MAKURDI – Even as the number of gubernatorial aspirants for the 2022 gubernatorial party primaries across all political parties in Benue state has risen to about 70, Chief Ngutor Anyam, an aspirant on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has described most of the governorship aspirants in the state as job seekers....CONTINUE READING
Despite the high number of those seeking to govern the state, Anyam who is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers described the development as a healthy one.
Anyam who was speaking with newsmen in Makurdi on Wednesday however noted that the astronomical increase in the number of contestants for the 2023 elections is because the ante for those to contest such elections has not been raised high.
He argued that if the ante for contestants were raised higher, as in other climes like Lagos state, it would discourage aspirants who have nothing to offer from coming out at all.
The aspirant also insisted that the Benue people must therefore articulate what it wants as a people and raise a bar of leadership so that contestants won’t be coming into leadership as a profession.
According to him, “I think it’s a very healthy development. I expect that more aspirants should come out for the election because a lot of issues point to it: one, if you lift the bar higher, it’s just like you want to scale hurdles; if you start with the hurdle of 8 feet or 2 meters, a lot of people will note immediately that they cannot scale through those hurdles, but when you see a lot of people aspiring, it means that the leadership hurdle has not been raised above height and that is why you see that every Dick and Harry feels they can just come in and run.
“Some of them are looking for employment, they don’t have anything to offer, if you give them the opportunity, they cannot do anything. But once the leadership bar has not been raised, they are now saying that people who are here have not done well.
“Clearly, if you go to Lagos where the leadership bar has been raised so well, you cannot have more than four aspirants because right from day one, people know that this is what the people of Lagos expect.
“It, therefore, means that in Benue state, we have to get to a point that as elders and leaders of the state we must articulate what we know as a people and raise a bar of leadership so that people won’t just be coming into leadership as a profession.
“I believe that we get results by having a correct research and approaching the problems as a system, that is what leadership requires”, he observed.
Anyam who said that he would borrow from the leadership model of second republic Governor, Aper Aku to govern the state said “I would like to borrow from the model of the late Aper Aku. When Aper Aku came in as a Governor, he didn’t come with a clear vision to say this is what I am going to do.
“When he came in, he did a need and resource-based assessment of the state, and on the basis of that report, he started projects like Taraku mills, Ihugh rice mill, Agro Millers, Benue Breweries, and the rest of them.
“That is the way to go, it’s not by writing beautiful papers and beautiful agenda or saying I have a 12-point agenda; I have a 5-point agenda and when you come, you fail. For me, I am going to have four key areas: Education, Agriculture, Sports and job creation.
“A Governor cannot come and solve every problem but you need to interface with the people right from the grassroots to be able to know what problems you are able to solve for them.”
He further stated that, “Certainly, if you want to deliver on the state, the key issues like I mentioned earlier, the issue of employment. You cannot provide employment if don’t create industries in the state and you have quite viable projects like Taraku mills that can offer four times the size of the budget of Benue state, it’s a key project everybody should look at.
“We need to look at our Education. We have universities, we have higher institutions that are not functioning well. We are in the 21st century like I mentioned earlier, we need to have the education that is relevant to the industries.
“Aper Aku had a very beautiful document, the Benue Development Plan, and I have a copy and I am going through it cover to cover. That is the infrastructure starting point. But like I also mentioned, in the 21st Century, there are key active projects that you can bring to the state like what is happening in Silicon Valley in the US” he stated.
