Governor-elect of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, has outlined his developmental programmes for the state as he awaits his swearing-in by January 2016.
In an interview with Premium Times in Abuja on Saturday, he said: “I always say that the state is bleeding as a result of mismanagement and wasteful way of doing things. We would correct all this. Going by the manifesto of our party of diversifying the economy of our country, we equally want to look inwards as a state by improving our IGR (Internally Generated Revenue). What are those areas that are currently being tapped and those that are not tapped? Is what is being tapped maximally utilised? We also want to block all leakages that exist now.
Agriculture is going to be of serious priority. We are also going to partner with the Federal Government as well as get foreign and local investors to tap into our mineral resources because we don’t have the exclusive right of tapping into these resources.
Kogi State cannot be sitting on a gold mine and we are where we are today. We also want to look into the educational sector because at present it is seriously down. We want to completely overhaul it. In the health sector, our women and children are dying, that is going to be taken seriously. As for job creation, we cannot continue to employ as a state government. We must create that enabling environment for investors to come in and as such a lot of jobs would be created.
We would equally encourage our teeming youth to partake in the agricultural programme we are going to have and the entrepreneurial skills that we are sure they are going to acquire.
During our campaigns, we got a comprehensive documentary of how our villagers fare, so we are going to look into that and we would also encourage the investors that are going to come to the country to take advantage of their social responsibility very seriously.
There would be social reform by making sure that there is optimal performance within the civil service to avoid redundancy and the like.”