By Tony Okafor
A presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party and Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, at the weekend saluted the Igbo industrial ingenuity.
He said if elected president of Nigeria in the 2023 general elections,his government would not only favour the Igbo, it would partner the people of the area to develop Nigeria.
Tambuwal said these in Awka, the Anambra State capital, at the weekend while addressing PDP delegates from the state for the party’s convention scheduled for 28/29 May.
He said his administration as president would key into the Igbo entrepreneural endowment for development.
He said the partnership would focus more on skill acquisition programmes, to engaged Nigerians, especially, the youth, irrespective of tribe, ethnic and religion placement to dust down agitations and other criminal activitivites across the country.
He noted that the major cause of agitations in the country, be it Boko Haram, banditry, gunmen and other security threats befalling the country, were as a result of idleness on the side of the youths, stressing that the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government failed to engaged them in meaningful ventures.
He said,”If I am elected as President, I will exhibit what I am currently doing in Sokoto state, as governor. In my state today, the government under my watch pay school fees for indigenes and non-indigenes students in all the public schools from primary to secondary schools in the state and that is the policies I will maintain in the education sector, if I am elected.”
Tambuwal said among those vying for the presidency, he was about the most qualified, having been a legal practitioner, Speaker of the House of Representatives who handled matters at federal level and governor of a state, stating, “These qualifications are not common among the aspirants”.
He added,”I also have the competence, capacity, character and the right temperament to handle national issues. The issues in Nigeria require somebody who is calm and have large network of friends across the nation.I am a pan-Nigerian. I know the challenges of Anambra State, so I can represent you well-heeled.”
He challenged Nigerians to aspire to have a modern president, who can do the job and not president of what he called 1984.
He said the difference between a PDP government that of APC was the ability to deliver dividends of democracy to the people, in which he said the PDP governors had been doing.
On the murder of Deborah Samuel, a student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto,Tambuwal, assured that such incident would not happen again, saying that did not represent true life of Sokoto people, blaming the incident on failure of the security system.
He said Sokoto state believed in the unity and oneness of Nigeria and that his administration had demonstrated openness and oneness of the country.