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By Chukwudi Abiandu
The Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, Mr. Charles Aniagwu today Wednesday, November 28, 2018, justified that his boss deserves to be voted for a second term by the people of the state because of the exploits the governor has made so far in strategic engagement of delivering on his campaign promises to the people.
Aniagwu spoke today in Asaba, the Delta State capital on FRONTLINE, an interactive talk show programme packaged by the Delta Online Publishers Forum (DOPF), to provide opportunity and platform for critical segments of the society to share views, create awareness for their programmes and activities and making their views known by contributing to national discourse.
Pointing out that Governor Okowa deserves to be voted for a second term, Aniagwu said he deserves indeed to be promoted on a grade of excellent not just credit, having delivered effectively on his five point SMART Agenda promise to the people.
He said the Governor has involved Deltans by taking them through strategic engagement for progress and prosperity, ensuring peace in the state, transformation of the environment, job creation through the entrepreneurial and skill acquisition programme, infrastructural development, roads construction across the state, the storm projects in Asaba to deflood the state capital, the development of the health care facilities as well as the development of the educational ionstitutions.
“We stopped our people from asking for fish, but taught them to become fishers who can get fish whenever they want to,” he said adding: “Job creation scheme is in progress, not for the purpose of politics; Delta State is peaceful, we have taken development to the creeks, as a result more revenue from oil to the Federal Government and to the state.”
He continued: “Delta rice is being produced and will soon be launched by the governor. Through our entrepreneurial and skills acquisition programme many youths have taken to agriculture, doing well in animal husbandry, poultry such that today, Delta state is sufficiently producing food, including garri, eggs, fish, chicken, etc, a development that has helped to stabilize the price of food stuffs.
“We have built new schools to cater for the needs of those who had no opportunity to acquire basic education; revamping of the health institutions across the state, so much so that a lot of headway is being achieved in the health sector, such that with N7,000 a year, one can access good health care facilities in the state,” the CPS said.
Again he said: “We have built a number of schools. We took advantage of the UBEC law, We have paid our counterpart funds and renewed our primary schools across the state. The storm drainage is part of our efforts to make the state capital take a new look.
“Our roads are connecting to the rural communities. At the end of this administration, we are going to surpass the expectation of the people of Delta state. We have passed our examinations and garnered good grades for admission to second term. We are quite confident that the people of Delta state will vote for us. We are even looking at 5/5 in the vote for Governor Okowa.”
Answering questions on the condition of roads in the state, Aniagwu said: “When we came on board we said we will take care of roads in all the local government areas of the state. Before we came on board, the Ughelli-Asaba contractor was not paid. And you cannot ask him to go to site when he was not paid. The Okpanam road, a penny was not paid to the contractor before we came on board. It would have been inhuman to ask the contractor to go when he had not been paid and he had spent his own money. The Asaba fly over bridge was not paid for by the previous administration that awarded the contract. All these had to been considered and worked out.

“We have done a number of roads. We have linked local governments to each other by roads. Maryam Babangidda Way, at the end of its completion, will be like Summit Road because the government has engaged a very reputable construction company. In all honesty, we do not want to play politics with projects. This is why we say we need time to consolidate on what we are doing.”
On the allegation that only members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state or persons liked to the party are being empowered by the state government, Aniagwu denied, saying the people the state government engage in the job creation scheme are not for politics.
He explained that the process involves going to the internet and filling the form, which anybody could fill, arguing that “we do not use politics to select the people. That process is not politicized,” adding that the chief job creation officer, Professor Eric Eboh, is not a politician.
He said the agricultural programme, skills acquisition programmes and health schemes have nothing to do with politics, noting: “So our empowerment scheme is not one sided, not only PDP members are engaged.”
Nswering another question, he said election is like an individual wanting to gain admission into the university, stating that Governor Okowa has passed all the tests for promotion to second term in the 2019 general elections.
That the governor, therefore deserved the second term having scored excellent in all the examinations before him, saying the governor has been able to prove his programmes right and they have impacted positively on the lives of the people of the state.
Aniagwu said: “He brought out reforms in various sectors and he has completed them creditably well. Have created jobs, yes, we have created jobs. We have created platforms to make people create and get jobs. We have directly 6000 people in our job creation scheme. We are not doing it for political reasons.
“We have taken development to the creeks and the people are happy and willing to support the government. A number of youths have gone into agriculture. In a few weeks from now, we are going to launch our rice.”