By Our Correspondent
Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, immediate past Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, has officially informed the Edo State Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that if given the opportunity to be the candidate of the party in the 2024 Edo governorship election, and subsequently elected Governor, his mission for the state would be to stop rural-urban drift through sustained rural development.
Agba, who was at the party secretariat, off Airport Road, Benin City, on Thursday, to intimate party officials of his intention to contest the election, said he had already prepared a master plan: “Transforming Our Rural and Urban Spaces Together (TRUST), to actualise the mission of rural development.
The working committee was led by Secretary to the state chapter of the party, Lawrence Okah.
Agba said transforming rural areas will reduce drift to cities, which in turn would provide food security and reduce insecurities across the state.
He noted that the total neglect of rural areas put pressure on cities, opining that villages produced large percentage of food consumed in the cities, but that much of the produce was lost to bad road network and insecurity.
He said he had diagnosed the state’s problems, and solutions prepared through TRUST.
He said: “We are out to change the narrative of rural areas disappearing, especially in Edo South, everywhere is now cities.”
He disclosed that as Minister of Budget and National Planning, who studied multi-dimensional poverty in the country, he realised that deprivation was a major form of poverty.
He noted that every ward in the state ordinarily was supposed to house a primary healthcare centre with nurses and medical doctors’ quarters attached.
This, he said, he would work towards if elected governor.
Enumerating some of the projects he embarked on as Commissioner for Environment in the state, Agba said urban renewal was the focal point of the tenure of Governor Adams Oshiomhole administration.
He said watersheds, which were 70% completed as of when he left office, had since been abandoned.
He said they were built across the state to retain water whenever it rained.
He informed the party leaders that roads including drainages, with street lights were also built.
According to him, a 5-star water fountain was built to cater for the masses, especially the poor who did not have access to such facility.
He lamented that all these legacies of his tenure were no longer there as the succeeding government had neglected all that.
He recalled that as Budget and National Planning Minister, he was in charge of the nation’s budget and could not do much.
However, he partnered some international agencies to help finance projects in the state, stating that through this, he was able to attract about 250 projects across the state.
The projects include intensive Care Unit, Molecular Laboratories at the University of Benin Teaching and Communicable Disease Centre at Irrua Specialist Hospital, among other projects.
On the Abuja- Okene-Auchi Road, he said there was budgetary allocation for the rehabilitation through his effort.
He said he also attracted projects to Uromi and Ewatto in Esanland, among others.
On Ewotubu Upper Ekenwan Road, he said Governor Godwin Obaseki stopped the project when he made attempt to include it in the budget.
Prince Clem Agba said the Governor insisted that he had already awarded the road to a contractor.
