MY 3CONAGS MANIFESTO: IN PURSUIT OF AN UNDILUTED, TRUE AND QUALITATIVE REPRESENTATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF BENDE SOUTH CONSTITUENCY OF ABIA STATE, SOUTHEASTERN NIGERIA.

My charge:

If elected a member of the Abia State House of Assembly in the April 11, 2015 election, on the platform of my party, the African Democratic Congress (ADC), my legislative contributions to the process of governance in Abia State, southeastern Nigeria, for the following four years, will be guided by a personal vision of mine for Abia State called “Three Cities On A Green Sea” or “3CONAGS” (pronounced as three corners).

Geographically and demographically, Abia State is majorly a rural province within a nearly landlocked southeastern geopolitical region of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The state was carved out of the old Imo State in 1991 by the then Nigerian central government under the leadership of General Ibrahim Babangida and his military regime. Ever since then, it has been a state befallen by the misfortune of poor governance which the population had hoped will be remedied by the country’s return to democratically elected civilian rule, a hope that has so far been completely dashed. Because the two civilian administrations that have held sway so far in the state since the departure of military rule and return to civilian governance in Nigeria from May 29, 1999, have not really helped matters, to put it mildly. And if public opinion and outcries are anything to go by, the outgoing People Democratic Party (PDP)’s Governor Theodore Ahamefula Orji’s administration in Abia State, which wraps up its tenure by May 29, 2015, took bad governance in Abia State to an unprecedented notorious height never witnessed before by the population.

It is the sense of great urgency associated with the present massive need for competent hands to enter into government to launch and effectively guide the vital repairs of the damages done by these past and outgoing administrations to the state, as greatly pervading in the realm of Abia State; that has prompted an individual like me to take a stand and add my name to the list for election into government to ensure that such a great misfortune as brought upon the state especially by the two most recent but very bad civilian administrations, will never continue.

And it is an election bid guided by a very deep personal conviction, a firm belief in the superiority of ethics and values, and aspirations that borders heavily on:

• Having in-depth and extensive knowledge of my constituency and further developing and advancing that knowledge. 
• Being in the House of Assembly not for myself nor for my personal pocket, but for the people. 
•  Being honest and desiring to remain honest at the job.
• Harnessing international and local experiences and contacts to articulate, actuate and promote local development in and around the constituency. 
• The fact that I can and will effectively fight youth unemployment in the area if given the opportunity to represent the constituency in the Abia State House of Assembly (ABSHA).  
• The fact that I’m well trained for the job already and well versed in development issues; that I have the best understanding of these issues more than all the other aspirants contesting for the same seat.
• The fact that politically, I am a fresh breathe, untainted, incorruptible, steel willed, full of great vision and passionate for real change and development in the society; that I have a bent for creativity and innovation; and that I am well exposed, soundly educated and learned and open minded. And I deeply want the same for everybody and especially the young generation in the constituency.

Only slums and deserts:

Abia State isn’t a place to be proud of at the moment. The state which was full of promises at the time of its creation hasn’t lived up to much, despite its very huge potential. And this is a problem that can be blamed squarely on failed leaderships at the state government level. It has so far been a government headed, one turn after another, by criminal minded individuals whose major interests have been to {mis}appropriate the state’s collective resources, particularly financial resources, unto converting them into their personal estates. By so doing, the state, overall, has been repeatedly denied of the vital revolutionary visions and funding for Development, making it a grossly under-developed place that it pitifully is today.

For example, despite its stupendous natural resource wealth and agricultural potential including very fertile arable lands, stable and friendly rainforest climate, nearly all year round rains, plentiful availability of freshwater bodies, rivers and wetlands, zero extreme weather and natural disaster factors, and moderate population that balances potential for adequate supply of human labour for agriculture with an opportunity for less pressure on land resources due to other uses; agricultural development, food production and the livelihood of subsistence farmers and rural dwellers who make up the bulk of the population in the state are still extremely very poor. Economy wise, Abia state seems to be a desert much as it is for the rest of southeastern Nigeria.

