From: Aloysius Attah, Onitsha
Governorship aspirant and former Corps Marshall of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Chief Osita Chidoka, has said that his administration, if elected into office, would not encourage any form of capital punishment of Biafra agitators or unarmed protesters under any guise.
He said under a democratic dispensation, self-determination is guaranteed as enshrined in the United Nations, African Charter and the Constitution of Nigeria, adding that molesting and shooting them dead by security forces or incumbent governments is unconstitutional and negates the principles of democracy.
Chidoka, a gubernatorial aspirant under the platform of United Progressives Party (UPP) who spoke to the party supporters in Oyi Local Government Area as part of his ongoing consultations, said all past leaders who engaged in genocide usually ended up in the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
He said if elected the next governor of the state come November 18, he would execute developmental projects in all the 21 local government areas of the state under Phase I and not under Phase II as our past and present leaders usually say.
According to Chidoka, “My administration will not encourage killing of unarmed Biafra agitators and I will execute all my projects in my first tenure and second tenure and the projects will come in Phase I not in Phase II which may not likely hold because all my experience with previous administrations showed that most of the projects selected for Phase II were not executed at the end of the day”.
He also noted that he was not going to delay projects till his second tenure because, according to him, any project or projects not included in Phase I or executed within the first tenure of any government administration would likely not be executed at all because once a leader grabs second tenure, he would slow down his tempo of development, knowing that whether he worked or not he was on his way out of office at the end of his tenure.
He, however, urged party faithfuls to endeavour to obtain their voters’ cards to enable them vote for the party candidates during the governorship election and other subsequent election in the country.
Also at Aguleri community in Anambra East Local Government Area where he met with party supporters, Chidoka charged them to remain focused and not to allow the supporters of other political parties to maneuver the election on November 18 as was the case in the previous elections in the state.