Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
A gubernatorial aspirant in Benue State, Dr. Stephen Akuma, has said that if elected to govern Benue State, his major focus would be on agricultural development and Human capital development.
Akuma, who is so far the only aspirant contesting under the platform of the National Conscience Party (NCP), said his vision is to start governance from the scratch with a view to making Benue to be at par with other states of the world in terms of development.
“We are looking at developing our people to meet the 21st century citizens like other citizens around the world. Basically, what we are saying is that we are going to start governance from the scratch because we intend to within the first nine months of our administration, collect personal bio data from all citizens so that we can build a data bank where every person’s record will be kept.
“And through that data bank, we can know when and who to give free education, free healthcare services and so on if we have to do that.
“We can also know through that data bank, those who are genuine workers and all of that. So, there are a lot we are going to do.
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“But primarily, our focus is that we are going to collect data in the first nine months and we are going to build an ICT center that will manage that data.
While maintaining that he is the best man to govern Benue State come 2019, Akuma said he is coming at a time when a lot of people are already disenchanted with the turn of events in the state especially in the areas of insecurity, non-payment of salary and lack of basic infrastructures.
“I am coming at a time when people are yearning for something fresh, something real and also people can gain from my international experience after having studied abroad and also having worked abroad and having worked in Nigeria.
“So, they hope they can get both international and local experience put together.
“Also, the 21st century is more of innovation and they believe that since I am an ICT expert, I can bring the current trend into Benue State and we can uplift the state,” he stated.