Also life for the rest of the Abia State population resident in the state’s only two towns, namely Umuahia, the state’s political capital, and Aba, the state’s commercial capital, is nothing to write home about. Slum and squalor best describes the environment and living conditions that this urban population mostly thrives in. Even the most basic amenities that an urban centre is known for are either non-existent or dilapidated and dysfunctional in these places. Abia towns are at best very filthy and chaotic that it would be very apt to create a new social science to be called “Chao-filthology” to study them and proffer solutions to the very bad problems they constitute presently.

Nutshell of the three cities on a green sea proposal for Abia State:

The very poor governance in Abia State is mostly gauged by the citizenry using the very visible high level of decay and backwardness seen in its two principal towns of Umuahia and Aba. It is also measured by the near total absence of genuine infrastructural development and economic and social growth in the majority rural communities across the state. Therefore, there is a role for improved urban planning, infrastructural development and community investments across the state in cultivating better perception and appreciation of the people for democratic governance. The 3CONAGS proposal is therefore an effort to spur effective delivery of genuine dividends of democracy that would be truly beneficial, enduring and all-round-reaching in Abia State for the people of the state and other citizens and residents of Nigeria.

Modern cities are well planned and well run places. Even ancient cities in history are mostly places consciously or deliberately conceived, proposed and built, targeting the best attainable monumental beauty and sophistication of the time. However, what we mostly consider as ‘cities’ in sub-Saharan Africa and especially in Nigeria, even in this 21^st century, are amorphously erupted and chaotic human settlements mainly lacking the novel, sophisticated organization, decency, aesthetics and cutting-edge conveniences that forms the core characteristics of true cities at any given point in time and that clearly differentiates such real urban places from their surrounding hinterlands.

Itself a product and foremost symbol of earliest human cultural/socio-economic revolutions and civilization, especially the Neolithic revolution which ushered in settled agriculture that compelled the world’s earliest population and societies of hunter-gatherers to forgo nomadic lifestyle and embrace sedentary farming and permanent settlements in close proximity with one another and which in turn prompted denser human population and increased production of food per unit of land thereby creating conditions suitable for city-like living; the cities have played enormous roles in the evolution of education, science, the industrial revolution and the birth of development as we know it today. Therefore when we talk about development or where we must talk about development, cities are very important. Also very important are the hinterland milieus that will form the surrounding regions for the cities, as it is very well noted that for a true city to form, agricultural activities are highly necessary while such a prospective city must have supply sources of enough surplus of raw materials to support trade and relatively large population, according to authors in urban studies like Paul Bairoch and Vere Gordon Childe.

The desirability and importance of cities can even be found in the Judeo-Christian historical biblical accounts of the ancient Israelites, where it was stated, for example, in 2nd Chronicles 14 v.6 - 7 that Asa the King of Judah, “built fenced cities in Judah: for the land had rest, and he had no wars in those years; because the LORD had given him rest. Therefore he said unto Judah, Let us build these cities, and make about them walls, and towers, gates, and bars, while the land is yet before us… So they built and prospered”.

Therefore cities evolve or are built for a purpose. And just as it is in the ancient times as the above quoted biblical text alluded, the purpose for cities even in these modern or post-modern eras still includes promoting development and fostering prosperity. And it is for this self-same purpose that this 3CONAGS proposal is being put forward at this time in Abia State given that the already existent but very poor quality and degrading urbanism in the state can be given a makeover and a forward thrust so as to effectively and efficiently aid the actualization of a good life and better place for the long suffering local population, a kind of pursuit that forms the raison d’etre of the state. It is a proposition for boosting development in Abia State through the promotion of world class qualitative urbanism and peripheral optimization especially in the form of pursuing well-planned de-pollution, re-development and expansion of the existing two urban areas of Aba and Umuahia into decent international urban centers or cities and the promotion of a new, third urban center for the state around the Abiriba/Arochukwu axis and the subsequent up-building of this new urban place into a decent international city as well; as against the low grade urbanism being witnessed in Aba and Umuahia towns currently. It is also a proposition for boosting development in the state through promoting innovative countryside investments that would transform and advance the majority rural communities of Abia state as green seas or centers of high agrarian productivity and sustainable development with very ready markets for their products in these three cities of the state and beyond.

