Nigeria Content Online

Ahead of the April
general elections in Edo State, Governor Adams Oshiomhole over the
weekend said the work his two years old administration has successfully
carried out will further campaign for the candidates of the Action
Congress of Nigeria (ACN), as it would help to show what the party
candidates can achieve if voted into power during the elections.

Mr. Oshiomhole,
while speaking to journalists after the inspection of the
Jattu-Uzairue-Ayohan-Okpekpe Road in Etsako West and Etsako East local
governments and the Ekperi-Anegbete Road in Etsako Central Council, also
admitted that he was not popular among the political elite in the state
because of his frugal management of the state’s lean revenue and his
award of contracts to competent contractors instead of politicians who
may eventually abandon the job.

While on inspection
of projects at Okpekpe, he said, “the truth of the matter is that I am
the first to admit, I am not too popular among a good section of the
political elite because, for them, resources should be shared and even
if contracts should be awarded, it should be awarded to party leaders.
It does not matter that those party leaders know nothing about road
construction.

“So, what has
happened is that because we are giving jobs to those who are competent
to do it and because we have carried out proper studies and designs and
proper costing of projects, we are able to do what we have to do.

“All we have done is
to block the loopholes in the system and like I said at the beginning,
we are not going to put too little every where such that to make impact
nowhere,” he stated.

He said his
administration was determined to wipe out poverty from the land: “We
cannot address the challenge of rural poverty in our rural areas without
opening up the roads to those rural communities. I believe that the
starting point in any bold attempt to defeat poverty is to reintegrate
our rural communities where the bulk of our people live.

“I believe that what
we are doing here will not only open up the rural communities; those of
our people who are interested in mechanised farming, they now can drive
out and appreciate the work of nature and see how much of natural
endowment we have in this part of the state.”