By Bode Olagoke
Abuja
Kogi state governor-elect, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, has promised to embark on rapid industrialisation of the state immediately he was sworn in, next year.
Bello, who made the pledge in a statement issued in Abuja by his Media Assistant, Suleiman Abdulmalik, said only a well-coordinated industrial programme “can solve the twin problems of poverty and underdevelopment that currently confronts the state.”
He said he was pained that a state like Kogi that was sitting on a variety of raw materials and blessed with enormous human capital has remained a shadow of its capacity, 24 years after its creation.
According to him, efforts will be made to channel the state’s resources to productive sectors with a view to bringing the desired meaningful growth and development for the benefit of the greater majority of the people of Kogi State.
He noted that he was aware that government “cannot provide all the jobs and will, therefore, use his connections to attract private sector participation so as to provide gainful employment for the youth.”
It urged the good people of the state to support the incoming governor to enable him touch the lives of everyone in the state in the areas of security, good roads, education and standard medical care, world class infrastructure, agriculture and other critical sectors of the state’s economy.
The statement said gone were the days when those saddled with the responsibility of ensuring the security of lives and property would be allowed to sacrifice peace and unity of purpose on the altar of ethnicity and inflated ego.
It said Bello’s election marked a turning point in the history of the state.