  

The 3CONAGS therefore is not about re-inventing wheels. Rather it is about a high necessity and urgent need for and very possible engagement in repair works on a society that has been ran aground, truncated and thoroughly damaged by very bad captains. This in essence encapsulates the platform of my candidacy and party for this 2015 Abia State House of Assembly election which is summarized as a very strong commitment to seriously attend to the urgent need of the Abia society for massive works of restoration and advancement and for opposition to the now mainstreamed political culture in Nigeria which shamelessly prescribes that the best thing that can ever happen to government money and other resources is their being wastefully used or stolen by government officials under whose custody the resources have been placed.

It is a template for a relentless pursuit of investments and development engagements across the entire state that would be of tremendous benefits to the people of Abia State and, in particular, of Bende South constituency which I’m set for its seat in the Abia State House of Assembly. And the promotion of decent and modern urbanism through genuine urban re-development and expansion as well as new town development around the Umuahia/Uzuakoli and Abiriba/Arochukwu axis of the state respectively, would be of a direct and huge developmental impact and benefits to the Bende South constituents due to the very close proximity of these centers to the Bende South constituency.

Overall, this kind of investments and development engagements in the state would surely empower the local communities in so many ways including creation of thousands of new jobs, delivery of unprecedented avenues for community education and transforming opportunities for enlightenment, knowledge acquisition, confidence-building and sophistication in industriousness amongst the population, growth of local arts, cultures and traditions especially through exposure to endogenous and exogenous tourism, economic prosperity and social advancements, etc.

Across the Bende South constituency, flows from the 3CONAGS will constitute a trajectory for effectively preparing and equipping and actuating the local population for optimization and efficient use of opportunities brought about by a reinvigorated and seriously and competently pursued modern and decent urban development and innovative rural community investments for sustainable development. Because the full spectrum and elements of these development engagements being put forward by 3CONAGS prescribes for competent legislations and initiatives for development capacity building for the local population, democracy and good governance advancement, inequality and gender gap bridging, access to quality education and science, mobilization of social capital, community enterprises and socio-economic development, environmentally-friendly industrialization such as metal and plastic recycling plants, environmental conservation and beautification such as afforestation and development of garden parks, better agricultural productivity and rural livelihood promotions, sports and fitness promotions; youth empowerment and employment; advancements in arts and cultural productivities such as the introduction of the “Akankwa festival”; and many more. It also prescribes pursuit of development partnerships with international institutions as well as local civil society, non-governmental and commercial private sector agencies. Even on an independent capacity, my office will seek out such partnerships for the benefit of the constituency, if elected a member of the Abia State parliament.

Below is a further overview of some of the specific priority legislative pursuits that would flow from the guidance of the 3CONAGS agenda:

1. EMPLOYMENT AND JOBS, AGRICULTURE AND SMALL BUSINESSES.

With an appropriate legislative bill, I will prod the Abia State government to make it illegal to be economically jobless in Abia State, starting immediately I assume office as member of the Abia State House of Assembly. Under the law, the government shall periodically conduct unemployment and under-employment census of the citizens and residents of Abia State and will assume more responsibility for creating enabling environment for employment generation through the undertaking of greater but still measured direct participation in job creation. Massive jobs programme will be propagated particularly in the sector of modern agriculture and agribusiness value chain which shall target to transform Abia State into a net surplus producer and exporter of agricultural commodities and agro-based manufactured products.

Enactment of laws to make the government provide greater support to small businesses and that offers incentives to private sector and non-state actors in order for them to also provide support to disadvantaged individuals and communities will as well be pursued by me. Specifically a strong legislative case will be made for an “Abia State Enterprise Board” to cater particularly for the development, sustenance and growth of start-ups and existing enterprises in the Micro-, Small-, and Medium-scale Enterprises category in the state.

Transforming the lives of peasants, artisans, petty traders and market women in the state using appropriate legislative instruments will be a top-of-the-list priority for my office if elected. The government will be made to pay more than presently obtainable attention to upgrading and further development of our traditional markets all across the state and especially in the rural areas, with the view of making them truly and thoroughly modern places of business activities that adds to the emancipation and uplifting of the intellect and livelihoods of our local population that makes use of such places; as against current situation where markets are tagged “ultra-modern” and yet remain places unfit even for mad people and dead rats – the kind of thing that TA Orji’s administration and the one before it were so dubiously good at doing.

