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— Political Cohesion
My heart bleeds that crises of varying degrees had engulfed our Senatorial District in the past years. The devastating consequences are very much around us to the extent that even our continuous survival as a people of the same ancestral origin is being threatened today.
The hard-earned unity of purpose, collective struggle, political cohesion and harmony bequeathed to us by the past patriots have been extinguished while ethnicity, nepotism, acrimony and mutual suspicion are the features of our contemporary politics. The outcome of this syndrome is stagnation and under-development.
As a descendant of the geo-political zone, I am poised to wage a fierce war against this knotty enemy till it is vanquished.
Three strategies shall be employed to prosecute this war as follows:
(i) Senatorial Policy Advisory Committee (SPAC):
This committee will be saddled with the responsibility of receiving inputs, requests and complaints from constituents, digest and forward recommendations on same to the Senator for his approval and action.
Membership of this body shall consists of 15 elders of integrity, drawn from the compositing five local government areas.
The committee shall meet twice in a quarter while the Senator can summon them at any time for extra-ordinary session.
(ii) Interactive Sessions:
To foster unity and harmony within my followership and carry majority of our people along, I shall at regular intervals organize interactive sessions with the grassroots dwellers in their respective wards to enable me appreciate their living conditions and acquaint me with their aspirations and yearnings. By this they will have sense of belonging and their confidence in elected leaders regenerated.
The inputs, requests and complaints emanating from such interactions will be blended with those flowing through the SPAC to form the benchmarks of performing my functions in the National Assembly.
(iii) Cordial and Constant Link With Other Political Office Holders:
In addition to the above, I will maintain cordial and constant link with other political office holders from the zone to ensure that democracy dividends are delivered to our people in practical terms.
— Social Infrastructure
Social infrastructure such as electricity and roads are critical in human endeavours. The Federal Government of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua has taken cognizance of this fact and so has included it as a cardinal component of her seven-point agenda.
The ongoing rural electrification programme of the Federal Government would be pursued with intensive vigour and pressures to ensure that the national grid projects at Ibi, Lissam, Manya, Kumbo, Mararraba, Rafin-Kada and Gindin-Dorowa are accomplished and put to use before the end of my tenureship.
In terms of roads, I will mount intensive pressures on the executive arm to see that Rafin-Kada-Donga road, Mararraba-Bali road are completed. In the same vein, Wukari-Takum road, Wukari-Sarkin-Kudu road, Donga-Baissa road will be influenced for rehabilitation and construction. While I will explore all avenues to get Ibi bridge project commenced.
— Human Development
Human development is also known as economic empowerment. It can be defined as a package designed to promote better living for the people. It is any action in a locality taken by an agency, government or individual with the primary intention of bringing financial and or economic benefits to the people of such locality. In fact, human development liberates people from mental and physical dependence.
As stated in my mission statement, human development is crucial in my seven-point agenda. This is informed by the fact that my grassroots constituents are wallowing in penury, impoverishment and abject poverty in the midst of unending plenty of natural endowments.
Accordingly, remedial gestures shall be embarked upon to cushion the scorches of poverty on our grassroots dwellers.
In fighting this disastrous monster, three approaches will be applied in accordance with three main economic groups of our society.
(i) Primary Initiative
As the name implies, the target under this initiative are the mini-scale entrepreneurs whose engagement cannot be expanded due to inadequate capital base. This group of people include inter-alia tailors, barbers, salon operators, shoe makers, vulcanizers, grocers and petty traders.
This set of businessmen will enjoy grants from my private purse. The package will be within the range of N10,000 and N25,000 for the sole aim of expanding their business engagement.
(ii) Secondary Initiative
Under this approach, I will focus on the small-scale business entrepreneurs and avail them financial and machinery support. Such business persons encompasses rice millers, commercial motorcyclists (Achaba), grain grinders, timber saw millers, welders, electricians, plumbers, etal will be assisted to have machineries of their own.
(iii) Tertiary Initiative
The policy thrust of this initiative is to cater for the contractors and political heavy weights of our constituency. This approach will identify at least two persons from the respective five local government areas each year and buoy them up to getting contract awards or other patronages from the Federal Government.
— Water
Over 80% of our people have for long been sourcing drinking water from streams, ponds and rivers. This is the major cause of incessant outbreak of pandemic killer diseases like typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, intestinal worms, chicken-pox among others.
