Against the backdrop of the fast approaching 2023 general election, the Enugu North Senatorial candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Sir Casmir Kanayo Ugwu has explained that he was in the race because he couldn’t stand the sight of infrastructural decay going on in his Senatorial zone.
Sir Ugwu made this assertion in an exclusive interview with our reporter in Enugu.
According to him, “I accepted the invitation to contest the Senate seat for Nsukka zone due to perceived lack of proper representation of the zone at the national assembly and the need to offer my years of experience in public service to my people albeit the nation at Large.
“I had a very flourishing career in the public service that gave me wide insight into the demographic information of the country to be able to know how to intervene in some of the issues that have bedeviled the country.
Secondly, we have witnessed the erosion of good, conscientious representation in government, and hence leading to poor amenities and infrastructural gap in the entire zone, lack of employment and skill development for our teeming youths which equally results in increase in crime rate in the zone. I was agitated by lack of good governance in the zone , where people will go to national assembly for 8years with nothing to show for it except personal enrichment to the detriment of real development in the zone.”
Asked what difference he will make if elected into the Senate come 2023, Sir Ugwu said that” I will embark on employment generation for the youths through profiling or building a data base of the unemployed, thereby having a first hand knowledge of the types of certificates they have and their relevance to positions available at any given time.
“I will get to know the skills available for proper recognition and harnessing into the right places . I will provide skill acquisition centers for youths and the unemployed. I will also attract development to the zone through interface with relevant agencies be it federal government or State.
“This is bearing in mind that the main function of the legislator is to make laws for the proper governance of the nation. The much the legislator can do is to use his influence to bear on the executive to attract development to the zone.
“Again, I will create avenue to empower the poor and vulnerable for poverty alleviation through the provision of start up funds for small and medium scale businesses. I will sponsor bills that will protect the SMEs from over taxation and thereby ensuring their sustainable growth.
“I will provide adequate legislation to ensure a secure society by engagement of our security agencies for a rejig of the security architecture for better results. I will also introduce a legislation on restructuring and devolution of power from the center to the regions or states to drive development down to the rural areas.”
On what he has done to his zone before now to give them the courage that he will be a good leader if elected, Sir Ugwu, a retired Permanent Secretary in the state civil service told WITHIN NIGERIA that “what I did for my community within my years were numerous. They include provision of employment; attracting development through provision of electricity to my community in 2001; attracting the building of new classroom projects in my community; attracting and influencing the renovation of classroom blocks in my community. Attracting Boreholes in my community through the MDG program. Attracting road construction in my community, helping to grade rural roads annually after rain fall. Helping to complete a church building started single handedly by my late father in my community – St. Patrick Catholic church, Ovoko, etc.”
However, assessing the current administration in Enugu state, Ugwu stressed that “the assessment of the current administration should be left for the people who are to judge without being accused of bias , and not me who is standing in an election against him, but I must say that what we witnessed these eight years is what the legendary Bob Marley sang in one of his hits ‘one step forward, two steps backward”, motion without movement. We witnessed an era of mediocrity in governance, lack of creativity, promotion of wasteful spending and primitive acquisition of wealth and abuse of due process in selection of leaders.
The level of infrastructure decay in the state since this regime is unimaginable. Substandard roads are built and money frittered away in the process and maintenance culture totally absent.”
Encouraging the people of Enugu state to come out and vote in the 2023 general election, Sir Ugwu stated that they should vote for competence and not party.
“I encourage you to vote for competence and character and forget party. We have been doing one party system since 1999 to date without development or progress, so let’s try another party or person. We should ignore parties that have not performed and vote in people based on track record of performance. The governor had gone to the national assembly for 12years with nothing to show for it. So we should not re enforce failure by voting the same people who have no track record.”