When established, the Abia State Enterprise Board will be of the mandate to prioritize on assisting peasants, artisans, petty traders and entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses to innovate and grow. A very broad legislation will be articulated to ensure that such minute issues that are however very important to these category of workers, such as, where to trade, money to get a shop, the kind and quality of small shops available to people in the state, tenancy rates, over taxation issues, etc.; will receive the right kind of attention that will be helpful to the citizens concerned.

Other aspects of the legislation will also make for aggressive pursuit of the resuscitation of all moribund industries in the state and further industrialization and commercial developments. This shall be pursued at macro as well as micro levels with a very special emphasis on grassroots community participation in jobs development, especially in form of community employment and jobs initiatives, community enterprises and social economy. Legislations aimed at making businesses to become more and more responsible and to act accordingly with innovative and creative involvement with their local communities, will also be accorded priority.

The anti-Joblessness law will also be a weapon to target certain kind of individuals in the state who currently are using the very ugly situation of high unemployment in the country as an excuse to lazy and lousy around, constituting all manners of nuisance across the state, especially in urban areas such as Aba. A case in point is the need to curb touting all over the state especially in Aba and Umuahia, an ugly occurrence that is mostly associated with road transportation. The law will also feature new establishment or reinforcement of any existing anti-touting and social miscreants’ office and office for discouraging street and highway hawking, especially by children, in the state.

2. COMMUNITY EDUCATION /DEVELOPMENT.

Promoting the consciousness and pragmatism of the people in continuously demanding more from their government and pushing to make the government incrementally more accountable and transparent as well as fighting the culture of mediocrity, sycophancy and ignorance amongst the public – a very bad reality that has now become a kind of de-facto modus operandi in the Abia society and in Nigeria generally; will be a key community education and development goal to be vigorously pursued with strategic legislative instruments during my legislatorship.

Opening up the population to community education and access to information will be at the heart of this pursuit. Particularly, the very high incidence of what I call “infoverishment” in southeastern Nigeria due to the long existing very low access to the traditional media as well as the slow and still low penetration of the new information technologies and media in the region is a major concern to me. And this regional “infoverishment” is even greater in the Bende south area of Abia State which I’m seeking to represent in the ABSHA, being purely a rural constituency. However, I am very much prepared to take on this challenge and push for it being effectively address head-on through availing the state with innovative pieces of legislation. Among these legislations will be one that will compel the government of the day to highly prioritize development awareness-raising and education in the state. A specialist agency within the appropriate ministry will be targeted for establishment in the state for this purpose and staffed only with highly competent development professionals and experts and nothing less.

Other pieces of legislation will focus on greatly concerning the state government with the active responsibility of facilitating speedier penetration of information technology and further democratizing public access to information, particularly in rural areas of the state. Thus, the incoming Abia State government in 2015 must be very ICT-friendly and very much prepared to raise the bar and lead other states of the federation in the articulation and deployment of robust and revolutionary ICT policies which, for instance, will see the state awash with digital hubs, hotspots, and rural community multi-media centers that will spur the state’s largely rural population to tune in effectively to the world of greater accessibility to development information and universal acquisition of knowledge and critical development exposures.

Igboland which makes up the entire southeast geopolitical region of Nigeria, with significant spillovers into the surrounding north-central and south-central regions, used to be a haven for grassroots community self-help initiatives, especially during the pre-independence, post-independence/first republic, and early post-civil war periods in Nigeria. Over the years, however, especially with the intensification of corrupt governance at all levels in the country, the people’s prowess in galvanizing this highly important resource has greatly waned. This is as well very true in communities of Bende South constituency today. Therefore my legislative agenda, especially as encompassed in the 3CONAGS, will focus heavily on the revival and boosting of such self-help resourcefulness across the communities of the constituency and of the state at large using appropriate incentives from the government.

As such, I will target to promote legislations that would require from every autonomous community in Abia State to have a set of minimum development assets that must be present in their domain as a basis for them to continue enjoying that autonomous community status. Otherwise, autonomous communities without the meeting of such a requirement would be re-merged with their “kit and kin autonomous communities” that have met the requirement, or that are similarly disadvantaged so that they can more collectively be able to meet such a requirement. This minimum community asset requirement will include having a well-functioning Community Development Council and Chest; a community enterprise center; at least a well-equipped primary health center having a well-functioning dispensary and at least a doctor and a nurse; a primary school; a community science and multi-media center; a community library; among others. Communities will therefore be encouraged to make efforts in raising such assets within their domain, backed by appropriate and adequate opportunities for government partnership and the force of a robust and incentivizing Community Development legislation.

