By Ameachi Prosper
Asaba: The Chief Press Secretary (CPS), to the Delta State governor, Mr Charles Ehiedu Aniagwu, has revealed the underlined strategies behind the success of his principal, assuring that the governor is not losing sleep over the 2019 general election.
The CPS spoke last Monday when he made his routine visit to the Indigenous Newspapers and Magazines Chapel (INMC) of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Delta State Council in Asaba, adding, “Indigenous Chapel of NUJ has always done something very remarkable and one of those legacies is the commissioning of the chapel’s secretariat.”
He sued for cordial relationship between Reporters and publishers who belong to the Indigenous Newspapers and Magazine Chapel. He argued that the publishers are like bus owners and drivers who belong to the different union of the drivers and bus owners.
Aniagwu advised members of NUJ to look at the values of one another rather than the nomenclature of members.
He also insisted that the Okowa led administration, is delivering on the 5-Point SMART Agenda he promised to Deltans during the electioneering year hence not disturbed about 2019.
Okowa has his 5-Point Agenda encapsulated in his blueprint for the State with the acronym SMART, which means Strategic Wealth Creation Projects and Provision of Jobs for all Deltan, Meaningful Peace Building Platforms aimed at Political and Social Harmony, Agricultural Reforms and Accelerated Industrialisation, Relevant Health and Education Policies, Transformed Environment through Urban Renewal.
Here him; “What disturbs us now is how to get the funds to deliver on the promises we made in the course of the 2015 electioneering campaign. Perhaps I will not call it disturbance; I will prefer to call it challenge. What we are concern about is how we are able to address those many promises we made and to the best of my knowledge by the grace of God, my boss Senator Dr Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa is as much as possible given the available resources delivery on the 5-Point Agenda.”
He said the Relevant Wealth Creation which is based on the strategic policy the government is putting in place to create wealth have been successful, maintaining that; “we have been able to provide a number of jobs. But the jobs we are providing are not just the one you need to write application and begin to earn salaries. The jobs the state government is providing are to make those engaged in them employers of labour, creating entrepreneurs who are on their own been able to also employ a lot of persons”.
He said the idea where newsmen pressurizes government to employ people when there are no vacancies does not show any form of development at this present dispensation, “trying to pressurise government to employ people when vacancies don’t exist does not bring about development. What bring development is as much as possible creating the enabling environment. And that we are trying to do by providing roads that link up some communities so that those who are into certain forms of production will have access to the reasonable market. Being able to empower our brothers and sisters who have got talents to be able to move to the next level, because when we do that they will be able to employ more people and when they employ more people, it means that government has created more jobs”, he explained.
He noted that the state government was also doing well in the ‘Meaningful Peace Building’ which is also in collaboration with the federal government, “to a very reasonable extend bring about the cessation of hostilities in the creeks. That to a very large extent we encourage private investors to come into the state”.
“we are also very much concern about agricultural reforms, that we are doing either using YAGEP as a platform, getting our youths to be engaged in agriculture whether in terms of aquaculture, horticulture or any other thing that is involved in the agricultural sector in addition to proving tractors under the policy we call tractorization to our farmers to ensure that more persons are engaged”, adding that the state government has revamped existing educational institutions in both primary, secondary and tertiary institutions across the state.
He also noted that the state government was doing everything in its powers to elevate cottage hospitals in the state, “in addition to making sure that some other dispensaries and tertiary health facilities are also upgraded. We have also engaged a number of doctors to increase the number of medical personnel per patient”.
On the issue of ‘Transformed Environment through Urban Renewal’, the governor’s spokesperson said in the capital city, a good number of roads have been constructed even as he commended the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), that is assisting the state government to tackle a number of streets, “while we are also doing a number of the roads. So the intervention of NDDC have also enhanced the ecstatic value of the state capital, stressing that though the state has not gone to where it supposed to be “but we have left where we were as at a year or two ago? Yes, we have for those who want to be very objective”, he said.
He said major towns and urban centres across the state have witnessed upgrade of facilities, “and this is much more instructive and it is happening at a time when the resources at the disposal of different government are at its lowest ebb”, he added.
