By Clifford Ndujihe, Deputy Political Editor

MR. Paul Obanua, the Delta State Governorship Candidate of the Congress for Democratic Change, CDC has an ambitious programme of turning the Big Heart into an oasis of industries that would get more than one million Deltans off the unemployment market. He told Vanguard how he hopes to get power to actualize his dream Delta. Excerpts:

You want to be governor of Delta State, what is the motivation?
The motivation is to liberate Deltans from economic depression. Deltans have enough resources to start their own economic development and take the state from where it is today to where the people aspire to be in terms of economic empowerment and development. A state in Nigeria can aspire to be a first World State even in a Third World nation.

The Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan and his supporters say he is doing so already…
It is their constitutional right to feel so and aspire to continue. It is also other people’s constitutional right to think otherwise in that they feel and know that they can do better if given the opportunity through the ballot box.

How would you assess the governor in terms of performance?
The truth is that I am an issue-based campaigner. I am not quick to criticize the incumbent. But I think if he was doing enough I will not be offering myself to become the governor of Delta State. I think I can do better than he is doing currently.

You are relatively unknown; your party is also very new in Delta…
In Delta State, I am well known. My party, CDC has been in existence in the last four to five years and it has been on ground in Delta State. We have structures in wards, local councils, senatorial zones, etc and across the state. As a party, we have a strong structure in Delta State.As a person I am eminently qualified to govern the state.

I am from Ibuzo. After my primary and secondary education at St. Patricks College, Asaba; Federal Government College, Okigwe; Edo State University, Ekpoma (B.Sc Geophysics), I attended Lagos Business school, where I did Owner Manager’s Programme. My orientation has been in the entrepreneurship sector, haulage, oil & gas trading and real estate across North America and Middle East. I am an entrepreneurship consultant and currently I am consulting for the Amnesty Office. One of my companies is currently involved in the training of militants in the area of entrepreneurship development.

It is based on that experience that I decided to give back to Delta and the society in general. And this indicates what my manifesto, my 10-point agenda, is all about. We are offering free education at all levels. We have the school feeding programme in our primary school, skill acquisition programme with start_off grant. We also have the free health programme through the health insurance scheme.We are going to have 25 business development centres across the 25 local councils of Delta State. The essence of that is that when we train Deltans that enroll in over 100 skill acquisition programmes, we have a place to house them and their businesses. Each of the business centres will be able to accommodate over 500 businesses. And the business we will have in the business centres will be unique to those environments. If you enroll in the programme, you get a salary. After training you for six months to one year, depending on the programme you you choose, we will give you a start-off grant and then mentor you for another one year while you are in the business development centre.

We are going to commence and complete, in record time, the Warri Industrial Park. It is designed to accommodate over 3000 industries and businesses with captive power supply so that they will be insulated from the issues and problems companies suffer in Nigeria especially epileptic power supply. If we can reduce the expenditure of business on generating power for their businesses from 100 to five per cent though power, we will be on the path of development and companies will be attracted to the state.

We are also going to have the Asaba Business Resort, which is going to cater for ICT companies. We are going to have the financial centre, trade and distribution businesses, ultra modern malls and shopping centres.

Why Asaba?
Asaba is next door to one of the fastest growing cities in the world and that growth is spilling over to Asaba and is beginning to assume the chaotic nature of Onitsha. We are going to ensure that this growth coming to Asaba will be properly captured in a structured and organized environment.

The other key agenda in our People Empowerment programme is the Delta Rail Network. It will run from Asaba to Agbor, Sapele, Warri, Ughelli, Oleh, Kwale, Ogwasi-Uku and back to Asaba. At Asaba, we are going to have a 20-hectare terminal at the Bridge Head. At the terminus, you have provision for warehousing and truck Park.

We are also going to have the Warri 20-hectare terminal with warehousing and truck park facilities. The essence of these large terminuses in Warri and Asaba is to encourage the traders in the East to import their goods through Warri Port. They can bring in their goods through Warri Port, have them warehoused in Warri; get them transported via rail line to Asaba where they can finally ware house them and just bring trucks to pick up their goods across the bridge.

That is part of generating economic activities and employment in the state.  Our target is no Deltan will say ‘I am unemployed’ because you have over 100 trading programmes to enroll in; you have projects happening across the state as we will be converting the whole state to a construction site.