I will also work to attract solid and legacy-enduring development projects in each and every autonomous community in the constituency during my tenure at ABSHA, especially projects that offer opportunity for dignifying jobs and employment and innovation and growth of the local economy. This will include enterprises that industrialize the rich tourism potential, the abundance of commodities and raw materials, and the lucrative consumer market in the various localities in the constituency.

I will appoint a youth and older citizens committee, to be known as the State Constituency Partnership Committee (SCPC) in each and every autonomous community in the constituency to work with me throughout my tenure in ABSHA to ensure optimal and effective representation and maximum delivery of dividends of democracy. The SCPC will be incorporated as the Bende South State Constituency Partnership (BESSCOP) that will be given funds to pursue major and minor development projects across the constituency focusing especially on employment/job creation, poverty eradication, health care, education and science, youth-works and sports, etc.

Although it has been enjoying a high profile representation in Nollywood since its inception, given that leading actresses and actors like “Merit” Nnenna Nwabueze, who was part of the very first Nigerian ‘home-video’ film, Living in Bondage, that gave birth to Nollywood, and Mike Ezuruonye and Chinedum Ikedieze who are among the current raves in the industry, to mention but a few names, are all indigenes of the constituency; there can never be found today even the most archaic cinema in the constituency. Therefore as part of optimizing the Bende south constituency’s contribution to the now globally acclaimed Nollywood, my office will pursue legislations and initiatives that would greatly encourage not only government support but also private sector investments for the establishment of key facilities such as film/music schools, well-functioning modern cinemas, art galleries, book clubs and other arts and culture centers and festivals in the constituency for the promotion of wealth creation for the local population in tune with and in celebration of our abundant artistic talents and deep roots in great artistry as evidenced by our great contributions to literary, musical and visual arts, and as typified by the likes and works of Pita Nwana, author of the great Igbo language novel, Omenuko, that was heavily influenced by his long sojourn in the pioneer college town of Uzuakoli in the Bende South constituency; Harcourt White, a great composer and musical maestro also brought up in Uzuakoli; and our numerous Nollywood icons – a clear case of abundance of talents more than as available in our surrounding constituencies.

Other legislations to be pursued with vigor by my office towards better local community developments will also focus on reviewing and strengthening existing laws or enacting new ones in the state for better training, welfare and allowances for the traditional rulers; supporting existing laws that uphold and protect civil liberty of the individual members of society, including the freedom of worship and right to privacy; and promoting the establishment of good and productive relationship between government and civil society and faith-based organizations in Abia State.

3. ABA EMERGENCY AND OTHER URBAN DEVELOPMENTS.

I will pursue legislations that will declare a state of emergency over the present situation of the ‘city’ of Aba, which, it shall be the official views of my legislative office, is an urban disaster zone at the moment. A special state government commission as well as a private international corporation will be proposed to be set up to ensure and carry through the determination of the government in implementing a new vision for Aba especially as prescribed in my 3CONAGS, and to also ensure that the citizens and residents of the city as well as the people of the world participated actively in the highly necessary rebirth of Aba – the ‘Enyimba city’ once referred to as the “Japan of Africa”.

There will be a bill sponsored for an “Aba Corporation” to be set up and used as a channel for rallying foreign and domestic private investments for the modern metropolitan development of Aba, while another “Abia State Metropolitan Development Commission” bill will equally be sponsored in order to have a government/public sector channel for galvanizing and coordinating international, national and local (governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental) partnerships and investments for urban developments in the state.

Also, under this vision, Umuahia, the Abia State capital, which is currently a third world township and was a former capital of the defunct Biafra republic, will experience a merger with its immediate neighboring semi-urban locality of Uzuakoli and environs within the Bende South constituency, as well as with neighboring parts of Ikwuano and Isiala Ngwa constituencies and together be transformed into a first world metropolis to be known as “Amoha” and that has a unique destiny. While the extreme northern part of the state will also benefit from this urban development drive with the planting of a functional urban centre in the Abiriba/Arochukwu axis of the state, taking advantage of the already resort townliness of the Abiriba locality. 

4. TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORKFORCE AND STRUCTURE OF THE ABIA STATE GOVERNMENT.

I will sponsor bills for public administration and institutional reforms and mandatory continuous capacity building for public and civil servants in Abia State. I will pursue the enactment of legislation that will, in an abuse-proof, totally non-discriminatory and zero confrontational manner, target to further reduce the current size of the Abia State government workforce and overhead expenditures, in order to release funds currently being ‘wasted’ in the name of supporting overheads to a glaringly unproductive and yet primitively large personnel or in the name of settling political liabilities. The remainder of the government workforce after this exercise will be transformed into a well-motivated and ultra-productive workforce while the disengaged percentage will be trained and retrained and most productively engaged in other economic employment sectors in the state, more especially in agricultural production. Without losing sight on how extremely hard it might be, fraudulent bureaucracy and frivolous expenditures especially on the part of the executive and legislative arms of the government will be particularly targeted for legislative ambush by my office. Similarly targeted will be red-tape and other poor quality service delivery practices in the state that have ensured such public dissatisfaction with civil/public service performances, like the ones responsible for recurring bitter complaints by Pensioners in the state, etc.

Efforts will be made to very innovatively restructure the state government to make it updatedly modern, sophisticated, greatly efficient and productive far beyond what is presently obtainable. New ministries, such as the Science, Technology and Modernization (STAM) ministry with very robust departments such as the department of development culture, will be proposed; while some existing ministries will need to be merged or dropped entirely. And efforts will be made to give legislative supports for needed modernization of infrastructures and equipment that government activities need for its operations such as offices, event centers, vehicles and other facilities.

Ethics for working in government would be most particularly emphasized and strengthened through appropriate legislations. Especially, I would target to deliver on my goal to change the now deeply rooted perception in the society that the best thing that could ever happen to government money is it being stolen, pilfered or frittered away by those under whose charge and custody it has been put and by everyone else who comes across it. As an individual, especially a very responsible and prudent one, how do you expect your own money to be treated? I bet the last thing we, as responsible individuals, would ever want to happen to our hard earned money is it being handled just any how or by an “any-how” kind of person. This same treatment that we would give our personal money is what we should aim to give to government money and even better. Because government money has got a lot of responsibilities on its shoulder more than our personal monies could ever have.

Other anti-corruption wars will be waged as well using a variety of legislative instruments. Much attention will be paid by my office to “little” issues like the culture of “extracting economic rent”, such as where award of contracts, especially in construction, and paying out of monies are done without recourse to due process or appropriate supervision of the contracts leading to delivery of very poor jobs or to a case of non-execution of projects all together even though funds have already been taken out of the system for their sake.

As a state legislator, I will also be very actively engaged in delivering other sophisticated and innovative contributions to the overall administration and management of the Abia State government, economy and society in tune with very much needed individual and collective efforts to create a good life and better place for all in the state.

5.      LAW ENFORCEMENT, SECURITY AND PUBLIC SAFETY.

Legislations for the reform of the state’s law enforcement and judiciary systems will also be topmost on my agenda. The system should be given a complete overhauling and alignment with international best practices. Corruption and impunity particularly within the law enforcement and security agencies operational in Abia State, most especially the police, the military, the para-military, the court system and others, need to be addressed with appropriate legislative proposals and pursuits on a zero tolerance basis. Road extortions, rights violations, abuse of office, physical assaults on citizens, bribe taking, willful breaking of the law or aiding and abating of crimes in order to make money as very rampant amongst law enforcement and security officers will be fought against with necessary vehemence, until they are totally eradicated in the state or reduced to a tremendously great insignificance. There will be a “SEABLES” proposed and instituted to monitor and checkmate all law enforcement and security apparatuses of the federal government that are operational in the state as well as all local ones.

