OKOWA'S WORK SPEAKS VOLUME FOR 2019 —Charles Aniagwu.

Mr Aniagwu Charles, Chief Press Secretary to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State adduces reasons his principal would return unopposed as the standard-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2019 and eventually getting re-elected as governor.

From all indications, it appears Governor Ifeanyi Okowa is returning in 2019 unopposed as PDP flag bearer. What could have been the magic?

In the last three years we have recorded giant strides in a good number of sectors, be it in job creation, education, agriculture, road and indeed the need to renew our urban areas and make them much more livable for our people. To that extent we do have the reason to roll out drums to celebrate the third anniversary of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, but before I come to that, let me tell you that individuals outside the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are already intimidated by the performance of Governor Okowa.

Members of the PDP recognised that changing the winning team is usually not the best. So the people are not moving to campaign or contest against the governor in PDP, not because anybody is intimidating them, but because they recognised that the political party which is theirs is doing well and as party men they are respecting that fact that the candidate they have is performing.

The circumstance therefore is that they should continue to give him more support which they have done in the last three years. When you have a home that is united and peaceful, the tendency to perform creditably well becomes much more pronounced.

We feel happy that every member of the PDP in the state is moving in the same direction with the governor and majority of the people are also impressed with what the governor is doing.

Criticisms trailed the appointment of 2,000 political aides in the state. Many have argued that the reason for the large number is probably a strategy of the governor to win the hearts of many not to contest against him. Is this so?

That is not true. Less than one per cent of all PDP members are aides to the governor. You are talking of a party that boasts of millions of Deltans as members; we don’t have that number of aides. What the governor has done is to carry everybody along in which case we look at different wards to ensure we have people who are able to bring development closer to their communities and also help the governor to monitor government projects in those 270 wards in the state. There are projects in every ward. The governor knows that he is not going to have all the time to visit these wards. Therefore, in taking decisions, the governor said he would not want the minutest political group (ward) to be left out of what is happening in government. He decided to make sure that every ward has someone who represents it in government.

That appointee therefore has the responsibility to fill the gap. When individuals complain that there are many political aides, they don’t understand that not all of them stay in Asaba. For example there are aides on community developments, youths or special duties in which they have one or more areas up to the grassroots to monitor.

Critics have never bothered to ask why Delta State is peaceful. The principal did not consult any oracle before peace reigns in the state. Apart from believing in the power of God, there is a need to bring justice and equity before one can talk about peace. It is the process of that justice and equity that he (the governor) got this number of persons involved in governance of the state.

Today we have become more peaceful and the product of it is that the governor has enough opportunities to bring the development he promised the people nearer to them.

The tempo of infrastructural development in the state for the past two years is largely appreciated by the electorate in respect of political affiliation. How did you get to this?

I must appreciate that individual who has come to recognise that there is a new sheriff in town and that sheriff is doing things the way they ought to be down. Two years ago these persons were talking about the governor in office for one year at the heat of the economic recession. Even in the midst of that, people didn’t know the governor was doing so much to execute projects across the 25 local government areas in the state.

The beauty of it is that while road represents brick, our star project actually is the number of persons taken out of the unemployment bracket. On daily basis, Governor Okowa’s policy is depopulating the unemployment market to the extent that we have largely populated the empowerment and employment sector where we have more Deltans engaged in one skill or vocational training.

You may not see that because it is not a road we ply but the effect is reverberating across the state. As the spokesperson of the governor, I feel very happy that I don’t have any reason to engage in propaganda. In the course of the forthcoming campaign, we will put the report cards on the table which are verifiable and we will show critics where the projects are located.

It is now a common parlance referring to Okowa as the road master. Does he truly deserve this accolade?

In the course of our project inspection, Deltans started calling the man ‘road master.’ Initially, we heard ‘Okowa dey work we dey see am’. They have now left that to call him the ‘road master.’

The way he is tackling the issue of road construction in our communities is amazing to a good number of persons. Over 280 roads have been awarded, 93 completed and others are nearing completion. These roads cover a total of 808 kilometres. We have also drains close to 400 kilometres for the purpose of ensuring that the roads last longer.

In Asaba and other urban areas one can see the efforts been put to control flood. There is a very massive storm drainage project that is going on in the state capital being handled by reputable companies and we are hoping that by 2019 the issue of flood or flooding in Asaba would have been much more a thing of the past.

Many claim that some of the roads are obviously of poor quality due to patronage of local contractors. Why is it so?

We have engaged a number of very quality international contractors – Setraco, CCEC, Devant and others. But in the midst of these, we also believe we can’t entirely forget our local contractors because they need to be empowered. The only way we can do that is to help them to develop. After all Julius Berger started from somewhere. Must we give all our roads to Julius Berger? Roads are of different grades based on traffic.

Many have condemned the governor over promotion arrears and other demands in the state’s civil service.

Delta State’s civil servants are some of the best in the country. They have been able to see reasons with the governor at any given time. Apart from the fact that we are able to pay them salaries at a time when the economy was downward it became necessary to pay them then what we called ‘take home pay’. They accepted the salary then, but the deductions to their different cooperatives and welfare programmes were withheld. Now that the economy has improved, we have paid them and the only people we have issues with are civil servants at the local government councils.

Constitutionally speaking, the responsibility of paying those workers rests on local government councils. On two occasions, the state paid the civil servants at the 25 local government areas.

The opposition, the All Progressives Party (APC), is warming up to take over the governance of the state come 2019. What are you doing about it?

Before that, we celebrated Democracy Day not just to dance and mark a date. We did for the successes recorded. We have not gotten to where we want to be, but we have left the shores and sailing steadily. That is the headache of those in the opposition while it is the joy of the brothers and sisters who elected the governor to serve them. Because of these achievements, I can confidently tell you that those rising up in the APC know they just want to be contestants not because they know they will win. We welcome them on board. The fiercer the battle, the sweeter the victory.

Tribune

am a deltan and for speaking Loudly. Okowa is the worst governor ever. forget all this media bullshit.
go to Ughelli -Oleh road, or Oleh Ozoro road or any part of the core isoko area or even urobo. nothing of worth . the Asaba is developed by the igbos. if not for the igbos , Delta state will not even worth calling a state.

stop this rubbish news!

Propaganda at it best how come this goat become governor is still a surprise to me

Okowa has performed creditably well inspite of paucity of funds