Bode Olagoke
Chairman of the All Progressives Congress Governors’ Forum, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo state, has urged the party to stop the culture of imposition of candidates to move ahead of the competition.
Okorocha took the position yesterday during the first Progressive Governors-Legislative-Civil Society Roundtable, in Abuja.
“Our victory is in our hands. It is left for us to make it or mar it, but I believe we can make it,” he said.
“I believe that this issue of imposition of candidates must stop in APC and that is the only way.
“The masses know us better. When they say this is the candidate that can win the election he is the candidate. Let there be liberal democracy.
“If we keep doing the same old things, the same old way, we will get the very same results. Most of the time, our budgetary system from conception to execution is faulty, hence the need for change.”
He said the outcome of the recent opinion poll conducted by APC’s foreign consultant was a true reflection of what was on ground, adding that for the APC to form government in 2015, it must do things differently.
Senator Olusola Adeyeye, who was also at the event, said when APC forms government at the federal level, it would reintroduce tolls along major highways to generate the required revenue to maintain the roads.
“Why must the governor of the oil-rich Rivers and the revenue-rich Lagos earn the same salary and allowances with the governors of Osun and Gombe?” he asked.
“It is no longer the practice to leave everything to government alone, because there are contending needs, especially in the area of infrastructural development.
“By the grace of God, when the APC forms government, we will restore tolls and they will be properly managed,” he added.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the event, the forum said that the budgeting process must be designed based on sector plans, “not mere statements of intended expenditure or mere line budgeting to be executed at the whims of the civil service.”
Other recommendations, according to the statement, said, “There must be provision for a closing figure for the previous year before any new budget is presented.
“The National Assembly’s oversight function must be reinvigorated to ensure strict compliance with budget provisions.
“Extra-budgetary expendi-ture, which is an impeachable offence, must be reined-in and punishable where applicable,” they said.