With appropriate cues taken from globally current policy and trends in HSE, legislations will be enacted to ensure greater compliance with HSE best practices and respect for public safety and health by private and public sector concerns delivering services to the public in the state. For example, under such legislations, an Abia State Road Safety and Traffic Management Agency will be instituted with a mandate to amongst numerous other things checkmate sharp practices by commercial motorists plying in the state, like over-loading of passengers and goods in vehicles, unprofessional driving and “change-over” of drivers, and short-changing of passengers with “destination short-reaching” without due compensation, as commonly practiced by commercial motorists in Abia State and especially by “Aba drivers”. Also curbing dangerous practices by petty transport service operators, such as using the “Keke” tricycle to ply highways and the persistent use of motorcycle without helmet despite existing laws against such, etc., will also receive fresh legislative boost.

My office will collaborate with appropriate sections of the Abia society and government agencies to launch and produce a periodic Abia State Law and Order Report (ABIA-LOR) and advocate for the development of an Abia State Community Register/Database of indigenes/families, other residents, and fingerprints, as well of a Rural and Urban Physical Address System.

6. HEALTHCARE AND WELFARE.

During my legislatorship there will be a vigorous pursuit of a vision to have built in Abia State what would be regarded as one of the best hospitals in the world and making accessibility to this facility a guaranteed possibility for the poorest of the poor in the state, at least. Also training of healthcare personnel in Abia State will be given much attention by introducing legislations that encourages the government and non-governmental/private sector to help provide quality training institutions and financial support incentives that would make many enough Abians to go into the healthcare profession backed up with genuine guarantees for after training employment.

Under the appropriate ministry, special departments for welfare, like the Destitution Relief Unit, will be recommended as part of strengthening government’s commitment to assisting her citizens in need.

7. PUBLIC HYGIENE, ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION.

I will support the introduction of more competent state legislations for domestic, industrial and public sanitation and hygiene, to include the institutionalization of a mandatory “Clean Village and Town (CVAT) Competition” for all rural communities and urban districts. Trophies and cash prices of different categories will be available for winning to encourage all and sundry to participate.

Attention will also be paid to enacting state edicts and institutions that will tame the disgusting practice of openly defecating or urinating that’s still common place in some of our towns and villages, as well as to discourage such awfully wrong little attitudes of people as spitting out openly while in public gatherings, walking on the road or in moving vehicles, which is carelessly exhibited most often in this part of the world.

Existing laws on combating pollution, especially plastic pollution, will be strengthened with better legislations that will effectively address implementation shortcomings and other issues surrounding this problem in the society.

Protecting the environment from all manners of deliberate or indeliberate physical damages as can be seen all over the state, will also form a top priority for me in sponsoring legislative bills. In many parts of the state one can easily see indiscriminate mining of sand by cutting into hillsides or digging of burrow pits which are subsequently abandoned to erosional forces. It is a very bad reality that there is nowhere now in Abia State that a virgin forest can still be found, while secondary forests and bushes are constantly under threat of further deforestation by bush fires during dry seasons, seasonal and fallow farming practices and other unplanned land uses. Fresh water bodies and wetlands are also under various degrees of misuse and abuse that requires legislative interventions.

Specifically, I will be using my legislative position to promote a number of conservation, re-greening and sustainable development projects around the constituency, including the Achi-Oba and Evuleme Valley projects in Uzuakoli, the Eme-Nkpa and Ahha-Akoli wetland areas projects in Umuimenyi, and others for purposes which includes enhancing the tourism potential and economic productivity of the region.

8. EDUCATION REVOLUTION, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION.

My legislative pursuit for an “Abia State Education Revolution Programme” will focus on transforming the education system in the state by raising it to world standards through the workings of various public-private and local and international partnerships towards establishing and raising in the state some of the best educational institutions in the world including a world class private university to be named after the legendary Chinua Achebe.

My office will also pursue legislations as well as independent projects and development partnerships aimed at making it an official policy of the Abia State government to make citizens and local communities prioritize on developing a ‘scientific temper’ as well as strongly encouraging the younger generation in the state to popularly pursue careers in science, technology and innovation through a provision of early encouragement to these young citizens through well-equipped community science centers in all autonomous communities in the state in addition to well-equipped science primary and secondary schools. My office will also pursue a plan to establish in the state what I call a “Young Scientists Park” collaborating with an already on-going junior science education promotions initiative called PRETAPS by a non-governmental organization that I’m associated with. Through these legislative pushes that I will bring to bear on these issues, I will also take up legislative and independent enterprise promotions for projects across the state dedicated to the establishment and operation of standard technology parks that can and would compete with their kinds anywhere in the world.

