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Worried by the unbecoming state of unemployment in Nigeria, the African Action Congress (AAC) says its priority is to change the situation by entrenching a policy that will make the teeming unemployed youth job creators in Delta State.
Comrade Frank Ufuoma Esanubi, the Delta State governorship candidate of AAC made this known while interacting with journalists under the auspices of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Delta State Council.
Esanubi, flanked by his deputy governorship candidate, Rev. Udoka Peace Ossaigha, and the Delta North Senatorial candidate of the party, Mr. Smart Ajaja Williams said it is to underline the importance employment for the youths that the AAC has made its priority to read: Job creation, Job creation and job creation. “My priority as governor is to stop joblessness. When we come on board in May 29,2019, we are going to put in place a scheme that will jobless graduates N1million start-off funds,” Esanubi, a chartered accountant said.
He criticized the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa administration for wasting public funds through the appointment of over 3,000 political aides, mushrooming and doing nothing tangible, but programmed to be used to do the job of rigging their wards during elections. “We shall stop these appointments and divert the money being used and make them available for our graduate employment scheme,” Esanubi said.
Speaking with brilliance and eloquence, the AAC governorship candidate continued : “We are going to introduce a scheme in the education sector such that people while in school will be exposed to learning on trade or the other so as to make the job creators rather than job seekers.
“We want to revive ailing and dead industries in Delta State to cater for the employment of the many, who are unemployed. All that the Delta state Government is doing is to sit idly away while state owned companies ail and die.”
He said an AAC government in Delta State will do what former Presiden Barak Obama did in America by bringing out a bail out policy that help to resuscitate ailing industrials, thus making them to bounce back and remain afloat and in business. “We shall do everything to revamp Asaba Textile Mill, African Timber and Plywood, among others, and set up a car assembly plant that will supply cars to government. We are working towards an embedded power plant. Unfortunately, the current power plants are made to send power into the National grid. We plan to set up a Delta State power plant that will produce 1,000 mega wats within one year, and we shall enter into an MOU with the distribution companies not to send the power generated into the national grid, but ensure that the power generated is sent only to the people in Delta State,” Esanubi stated.
Noting that the electricity distribution companies are purely private business concerns, the governorship candidate said that an AAC government in Delta state will see to it that there will be no estimated billing in the state as from May 29, 2019
Answering a Correspondent’s question, Esanubi reiterated that it is political waste of funds to employ over 3,000 political aides, explaining that so much money is wasted. He said, the core of civil servants in the state is enough to do the job those political aides are being employed to do. “We have a core of civil servants being paid to do the work. We shall use them, and using them will mean giving them the opportunity to add value to themselves because they will enjoy job satisfaction. What is the essence of having a worker who is everyday idle because there is no work to do?” Esanubi asked.
Answering another question, the AAC gubernatorial hopeful criticised the PDP government, saying: “Having been in government for more than 20 years and there is mass unemployment in the country and the state is a minus for the PDP.”
The 40 years-old finance analyst and decision analyst at Chevron Nigeria Limited, who is also Deputy President of PENGASSAN, reeled out programmes that he will do in Delta State when voted in as governor to include among others:
• Set-up of Delta State Neighbourhood Safety Corps to coordinate community based security network. These personnel will form the core of the community police when the constitution is amended.
• Stop the miscellaneous deductions at source from local government allocations. This will ensure that the LGAs are able to pay salaries of their workers and primary school teachers promptly.
• Enhance and ensure prompt payment of bursary for all students of the state institutions all over the country.
• Free medical care for all children below 10 years and senior citizens (60 years and above). Medical Insurance with a Delta State owned HMO to be treated as tax deductible item to cover self, spouse, children and dependants.
• Pay ment of salary latest 25th of the month to all civil servants, December salary to be paid by 15th.
• Free qualitative education with significant autonomy for public schools to compete favourably with private and foreign institutions (refundable school fees model).
• Revive ailing industries which used to be the bedrock of the state’s economy such as the Asaba Textile Mill, Delta Glass Company and African Timber and plywood, etc.
• Create a soft skill (Delta Silicon Valley), vocational city and green energy development centre in the three senatorial zones.
• One agriculture based product factory in each LGA based on peculiarities of each LGA (direct and indirect jobs to be created as a result).