JOE EFFIONG, UYo
The former governorship candidate of the defunct Action Congress (AC) in Akwa Ibom State, Mr James Iniama has said he is not worried by the recent endorsement of one of the gubernatorial aspirants in the state, Mr Umo Eno, by Gov Udom Emmanuel.
Speaking with Daily Sun in Uyo on Tuesday, Iniama, now gubernatorial aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said he is too focused on his aspiration and programmes meant to change the fortunes of the state, to waste time and energy worrying about who endorses who in the coming elections.
He however reasoned that since Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has yet to release its set timetable for the 2023 electioneering, the razzmatazz and media blitz employed in the endorsement and subsequent consultations be the endorsed candidate, should be properly taken note of by INEC to determine whether it had breached its rules.
“I am focused on the conviction that I have to aspire to be the governor of Akwa Ibom State. We are looking forward to the party primaries whenever INEC will announce the timetable. So for the time being, I am deaf to distractions. I am pursuing the course for which I had told my family members and they had agreed wholeheartedly and my political supporters. I have an agenda.
“Don’t forget that INEC hasn’t yet announced the timetable. We should be guided by the time table. I believe that if we are having consultation, it should be at a very quiet level to be in line with rules and regulations.
“If you ask me; what is critical in my mind, I will say I will look at education. There is so much that is undone in the educational sector. We want to build an Akwa Ibom State of educated sons and daughters; not an Akwa Ibom state of half-educated sons and daughters, but education that would make our people as competitive as possible without looking at 2023.
“The world is moving; the world is digitized. We need to improve on the quality of learning we offer our sons and daughters. We have to improve the quality of people who impart knowledge to our sons and daughters because you cannot give what you do not have.
We need to have good quality, specialized teachers. Today ioj Akwa Ibom state, there are schools who find a mathematics teacher who is also a history teacher; the physics teacher is a literature teacher. We need to train our teachers to be specialized.” Inima said.
He also said that agriculture would form the nucleus of his programme in order to ensure food security for the teeming population of the state.
“I’m thinking of a properly planned agricultural policy. It is not to say that those things are not available. Yes they are. If we go to the records of the government these things are there in abundance. So we are not talking of reinventing the wheel. But we will make agriculture commercial evena s we encourage subsistence farming so that every family would have what to eat.”
On zoning, Iniama said though he was not afraid to contest election against anybody at any time, for equity and fairness sake, the next governorship should be zoned to Itu federal constituency of Uyo senatorial district which had not held that position since the state was created.
“For equity, let’s zone; for good brotherliness, let’s zone for good neighbourliness, let’s zone. But in zoning we should stop this issue of getting into the semantics of zoning and micro-zoning. As long as all the leaders of this state have profited from zoning, and if you profited from zoning, let’s look downwards. In our zoning, how has it benefited all of us; how has it benefited the rest of us?”
He said zoning the next governorship would begin the process of dealing with inequity and distribution of leadership and opportunities in the state.