CHIEF M.I. OKORO EXPLAINS HOW CHIEF MARTINS AGBASO WILL SALVAGE IMO STATE IF ELECTED GOVERNOR
The Director General of Martin Agbaso Campaign organiza¬tion, Chief Meckson Innocent Okoro, recently spoke with jour¬nalists in Lagos. Chief Okoro, who is a core profession¬als, ex¬plained why Chief Martin Agbaso, Peoples Democrat¬ic Party (PDP) gubernatorial aspirant should become the governor of Imo State in 2015. Chief Okoro, an estate surveyor/ property practitioner for over 25 years, has decided to go the extra mile to ensure that Chief Agbaso becomes the next governor of Imo State. That feat, he said would make Imo state the most preferred destination to live and do business in Nigeria come 2015 and beyond. Sit back and enjoy the interview.

Chief, you are an expert with over 25 years of practice. Why are you now drifting into politics, to work for Martin Agbaso?
If you have a very poor rep¬resentation at government level, be it as a councilor, State House of Assembly member, Federal House of Representatives, Local Government Chairman, Gover¬nor etc, you will notice that poor representation affects every facet of our lives. It will affect our quality of living, it will affect our education, and it will affect our food consumption and food supply. It will affect everything about life. Some of us have been waiting; we keep on complaining and hoping that the country will be better. Honestly, the country is not getting any better and it does not hold a vibrant hope for our children. What shall it benefit me if I make all the money as an estate surveyor and valuer and then my children don’t have any future? What will it benefit me to make all the money and live big, travel abroad when our dependants in the villages are suffering? Some of them, when they see you come, they look upon you as messiah and by the time they expect you to begin to drop something, you know that you don’t even have enough to talk. You now find out that the only way you can positively impact on people is through quality representa¬tion and good governance. For instance, Lagos state, within the period of this political era, a lot has happened. Somebody who has not been to Lagos 5-8 years ago, when he comes to Lagos now, would not know where to start because Lagos has meta-morphosed into something else. I give credit to the drivers of the economy of Lagos state.

There are other states of the federa¬tion where good governance is lacking. Why we say civilian government is better than that of military is because we believe that good governance can only come through democracy which is government of the people by the people, and for the people. But these days, we discover that they use these less privileged people to get to power. Imme¬diately they get there, they shut their doors, they don’t see them. That is why people like us are saying No. it will not happen again. Enough is enough. For me to leave my vibrant busi¬ness and comfort zones to jump around with the monkeys, and to walk the mud like a pig, it’s as bad as that. I have decided to pay the price, even if it means to take my life so that the less privileged will live, so that my children will have future. That is why people like us have decided to go into government.

There are astute poli¬ticians coming out in the Imo gubernatorial race for 2015. What makes you think Ag¬baso has more advan¬tages?
Two principal factors one has to consider are which party that will guarantee us access to power and what platform are we going to use and who is the person that can command my respect to follow. The quality of the man and woman I want to follow and who will now become governor of a state, matters a lot to me. Two major decisions are who is going to be the candidate we are to follow and what are the qualities of that candidate and which party and why? If everything is in order, if the government is doing well, we are contributing through our profession. We de¬cided to follow Martins Agbaso, because he is prepared, he’s well educated, he’s an economist, he’s an investor and has made his mark. He is somebody who is better focused and ready to know what to do to better the lives of the people. His main focus will be job creation. There is no grammar you can speak without focusing on how to generate employment, because if our people go to school and they don’t have employment that is a waste. That is a challenge. He is well prepared. We have our poli¬cies already on blue print. So, as soon as he’s elected into power as governor of Imo state, our focus will be job creation. We plan to make sure that within the first three years we would have created 250,000 jobs for Imo employable youths. If he doesn’t achieve it, he will resign within the first three years. Apart from job creation, we are also going to look at housing. We are going to look at the industrialization of the state.

Our people are business people; we are going to look at the goodwill of the government to attract foreign investors. 50 and about 55percent of people that travel to India, Asia and Dubai to buy things are mainly from the eastern region. Our fo¬cus will be to make sure that we use the government’s goodwill to attract these foreigners to come and invest under PDP arrange¬ment. We can begin to encour¬age the industrialization of the state so as to create the needed jobs for our youths and when the state is properly industrial¬ized , there will be demand for housing. Then we will begin to develop large housing estates and focus more on social housing so that people will benefit. Apart from housing, we will also look at mechanized agriculture for the state. You noticed that since oil came, all states of the federation, none laid emphasis on agricul¬ture again. But when we focus on agriculture, people will feed well, the nutritional value will increase. But because it is easier to go to Abuja and collect grant, nobody is interested in agricul¬ture.