Successive governments made attempt to ameliorate this persistent problem by sinking boreholes in some towns and villages, but most of these boreholes have either never been functional at all or have broken down.
In view of the above, I have resolved to provide an enduring and elaborate panacea to this perennial canker. I will step in from two dimensions:
Dimension One:
Utilize my office to influence the Federal Government to embark on more water projects in all the compositing units of the Senatorial District. While I shall pursue with vigour speedy completion of the following on-going projects:
- Kashimbilla Hydro-electric Dam in Takum Local Government Area
- Fikyu Dam in Ussa Local Government Area
- Mararraba Dam in Donga Local Government Area
- Warsaji Irrigation Dam in Donga Local Government Area
Furthermore, I am masterminding the siting of the underlisted water projects by the Federal Government in this zone.
- Motorised borehole at Bibinu in Donga Local Government Area
- Motorised borehole at Nwonkyo in Wukari Local Government Area
It is sorrowful to observe that almost all the motorised and solar powered boreholes sunk by Obasanjo government between 1999 and 2007 are not functioning. Efforts will be intensified to get the Federal Ministry of Water Resources rehabilitate them for the utilization of our masses.
Dimension Two:
Under this dimension, I affirm that my covenant with the people of old Kwararrafa Kingdom transcends political and official divides. Hence I am personally committed to their welfare and so will not be weary of mobilizing resources from personal earnings to augment government gestures in this sector. To this end, a hand pump borehole will be drilled in each of the rural council wards in the zone. Of course, this endeavour will cover the period of my tenureship i.e. 2008 through 2011.
— Health
The popular saying that “health is wealth” implies that a healthy society is a wealthy society.
It is disheartening to observe that our senatorial society is far from being healthy because basic health amenities have been eluding us since our advent as a geo-political entity.
Other contemporaries of ours are living in abundance of health facilities while we are here groaning with only one functional General Hospital and a Cottage Hospital to cater for five local government areas. Worse still, most local government health centers are abysmally dilapidated and the few structurally good ones are grossly understocked with drugs, vaccines and other medical equipments. The consequence of this unacceptable trend is high rate of mortality within our populace.
To stem this tide of high mortality rate, I deem it mandatory to rise to the occasion through personal intervention.
My remedial measures will be the rehabilitation of two health centers in the individual local government areas and thereafter supply of drugs and other medical equipments to the rehabilitated centers.
These measures will complement the health amenities brought by the Federal Government through the instrumentality of my position as a senator.
It is interesting to remark that the following projects have been earmarked for execution:
- Primary Health Clinic at Nwonkyo in Wukari Local Government Area
- Primary Health Clinic at Fikyu in Ussa Local Government Area
- Primary Health Clinic at Rafin-Soja in Wukari Local Governemt Area
— Education
It is often said that education is a compulsory catalyst for nation-building and so education is the right of every Nigerian-child. For this reason, the Federal Government has made it compulsory for every child to be educated and went further to stipulate penalties against parents who frustrate their children’s education vide an Act of the National Assembly.
It is therefore a foremost responsibility for mandate custodians to ensure that all children of school age are educated up the University level irrespective of their family background or the financial status of their parents.
Our Senatorial District is populated by Nigerians whose income fall below the poverty lines and as a result education suffers endemic setbacks. It is a known fact that two pressing challenges confront our educational system today. These are:
(a) Inadequate Infrastructures:
Classrooms, furniture and instructional materials in our schools are grossly inadequate and even the existing ones are in deplorable and dreadful state of dilapidation.
(b) Lack of Sponsorship Ability of Most Parents:
Most parents lack financial ability to sponsor their children in higher institutions of learning because of penury. In addition to ensuring that all ties of government discharge their educational responsibilities to my constituents effectively, I will in the light of the identified challenges make personal contribution towards the advancement of education in this Senatorial District.
Between January 2008 and December 2009 I will undertake renovation of two blocks of 3-classrooms in each of the five local government areas under my domain.
Beside intervention in classrooms provision, I will evolve a scholarship scheme for the benefit of undergraduate students who are facing harsh difficulty in sponsorship. It is my intension that three (3) students from the respective 52 council wards in the zone will benefit from the scheme. This scheme will run for two academic sessions of 2009/2010 and 2010/2011.
