From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for House of Representatives from Kazaure, Roni, Gwiwa/Yankwashi Federal constituency of JIgawa State, Hamza Ahmed Gudaji has said that he was moved by the socio-economic plight of his people to run for the federal seat in order to rescue them from bondage.
Gudaji who is a Solictor and Notary Public of the Supreme Court of Nigeria said he will offer and render selfless and exemplary services pivoted on integrity and diligence that can serve as a benchmark for efficiency and productivity in both public and private sector.
“My mission to the House of Representatives will be the social economic upliftment of my people and I believe as a lawmaker I will be able to bring up legislation that will solve the issue of joblessness and that will hopefully improve agriculture and food security in the country and also protect and advance some of the economic activities of my people and this basically is my mission.
“And again you know that my people have been left behind in terms of economic opportunities and I believe they need someone like me at the National Assembly that will be able to champion their course and that will be able to propose a legislation that will have direct impact and bearing that will bring about economic development and even political advancement of my people.
“I am a legal practitioner and I have experience in legislative matters because I have done some works for the National Assembly as an external legal party and I have been consulted in some of these issues and I believe as a lawmaker I will be in a position like I have said to improve the social economic wellbeing of our people and I will also be in a position to foster national unity, and I will also be in a position to propose motions and legislations that will have a direct positive impact on my people and on my constituency, like I said especially in the areas of agriculture, healthcare, education and other empowerment initiatives and benefits that will be geared towards poverty alleviation and economic empowerment of our people.
“I believe that Jigawa state as a new world is dire need of programme and polices that will last and quickly drive a positive economic growth not only for the civil servants but across the board.
“We have seen some initiative in agriculture, however I will say that what obtains on the ground does not match some of the rhetorics that we have heard. Really we should have gone far in agriculture. We should have been pratising serious mechanised agriculture in Jigawa state because we have a swamp of bearable land and we can grow quite a number of crops.
“I would love to see specific attention to that by the administration in terms of serious funding so as to actualise the ICT programme initiated by the first civilian administration in 1999 because ICT is one of the main drive of the modern economy across the globe”. He said.
While rating the performance of the All Progressive Congress (APC) government in Jigawa state in the last seven years under the leadership of Abubakar Badaru, the House of representatives candidate said, “The truth of the matter is that the APC government in Jigawa state has not been doing things out of the box because when the administration came in it has complained of paucity of funds and it has complained of a very low revenue base and because of that it took a very convenient approach of saying that all he needed to do is to make sure he settles salary every month.
“And apart from that we have not been seeing much from the administration especially in human capital development, infrastructural transformation of the state and the performance has not been as good as what happened during the PDP led administration under our leader, Alhaji Dr. Sule Lamido.
“However I cannot point out one thing that I will say this is something that is been done out of vision to really transform Jigawa state economically by APC government
“I think government should go beyond payment of salary and see what should be done to spur development to be able to create wealth for our people because the level of poverty is alarming and frightening because people can barely afford to feed.
“So somebody that hasn’t fed you, you shouldn’t t expect that person to pay attention to education and other meaningful activities in life, so it is very important that the Jigawa state government come out with an economic blue print for the transformation, upliftment and development of our people.
“In my own assessment I am not satisfied with the level of performance and development because my joy is to see our people living above poverty and see our people afford the basic necessities of life both clothes and shelter and that is my joy. And whenever I visit my constituency, especially when you go to the rural areas you will be shocked on what you will see, therefore my expectations have not been met under the APC government”. He said.
On the chances of PDP wining the governorship race in Jigawa state, the lawmaker hopeful said, “I will like to take you back to history and explain to you the phenomenon of the man Sule Lamido. Sule Lamido has been an active politician and has been actively participated right from 1999 election.
“But he has always taken politics as a way of life because he thinks, breathes, sleeps politics and virtually every thing about politics. And here in Jigawa state PDP in particular and Sule Lamido is a political institution. He has trained and retrained so many political heirs and fans. He knows what is good to achieve in politics and abhors corruption, misgovernance and abhors politics without people interest.
“Now having a father like this, will automatically educate you politically and imbibe some political values in you. Now our candidate Alhaji Mustapha Lamido having a father like Sule Lamido was born and trained by such a political heavy weight and has been trained in line of politics, trained to serve people and has been trained to manage people.
“And that is why our candidate Mustapha Lamido since 2003 has been part and parcel of setting up of party structure, so you can imagine the level of experience he has acquired from 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 all under the watchful eye of his father.
“Therefore he is equipped and prepared to partake and participate in politics because he has been given the advantage opportunity by God .
And he is sufficiently educated and he has the temperament and he also has the idea of what the youths want and how to develop and manage a modern economy that revolves around ICT on youths employment, empowerment, and of course on people centered kind of economic matter and coupled with his experience in politics and training he has received from his father . he is eminently qualified to win the election for the party and to the advantage of the state in general”. Gudaji said.