9. INVESTMENT, INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT AND INDUSTRIALIZATION.

Equitable distribution of new and rehabilitation projects for roads, housing, water and irrigation schemes, transportation terminals, power plants, electrification, telephony, airports, etc., will be given priority attention during my legislatorship, with a due bias for my constituency.

Of special legislative interest will be the elimination of substandard dwelling places and promoting strict minimum residential accommodation and other housing standards for people both in the rural and urban areas, e.g., making sure that no residential house is built without proper plumbing works and pipe borne water connection for running water supply and toilet sanitation. This will entail paying a more than sizable attention to the promotion of mortgage financing in the state and accessibility to it for the grassroots population.

As boreholes are very expensive and beyond the reach of most people forcing the majority of the population to still go distances to get clean water for domestic use, revisiting, reactivating and expanding regional water schemes, like the Uzuakoli Water Works, which has long been abandoned in the state, and making borehole owners to pay heavy taxes to discourage people from dependence on that source of water supply which has its environmental hazards, will be given a strong legislative push by me.

The current fall in oil prices globally presents an opportunity for the Nigerian government at all levels to walk the now age old and almost tired-out talk on diversification of the Nigerian economy. As part of my 3CONAGS proposal, my legislative office will be made very useful in supporting, urging and nudging the Abia State Government to be more creative and innovative in attracting, facilitating and retaining international and local investments and in deploying the scarce financial resources accruable to the state from all available sources and especially from federal allocations. House resolutions, bills, public symposia, public protests, constructive critical media expressions, and independent partnerships and entrepreneurial establishments will be some of the tools that will be deployed by my office to achieve this goal.

10. IGBO CULTURAL RESURGENCE AND ADVANCEMENT PROGRAMME.

Legislations targeting the institution of a Better Abia/Igboland Project will deal with the whole spectrum of cultural and social characters and characteristics of the Abia and Igbo societies, working to rid society of those bad and repulsive characters and to enthrone the needed and highly necessary changes, norms and values that are a must have for society for the sake of betterness and progress.

The Igbo language is most shamefully in a pretty bad shape at the moment. Most painful is the fact that the various Igbo state governments, despite the great autonomy they have on this matter, have not been doing what they ought to have been doing to help out. A very broad legislation will be articulated and sponsored by me to help move the Abia State government and the rest of Igbo society in the direction of greatly remedying this situation and bringing back the Igbo language, arts and cultures to a pride of place that they truly deserves and to global prominence.

11.ABIA STATE LEGISLATIVE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME.

I will sponsor and strongly support bills and other legislative activities aimed at growing and deepening the expertise and democratic characters of the individual membership and corporate body of the Abia State House of Assembly in all businesses for which it should be concerned and have been established; to ensure that matters are attended to in line with global best practices and in actual faithfulness to the appellation of “Honourable” with which each member and entire body of the House of Assembly is so proudly addressed.

12. THE IGBO DEVOLUTION AND AUTONOMY.

One of the three cities visualized in the 3CONAGS proposal is a dreamed future national capital and seat of regional government for a restored, homogenous and truly and fully autonomous region for the Igbo nation of eastern Nigeria. This is my grand political mission within Nigeria for which I’m taking this entry steps for an elective political office and public service career. All matters pertaining to the total overhauling and restructuring of Nigeria, sustained fostering of development across West Africa and the emancipation and advancement of the African continent are of great interest and importance to me. My vision is to have an African continent totally blueprinted only by Africans and run according to the best enlightened and most intelligent dictates of Africans towards restoring the African dignity and primeness all over the world. I will be working on this mission through a number of planks including INPAC and CIDRAN.

The great enactment and unfolding of the “Revolution Made Simple” which is the central slogan of my current political campaign will indeed be interesting. You’re therefore welcome to join me if you are truly worth the life you have. As the great Martin Luther King Jnr once said, “I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live”.

May the Most High, Almighty, Supreme God see me through. Amen.

Thank you.

Ugochukwu Ogbonnaya.

African Democratic Congress Candidate for the Bende South Constituency Seat of the Abia State House of Assembly, in the 2015 general elections.