It was a remarkable day in Enugu state as the former deputy president of the senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, gathered over a hundred journalists, media consultants in a media consultation as he officially made known his interest to run for governorship in the state and revealed his agenda for Enugu in what he themed ‘A pathway to a new Enugu state’.

The three hours event which took place at Best Western Plus Hotel Enugu, was streamed live in different broadcast channels, radio stations and social media entailed questions thrown to him by journalists as he answered in detail what he planned to achieve differently in the state.

Addressing journalists at the event, Ekweremadu first clarified that the event was not a governorship declaration, but one of his various ongoing consultations on various political sessions, but that this is the first time he will be giving details of his agenda.

“People who seek to serve must be able to table their agenda before the people of their nation. I will share my agenda and pathway to the new Enugu state. As capital of the reformed urban eastern region, old Anambra state and old Enugu state, and Ebonyi state, we understand the place of Enugu state, in the political development of the south east.

“Let me assure our people that we will continue to enrich political conversations especially those around Enugu. I appreciate the efforts of our past and present government to bring about development in our dear state. Now we look at how we intend to do things differently in our state, to think about the new enugu state.

“Enugu state gave me a huge opportunity to serve as pioneer council chairman of Aninri local government, chief of staff to the governor, secretary to the state government, five term senator, three term deputy president of the senate, deputy speaker of ECOWAS parliament.

“As a senator I worked  hard to put forward necessary bills and motions on the constitutional amendments, security , education, economy, health and electoral reform, that have impacted and still impacting positively on the well becoming of our people. I have initiated and completed many life changing projects in our communities, beyond my constituency, in the very important areas of water, road, educational infrastructure, health and many more.

“If elected governor, I will utilize all the experience, friendship, partnership and global contact acquired over the years to transform enugu state to a model state. I will implement this vision through good governance. I will restore the peoples faith in the government through delivering our manifesto and promises to the people.

“We will transform our civil service, judiciary and parliament making them technology driven, and will fight corruption in a creative and effective manner. We will enthrone justice, equity and liberty to all citizens in enugu. Government services will be available 24/7 through a well designed e-government as we look forward to running a government that sees all the citizens as equals before the law”, he revealed.

Speaking on his plans for solving the water issues in the state, he said “we appreciate the hardship that our people have had to live with over the years due to perennial problem of water scarcity in Enugu. But we are poised to restore pipe borne water to ensure that this becomes a thing of the past. We will build dams and rehabilitate existing water sources, pipelines”.

On road development, he shared his empathy on the challenge poised by resource scarcity, stating that “we have the social capital to attract local and foreign funding as well as the integrity to keep our words. We will transform multiple carriage roads to construct super highways from Enugu city to Ebonyi border, from Enugu city to Abia, from Enugu city to Benue, Enugu to Anambra, roads to connect all local government areas in Enugu state”.

“In the educational sector, our focus will be on improving the quality of infrastructure and human capital to deliver on modern education. Our target is to consolidate primary and secondary schools. To make IMT a degree awarding institution with an ivy league status.. we will create a well resourced knowledge city where we will prepare our future leaders and retrain civil servants and policy makers. Our knowledge city will also double as research ground for administrative, management, economic and scientific policies and programmes”.

Addressing the topic of women and youth empowerment, he added that “we will run an inclusive youth and gender friendly government that will mainstream and empower our young men and women economically and politically. We believe that we need to encourage the youth and women in governance. Our executive, legislative and judicial arms of government will deliberate policy, be sufficiently populated with young men and women with knowledge and focus.

With the rise of insecurity in the state, he added that “We will provide digital security network to secure our citizens and residents throughout enugu state. We will setup an efficient state-funded security outfit that can respond to an emergency in 10 minutes. We will create an Enugu identity database and setup security and public safety coordination center.

“We will partner with the private sector to create world class yet affordable medical and diagnostic center. Creation of primary healthcare facility for every community. Secondary healthcare facility for every local government. We will transform ESUT university teaching hospital to a world class tertiary facility. We will through this policy, increase the number of Enugu state people as chief executive officers of federal government parastatals and enthrone more of our people in the headship of various security agencies.

“In the aspect of Energy sufficiency, we understand the place of power in the socio economic transformation of Enugu state. Therefore, we will work to ensure State wide electricity coverage. We will extend electricity supply to every possible home and restore vandalized lines. We will embark on large-scale renewable energy and provide mini grids for our remote communities and secure our electricity lines and infrastructure going forward.

“we will embark on urban renewal and affordable housing for all. We will upgrade our rural communities to reverse the rural urban migration that congests the cities”, he said.

He further appointed Barrister Joe Asogwa, former lawmaker and Commissioner, as his Coordinator of the Campaign.