Gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Benue State, Rev.Fr. Hyacinth Alia has declared that his main mission in partisan politics was primarily motivated by the compelling and urgent need to liberate Benue State from incompetent leadership, unconscionable looting of public funds, poverty and economic backwardness.
Speaking to journalists at the weekend in Abuja, Alia lamented that despite Benue State’s natural endowment as food basket of the nation, the state has remained largely “economically handicapped, humanly underdeveloped and socially sterile with the majority of the population ravaged by poverty.”
He regretted that most of the successive ruling elites in the state maintained blatant disregard to the plight of the governed and failed to harness the enormous natural and human resources of the state for the benefit of the citizenry.
The cleric turned politician said he has put together a “bold and strategic comprehensive plan of action, aimed at reinvigorating key areas of the state’s local economy, to spur economic growth, generate productivity and prosperity and improve the standard of living for ordinary Benue citizens.”
He said the APC campaign manifesto and development blueprint would be unveiled immediately the electioneering campaigns by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) begins. “I have always believed that a sustained comprehensive growth and technological advancement of the nation is partly hinged on equitable distribution of prosperity and improved standard of living of the people.”
Fr. Alia identified the key ingredients of economic development and national transformation as agricultural transformation and food security, education, communication technology, industrialisation and commerce, rural development, human and social development, security, tourism and environmental management. APC gubernatorial candidate regretted that as the global leader with 70 per cent share of global production of yam and cassava, Nigeria was yet to be recognised as an exporter of the products but rather trails behind Ghana which is responsible for 75 per cent of all yam exports from Africa.