Poor representation is what is killing us, even our governors. What most of them do is that they get this grant, instead of investing it back for the benefit of the masses; most of this mon¬ey goes to private pockets. You see somebody who never had good house in the village before he became governor, now has houses in South Africa, America, and London. How long can we live like this as a nation? That is why people like us are worried that we have to make sure that the right things are done. If we don’t do this, it will continue to reoccur. We can only complain. How many houses do I need in this world? How many cars do I need? Most of the money they repatriate abroad to buy these houses, they find out that when they have done such investments, the taxes that they pay there create jobs for people abroad.

Agbaso has not been a frontline politician. How would he cope?
My boss, Chief Martin Agbaso was the one that made sure that the present governor came to power. Martin Agbaso contested in 2007. He was unanimously elected in Imo state and for obvious reasons from Abuja end he was not allowed to become governor. He was in court for more than three years. At the time he came out of that court without success, he came out for election again. But this time around, he was the one that brought Rochas. And he made sure he used the structure. After all, Rochas has always been aiming for presidency, but he now brought him, gaining from the APGA platform, and made sure that he used his structure to put him as governor and put his brother as deputy. Less than one year, Rochas swept him out. It is only a man that was able to give somebody power that will be able to wrestle that power out of that person, not any other person.

One adage says, it’s only the owner of a dog that can put his hand into the dog’s mouth. If you are not used to the dog he can bite you. That is why the man that put the present government in power has decided, to take it back, having seen that things are not going the way they planned to go. Good governance is lack¬ing completely. People are doing things without due process, with a total disregard for rule of law. No, this is not his vision. He has to go back to wrestle the power out. This time around, he has decided to go through a popular party, PDP.

Is APGA not in existence in Imo anymore?
We believe that Imo people cannot stand out as an opposition state to the rest of the country. There is no how APGA , even if he put a governor there cannot get the best. But if you are within the ruling party and the state is being governed by a PDP gover¬nor, the people will be better off, because the desired develop¬ment will be able to come to the people. We are using the oppor¬tunity to appeal to the conscience of the Imo people to know and to do the right thing. I am not going there, before I will get what I have not gotten before. The only thing I have not gotten, and am ready to have is good governance for my state, and you know, unless we do something our people will perish.

Do you consider the incumbency power in Nigeria’s Politics?
There are lots of factors to consider. The present governor is a beneficiary of incumbency fac¬tor during the time of Ohakim. It was this Agbaso that made sure that the present governor was elected, even when Oha¬kim was governor of Imo state. We thought that by the present governor, the messiah had ar¬rived. Unfortunately, the messiah is yet to come. As far as we are concerned, people of Imo state know what they want, and the fact that somebody is an incum¬bent does not make any differ¬ence. Today, people are wiser than yesterday. What people are looking for is any government that can improve on the stan-dard of living of all the people. Can you imagine the governor of Ogun state joining APGA and coming for re-election? If Amosun joins APGA, I doubt if he can go far. The present governor, Okorocha, betrayed the mandate Imo people gave him. APGA was supposed to be our traditional party just like APC is, in the west. Unfortunately, a man that emanated from the platform of APGA, no sooner he became governor used one leg to kick out APGA and brought APC. That was not the deal.

That was not the mandate the people gave him. That alone, has scored him less; the incumbency to us means nothing. It’s like a wash-wash thing. In fact, our advice is that he should not even present himself for re- election. He will regret, and he will know that mandates belong to the people. He betrayed our people. If only he has remained in APGA, and then resolved the problem, it would have been a different thing. But the fact that he went to slap the sensibility of our people by imposing APC on them is unfortunate.

From: http://tectono..com/

salvage ni ,salvage ko.all politicians are unreliable .

You better go and tell Martin Agbaso or whatever he calls himself to go and hide his ugly head inside his Mansion/Villa that he forcefully coveted from his Village men & Women.
APGA is taking the center stage as far as Imo state is concerned.
We are voting Personality, not Party ok!!!!

Agbaso can't win adhoc delegate in his ward talkless of Imo Governor. Who is Agbaso self?