accounted for or no equitable distribution of our commonwealth.
We have seen a situation whereby few people come together to disburse these allocations to their own advantage and nothing to show in terms of projects they claimed to have executed and the ones they started, they could not finish them.
Most times, there are no programmes to alleviate the sufferings of the people and boost the economy of the local government. As an economist, I know that the first thing I had to do as a local government chairman is to set up an economic processes that will act as a catalyst to turn the economy around. I am coming with new hope, new possibility to turn around the fortunes of the LGA.
You contested for the state House of Assembly seat in 2007 and lost. Now, you are re-contesting as a local government chairman aspirant. Why?
Initially, I still have the passion to serve at the state House of Assembly and that passion is still there because I believe that with my level of education and exposure, I am supposed to be sitting in that chamber of the Delta State House of Assembly and articulating the way forward and representing my people very well. But in politics, if wishes were horses, one will ride anywhere.
Presently, the position I am contesting does not matter; what matters most is that ahead of 2015, there is need to strengthen our party at the grass-roots, so that those running will have a smooth ground for running because, presently, our local government is being represented by an opposition member in the House of Assembly; so we need somebody who has the grass-roots exposure to begin to mend fences, build bridges and resolve various grievances so that our party can be stronger by 2015. We need to re-assure the people that PDP can be better.
Can you share some of the programmes you intend to put in place that will endear and re-build the confidence of the people towards you?
The first thing I intend to do once I become the chairman is to set up leaders advisory council. It will comprise of leaders from each community in the LGA and my job will be to manage their suggestions. I will not take decisions consulting with them. I intend to work with direct labour from the LGA works department to fix majority of the roads. We will put drainages in place. We will ask the governor to come and see the roads to enable them get fixed. There are various roads that need to be urgently fixed.
On agriculture, our people are agrarian in nature, we are good farmers and I know we used to have good crops. I intend to provide fertilizers at a very subsidized rate to farmers, provide insecticide to control locusts and provide the equipment to control the weeds. Also, there is need to put markets at strategic locations in the communities to sell products coming from the farmers.
On education, we are putting in place formal and informal education. I intend to set up an educational committee with consultants and set up skills acquisition centers in the community and, having been in a catering business for some time, catering will definitely be among the skills acquisition works. I want to encourage entrepreneurship because being an entrepreneur, I know the advantages.
Also, we intend to give students that are brilliant but are not opportune to go school scholarships; I won’t do bursary, but will give scholarships to students.
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