Kogi State Governor, Idris Wada has said that his administration has encouraged a lot of private investment in the state.
Wada in an interview with Thisday outlined education, agriculture, and infrastructure as the key areas his administration has positively touched.
Wada said “We have done quite well in Agriculture. A lot of people are turning into Agriculture and this has increased food production. We have done quite well in health care we have many health care centres in the state. We are building Zonal Hospitals, building University Teaching Hospitals and we carry out periodical free medical services in various villages because they are people who cannot afford to transport themselves so we take it to their doorsteps and this is far appreciated by the people.
In terms of industrialisation we have encouraged private investments in the state and some of our efforts are also yielding results like encouraging people to invest in solid minerals. As you know it takes time and years for you to start deriving the benefits of such investments. In the future we believe this will yield positive results.
In education we are investing a lot in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education. We are investing in infrastructure, personnel as well as equipment. On tertiary education and other schools, we had to build the body of manpower that we need for the transformation of the state as we develop. On infrastructure, here in the state capital, a bypass and also preserve the main road through the town. We build an embankment with the assistance of the federal government; River Niger the place was badly flooded in 2002. This embankment will prevent flood in future and reduce the damage caused by flood.
We have a multibillion Greater Lokoja Water Scheme, it was flooded in 2002 again we have done a major embankment now that should be able to contain flooding over the next 20, 30 years based on some hydrological readings of the levels of water over the years and this has been projected in the construction of the embankment for the future to prevent the damage to vital equipment and facilities of the Greater Lokoja Water Scheme which pumps about 10 million gallons of water per day to service the people of Lokoja.
We are also building Kogi Hotel it is under construction as we speak. We are also developing our Confluence Beach Hotel, we are building 500 housing units here in Lokoja and about 300 of them are almost at the stage of completion they are being roofed now we have in the next few months we would be able to deliver those houses to our citizens here in the states. We have a lot of electricity projects both in the urban and rural areas, a lot of water projects we have done over 300 motorised boreholes across the states and local governments and these are impacting positively in the lives of our people and they are appreciating our efforts.”