BY JOSHUA ERUBAMI
DELTA State Governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa may not necessary fulfill all his campaign promises, as encapsulated in his SMART prosperity agenda, but if he can provide lasting solutions to the tripartite challenge of youth unemployment, epileptic power supply and inaccessible roads in the state, then he would be adjudged as successful.
A Customary and Family Court Judge and first female National President of the National Council of Women Society, Chief (Mrs) Cecelia Obiorah disclosed this line of thought when a team of The Pointer correspondents paid a visit on her in Asaba, Capital of Delta State.
Explaining the rationale behind her opinion, Obiorah observed that these three areas were vital to the growth of the economy and the emancipation of the masses from the misery of poverty and want, adding that they should be regarded as the most strategic steps that the government will take in the quest of taking the state to enviable heights in the committee of its counterparts in the country.
She maintained that the challenge of youth unemployment is an endemic one which must be tackled with all available tools that can eradicate it, claiming that the spate of crime in the country, especially in the North-East region, was fueled by the idleness of the Nigerian youths.
She said: “Besides, and importantly too, Okowa has to assiduously tackle the challenge of youths unemployment because if the youths are gainfully employed, there will be a drastic reduction in criminality and other forms of violence in the state.
“I must submit here, however, that the governor has started well with the floating of six jobs creation schemes which are geared towards creating the needed jobs and wealth for all Deltans”.
The challenge militating against these schemes, the Judge pointed out, was that many unemployed youths have failed to embrace agriculture even when the state government has expressed its resolved to grant them loans. She, therefore, advised the youths to embrace the life time opportunity, noting that it was impossible for the state government to absorb all of them into the civil service.
“They have to embrace entrepreneurship and it is on the strength of this that I will suggest that our educational system be made to focus more on vocational and technical knowledge rather than theory, theory which may not yield the much desired results.
“Everybody may not be able to go to the university but if the government can train the unemployed on skills acquisitions then, it will succeed at taking most of them off the street”, the former NCWS President opined.
Reacting to the poor conditions of roads across the state, particularly in Asaba, Obiorah appealed to Okowa to invest more on rehabilitating the deplorable roads and, where necessary, constructing new ones. She decried the state of the DLA road, in Asaba, which was recently commissioned and certified fit for vehicular use, noting that the problem still lingers.
Her words: “I want Okowa to focus more on rehabilitating the roads across the state. Imagine Asaba, the state capital, is in dare need of good roads; when you were coming here, did you not experience the palava of poor conditions of the roads?
“Just take a look at the DLA road which was recently commissioned, it is hardly motorable such that when one is going out, one has to turn round several corners before getting to the main road; that is not good at all. If he can fix the road, there will be ease of mobility and things will become better for all”.
Obiorah stressed that it was pertinent for the Okowa led government to rise to the challenge of the power supply in the state and, possibly, revamp it, saying that fixing the power sector will amount to fixing many other segments of the economy.
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