To come to terms with the current drive for globalization vide information and communication technology, the Federal Government by way of constituency projects is establishing computer centers in two secondary schools for each local government area of our zone. This project will be executed this 2008 budget year. The locations in our local government areas are as follows:
- Wukari Local Government Area:
- Government Secondary School, Wukari
- Government Day Seconday School, Gindin-Dorowa
- Ibi Local Government Area:
- Government Secondary School, Ibi
- Government Day Secondary School, Sarkin-Kudu
- Donga Local Government Area:
- Government Science Secondary School, Donga
- Government Day Secondary School, Mararraba
- Takum Local Government Area:
- Mbiya Government Secondary School, Takum
- Government Day Secondary School, Army Barracks
- Ussa Local Government Area:
- Government Day Secondary School, Lissam
- Government Day Secondary School, Fikyu
Preamble
As you already know, I was inaugurated into the 6th Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on June 5th, 2007 to represent Taraba South Senatorial District through the instrumentality of your overwhelming votes. The mandate is for four years which subsists till May 29th, 2011. Hence that June 5th, 2007 began a new chapter in our struggle for an egalitarian Wukari Senatorial District devoid of acrimony but filled with milk and honey.
You will recall that during electioneering campaign, we promised to give you effective, pragmatic, qualitative and purposeful representation such that will regenerate confidence in elected leaders with a view to putting smiles on your faces vide people-oriented legislations and programmes.
The path of my ascension of power was very tortuous and even after my assumption of office the monumental trauma still rages on six months into the tenure period. Notwithstanding, I am keeping faith with my avowed mission of pursuing the following cardinal programmes:
— Agriculture
Agriculture is the mainstay of our people and over 90% of them derive their livelihood solely from subsistence farming. Being the backbone of our economic endeavours, it is incumbent on political leaders to mobilize every effort and resources to improve this sector.
It is my belief that if agriculture is enhanced, by extension, the lives of the people are uplifted. To this end, I am poised to taking agriculture to greater heights. Hence, I will pursue the improvement of this sector with all amount of seriousness from two angles - A and B.
Angle A
Under this aegis, I shall use my position as a Senator to influence Federal and State Government Agricultural facilities and programmes to our teeming peasant farmers and animal breeders. Such services as:
- Distribution of fertilizers at subsidized rate
- Provision of Tractor hiring and other agricultural machinery facilities at affordable prices
- Provision of herbicides, pesticides and other agro-allied chemicals
Angle B
Angle B initiative will focus on the use of personal resources to provide agricultural inputs to the farmers as supplementary measures to government effort. This policy would be implemented in two phases as follows:
Phase One:
Under this auspices, greater concentration would be on the procurement and free distribution of fertilizers to the poorest farmers in the constituency.
It is a known fact that majority of our peasant farmers lack the slightest wherewithal to purchase and apply modern manure. In the year 2008, trucks of fertilizers would be bought and distributed free of charge to this category of farmers. This of course will go a long way in boosting returns from farming endeavours and discourage the application of archaic and primitive manures.
Phase Two:
Phase Two will be an attempt to venture into agricultural mechanization.
As from 2009 cropping season, I shall set up “Agricultural Mechanization Revolving Fund.” This fund will finance procurement of tractors together with other farm implements and lease out to Group farmers at very reduced rates.
The objective of this scheme is a gradual modernization of farming methodology with a view to taking our people our of primitivity in tilling the soil which has been being human intensive and contributed in great measure in reducing the life-span of many of our people.
The scheme will be self-sustaining and will be recycled in the succeeding years.
About Me
My Vision
To strive for enduring solution to the multifaceted socio-economic and political difficulties of Taraba South and together with my colleagues come out with laws that will make Nigeria a better country.
My Mission
Determined to make a difference, I shall stimulate rapid, even and sustainable development of Taraba South into a region that is economically prosperous, socially stable, environmentally regenerative and politically peaceful.
Preamble
As you already know, I was inaugurated into the 6th Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on June 5th, 2007 to represent Taraba South Senatorial District through the instrumentality of your overwhelming votes. The mandate is for four years which subsists till May 29th, 2011. Hence that June 5th, 2007 began a new chapter in our struggle for an egalitarian Wukari Senatorial District devoid of acrimony but filled with milk and honey.
You will recall that during electioneering campaign, we promised to give you effective, pragmatic, qualitative and purposeful representation such that will regenerate confidence in elected leaders with a view to putting smiles on your faces vide people-oriented legislations and programmes.
The path of my ascension of power was very tortuous and even after my assumption of office the monumental trauma still rages on six months into the tenure period. Notwithstanding, I am keeping faith with my avowed mission of pursuing the following cardinal programmes:
