By Marie-Therese Nanlong

The All Progressives Congress, APC chairmanship candidate for Mikang local government area of Plateau State in the forthcoming local government election, Augustine Bako has reiterated his commitment to work with the people and ensure good governance is delivered to citizens at the grassroots level.

It would be recalled that the Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission, PLASIEC has set October 9, 2021 for the conduct of election in the 17 local government areas of the State.

Bako who is the incumbent Deputy Chairman of Mikang local government council assured the people that he has understudied governance at the third tier of government for some time now and has the necessary experiences to handle the affairs at that level.

He urged the people with the zeal for him to succeed to always come to him with ideas and suggestions which will add value to the council even as he stressed his doors would not be opened to those who want to gossip and cause disharmony among citizens.

The chairmanship candidate disclosed he would explore the agriculture and commercial potentials of the local government to raise fund for capital project and development of human resources stressing he will put emphasis on empowerment so that the economy of the local government area would be improved. 

His words, “I will emphasize on the empowerment of the people and execution of physical projects to further empower the people. The projects will be people-oriented, I asked all our councillorship flagbearers to go back to their Wards and meet with the people to find out what they want so that we don’t do things that don’t have direct bearing on the people. 

“We will concentrate our efforts in engaging and exploring our revenue stronghold, relocate some markets to viable points and work with the people to raise fund for projects. … I need people around me but people must come with ideas, suggestions not gossip because even people with genuine interest to see you succeed may be consumed with zeal and you need to control it to stay focused.”

Speaking on his approach to governance, he stated there would be need for citizens’ reorientation stressing, “We need to also have an orientation because people were given fertilizer to go and farm, they ended up selling the fertilizer. I bought knapsacks for people for use in the farm, they were selling them and I ended up buying them from the people who were selling at giveaway price.”

He further stated every project to be executed would be analyzed to ensure that “we give the people what they want not what we feel they should be given.”