From Tony Osauzo, Benin
An aspirant for the Owan Federal Constituency, Mr Christopher Ojo, has spoken of his desire to positively change the fortunes of the women and youths of the constituency.
Ojo who is aspiring on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), while acknowledging the level of hardship across the country, expressed sadness with the poverty level in Owan federal constituency, saying that those that have represented the people failed to remedy the situation because they had continued to do the same thing with the aim of achieving a better result.
In a statement where he outlined the programme, the aspirant stated that when elected he would adopt the bottom-top approach in proffering solutions to the myriads of challenges that have hindered the growth and development of the area.
Specifically, he promised to create employment opportunities and ensure a safe and enabling environment to engage the Youths and Women in various small scale businesses, adding that he would engage the Youths and Women through the social intervention programmes of the federal government and also leverage that of the organised private sector.
‘We are not all unaware of what the problems of the constituency are, but the challenge however is that we have constantly used the wrong approach in trying to address the issues.
‘As I said, we will adopt the bottom-top approach. With this approach, we will periodically hold town hall meetings where the issues in each community and its people will be tabled and jointly discuss on how to address them.
‘We will not be involved in providing water to a community where in fact their actual need is an access road or providing chemicals to farmers whereas what they need is a soft loan to boost their farms.
‘As for the youths and women that are the centre-point of my policy, aside from proving a safe and enabling environment for them to succeed in their craft, they will be trained and provided with starter packs for the training they will receive.
‘These projects will be sustainable ones that will create employment as well as improving on the economy of the federal constituency,’ Ojo added.
The aspirant, while promising to use his contacts to attract developmental projects to the constituency, harped on the need to boost health facilities in the area as the available ones could hardly cater for or address the health need of the people.