C'River 2020 LG Election : My Vision for Obudu By Ewhe, PDP Chairmanship Candidate

Mr. Boniface Eraye Ewhe, Obudu PDP Chairmanship Candidate

"Tomorrow is looking great".

In Exodus 18:21 the scripture says "But select capable men from all the people, men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens".

The scripture above has refreshened
our minds towards the reality that LEADERSHIP is not a man-made thing. It's a divine instruction from God and it's integral to all human endeavour.

For this reason, I've offered myself to the good people of Obudu to see through my clear and sincere conscience, passion and enthusiasm to serve them not as a ruler but as a leader with a clear direction for the people.

Our laws perhaps doesn't allow for anybody to aspire into any elective position in election such as this without belonging to a political party. For this, I want to begin by thanking the indefatigable digital leader of our great party, the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) in Cross River State and Obudu, His Excellency, Sen. Prof. Ben Ayade and other leaders and members for finding me worthy to fly the flag of the party as the Obudu Chairmanship candidate in the forthcoming Local Government Election.

I honestly don't consider myself as the best but I've always had the confidence that I'm the right man for the job at this time. It was for this confidence that I presented myself before His Excellency and other leaders of the party to be sponsored as candidate and as God will have it, among all other very qualified; some even literally more qualified than I am, was elected as the undisputed Obudu PDP Chairmanship candidate. One thing I can assure His Excellency and other leaders today is that they won't regret reposing their confidence in me.

Obudu is very blessed and I think that I'm very blessed too personally because after March 28, God willing, I'll be declared the Chairman of the Governor's local government area. This is big because as we have already seen in the past five years of the results oriented administration of Prof. Ayade, Obudu has moved from an urban area to one of the finest cities in the state. The Governor has done enough in terms of infrastructural development, manpower/youths empowerment, job creation amongst others.

With what the Governor has done, it's safe to say that, my vision will be to build on his gains and legacies so that the good people of Obudu will continue to enjoy the dividends of electing responsible leaders into political positions.

The upcoming election will not just be an opportunity to elect me as your local government Chairman but also to re-engage the citizens on the values we stand for as a people. We  hope to take  advantage of the opportunity to reinvigorate  the political  process in our local government for the next generation and in the process leave a legacy that will stand the test of time.

Our focus will not be to reimagine a political process where we will pay attention to a few selected group of people but will develop a dynamic process where we can individually and collectively pursue the course of building Obudu that we will all be proud of. Your motivation at the end should be that you played a key role in building a progressive, developed and peaceful Obudu that the generation yet to come will be proud of.

Obudu belongs to all of us and we should all come together regardless of our previous political experiences to move the local government and her people to a greater level. With this aims in mind, we want to commit to the following specific vision for our people:

1. Security : The late Minister of All Souls Church, Arthur Powell Davies in one of his sermons to his congregation rightly opined that  "the world is now too small for anything but brotherhood". We understand that safety and security are the most important responsibilities of government. We will take this as top priority because without a secured environment, without our people living peacefully as brothers and sisters, no meaningful development can take place. We will work with relevant authorities including the transitional institutions, youths organisations, faith based organisations, etc to ensure we proactively resolve disputes before they escalate.

2. Education : A former Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair while launching Labour's education manifesto at the University of Southampton in 2001 said that if given another chance, the key three things Labour will do to renew Britain's public service was education, education, education. With good school, our kids can acquire knowledge and skills that will keep them gainfully employed and competitive in life. Our objective will be to invest heavily in education from the very primary, laying the needed foundation for life long learning. We will train and retrain teachers because the quality of education cannot raise above the standard of her teachers, renovate schools to meet the contemporary digital standard and give special attention to the physically challenged and technical education.

3. Health : Health, they say is wealth. Without good health, nobody can do anything. Thus, our objective will be to improve healthcare accessibility and standard in the rural and urban areas to completely eradicate infant and maternal mortality rate. We'll equip our primary healthcare centres, establish new ones and above all ensure only qualified hands will man all the health facilities in the local government.

4. Agriculture : Before the oil boom in the 70s, agriculture was the mainstay of Nigeria's economy. So many third world countries like ours that have left us behind today like Malaysia, never got carried away by oil but devoted their national resources to agriculture. Our government will complement the agricultural revolution in the state led by Prof. Ben Ayade, by investing heavily in a way of offering soft loans/grants to farmers. We will pull our people from subsistence to commerical agriculture.

5. Youths empowerment and job creation : Unemployment anywhere in the world is one of the greatest security risks. We cannot talk about developing our local government without having our youths gainfully employed. We will prioritise youths empowerment and job creation. Our government will provide soft loans/grants for youths who are interested in business, organise and sponsor youths for skill acquisition and in the process creates job. We will give our youths fish and also teach them in the process how to fish.

6. Roads: One of the major undoing in Nigeria today is poor maintenance culture. Our administration will prioritise maintenance of existing roads as well as open new roads to our villages. Road infrastructure is one of the most important infrastructures in development. Therefore, as we will be investing in Education, healthcare, agriculture among others, we will complete our efforts by ensuring we create accessible roads for instance, for our farmers to convey their agricultural produce to the market.

These will be the focal point of our administration. However, we will be ready to engage stakeholders and the people on other basic needs of our people that our resources can carter for.

WereW assuring that "tomorrow is looking great".

Boniface Eraye Ewhe
Obudu PDP Chairmanship Candidate