…As Edo Round Table, Mudiame University honours Abure
From Tony Osauzo, Benin
Edo Policy Round Table in Association with Mudiame University, Irrua, Edo State, yesterday, organised a Colloquium and Hall of Fame in honour of the National Chairman of Labour Party (LP), Julius Abure in Benin City.
The event held at Bishop Kelly Pastoral Centre, Airport Road with the theme: “The Contemporary Nigerian Politics: The Way Forward for Edo State”,
In a goodwill message, the Candidate of Labour Party in the February 25 Presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi, noted that there was nothing wrong with Nigeria as God has blessed the country with all the good things of life, but that the problem of the country is lack of planning and good leadership.
“Before I joined labour party, I told Julius Abure that I was told that people have told me that you and your leadership are going to allow the primary to be free and fair and since them our relationship has been on that basis.
“I like to celebrate people when they are doing something good and I thank you for celebrating him.
“We all have our problems, I am not a saint and I am not a criminal, I have never knowingly done anything that is wrong, if I know it is wrong I wouldn’t do it.
“I have served in the state, I have served in the private sector and today we are going through difficulties, we are not here to mention names, I just listened to a very wonderful speech when they were talking about planning, if you have not planned, you plan to fail and it is very simple.
“The reason why the country is filling today is lack of plan, and when you talk about lack of planning, you are talking about lack of implementation because we politicians, when we are campaigning, everything is sweet and good but once we have the opportunity, we would bring out our true side and start doing the opposite and reserved our pride for implementation.
“The keynote speaker talked about the country, mine is goodwill message, those who have spoken to us and those who will still speak today in this round table policy, try to find out how we can have a better Nigeria, if we have a better Edo State , we would have a better Nigeria.
“All I can tell any body, there is nothing wrong with Nigeria, Nigeria have one of the best in terms of land, weather, God given resources and the people.
“One thing God has not given Nigeria is leadership, if we have good leader we would do better.
A country like Nigeria has no reason to be poor if not because of leadership, if you compare Nigeria with the three biggest economies in Europe- Germany, Britain and France, these three countries, if you compared them with Nigeria in land size, they are just about 20 percent bigger than Nigeria when you put the three together.
“But today 357,0000 Germany and France 551,000 and UK 373,000 and if you put them together you have about 1162, square kilometres and Nigeria is 923,000 square kilometres.
“If you talk about population UK is about 67 million, France is about 64 million, Germany is about 84 million and three of them put together is 316 million and Nigeria is about 216 million and I can tell you that we have more resourceful people, youths than the three of them have.
“But when you now compare our economy, if you put the economy of the three of them together Germany is GDP of $4.4 trillion, UK GDP of $3.2 trillion, France is about $303.2 trillion and you are getting about about 10 trillion economy and We are about $400 billion, so they are 25 time more.
“Why because we have leadership that involved in waste and consumptions and no production, so whenever you are talking of pulling the people out of poverty and creating jobs for the people, it is simple, just remove the economy from consumption to production, you create jobs.
“But now all we are thinking about is to buy this and buy that, consume this and consume that, organise this ceremony and that ceremony, it will not work.
“Now, you have announced round table, lets have round table for Nigeria and everybody and be rest assured that if we get this right we would have a better Nigeria.
“We must stop people from stealing public money, we must stop people from wasting public money, it is not their private money and all of us are involved, we must not celebrate them.
“How much money do you need to live as a humans being and every body here no matter how big and poor you are, a 100 years from today we would all be covered with…..
“Lets us join together in rebuilding Nigeria, we must bequeath a better Nigeria for our children, we can’t bequeath Nigeria as it today, we are going to bequeath anarchy to them, suffering and when you wake up in the morning, all you are hearing is killing.
“For those you think are leaving Edo they will come when if Edo is good”, Obi stated.
On his part, the Guest Speaker, Dr. Yunusa Tanko, noted that Nigeria at 63 was still searching for a new political order, adding that the full realiszation of the country’s dream at independence has been made impossible because of the dominance of the factors of ethnicism, religions and politics which he argued have also affected the survival of democratic rule and national development.
He praised Abure for making his mark by midwifing the Labour Party to an unbelievable success from the build-up of strong founding leaders like Chief Dan Nwanyanwu and late Alhaji Abdulkadir Abdulsalam.
In his speech, the National Chairman of Labour Party, Julius Abure, said the September 2 Edo governorship scheduled to hold next year affords the people of the state the opportunity to elect the right governor he termed “Shepherd Governor”, who he said will be a bridge-builder and must be selfless and ready to take risk and make personal sacrifices at all times in the interest and well-being of Edo people.
He stressed that such a governor must have the capacity to bring all shades of persons together in order to achieve the objectives of developing the state and must have innovative ideas and openness to harness the state resources to create for the state.
Specifically, the LP National Chairman stressed that the Labour Governor would be interested in Wealth creation and poverty eradication, Security, Local Government Administration, Education, Health and Infrastructural development.
Earlier, the Chancellor of Mudiame University, Prof. S . E. Eromosele noted that the situation in Edo State was dire, with poverty, hardship, and backwardness exacerbating the dependency ratio.
He, therefore, called for a Government that drives people- oriented policies, adding that citizens deserve to be integral the policy-making process.
