- Tomorrow is here in Enugu State
Angels Network News (ANN): As the incoming governor of Enugu State, what is your pet project?
BARR MBAH: As a party and as a candidate for the governorship election we have outlined series of development plans across all the sectors. For me as an individual, I do have my pet project. I have Peter Mbah Foundation that has intervened in different sectors of the economy: we have built hospitals, we have built roads and we have encouraged those who are out of school by making sure that they are back to school by paying their school fees. That on one hand is my pet project but if your question has to do with my plans for the people of Enugu State as when I get their mandate, as their next governor then we have plans.
We do have programmes across all the productive sectors. If you come to agriculture, we have series of strategic programme there, we have in the commerce and industry sector, we have in the energy and mineral resources sector to create industry, in urban and rural infrastructures, the ICT infrastructures and indeed tourism. Therefore, we have programmes across all the sectors. The aim is to use those productive sectors to grow our economy from what it is currently at 4.4 billion to 30 billion, which is sevenfold growth. In other to do that, you have to employ disruptive innovation, you cannot do things conventionally, and you have to do things differently. So across all the different productive sectors, we are going to deploy technology to scale up our productivity in those areas.
ANN: The condition of education in Nigeria is very poor. We will like to know if you have any plan for education in Enugu State.
Barr Dr. Mbah: Thank you very much; education is at the core of our plans. I have spoken about growth sectors but we also have the social services sectors and those sectors are healthcare services, education and of course the environment. On education, again, we do have a very ambitious programme; we have a programme called the “cut-off-point.” Cut-point is about catching the young ones at age 4. This is for early childhood education. The plan is to ensure that we catch them young at age 4 and infuse into them ICT skills. Above all, we must make sure that we pour into them the right civic and moral values so that 20years from now we are breeding young people, graduates from their different vocations that also not only have the technical and vocational skills but the moral values to be able to live in a civic society. We understand that there is some kinds of moral decadence that is permeating our society. So, we want to attack that from our young ones by catching them young at age 4 and inculcating into them all the prerequisite values that we need for them to have in other to succeed in a sane and a decent society. Of course, we also have programmes for our young adults in our secondary schools. There is going to be an infusion of ICT literacy from primary, secondary and the tertiary level. We want to particularly review the National Education Curricular to make it in tune with modern day reality. Therefore, we are going to ensure that the skills that you are leaving secondary school with are those skills that you need to succeed in the modern day. We are going to do all these radical reviews in our educational sector.
ANN: Finally, what is your message for the people of Enugu, especially your teaming supporters who are waiting anxiously for your emergence as their next governor?
BARR DR. PETER MBAH: Well, we are hoping, first of all, that we get their mandate in March next year and then what we are going to do is to build a portal where the people of Enugu State can from the comfort of their homes, just by using their mobile device be able to access the government portal. In that portal, they will see what the government has received as revenue, they will see the different projects the government is intervening in and they will see the impacts those projects are having on the people. Don’t forget that our long-term goal is to eradicate poverty and to make sure that you have zero hunger in Enugu State. That is not going to happen overnight; we will not wake up in 8 years and have zero hunger but we can be measured, such that in that portal, we have a measurable indicator that shows you every quarter, the number of people we have lifted out of the pit of poverty based on the programmes that we deployed. So, my message to the people of Enugu is to ensure that they make the right choice by voting us in as their next governor so that their tomorrow can indeed be here because there is no more room for procrastination.
