Politicians must honour their campaign promises— Sir Omehia

SIR Celestine Omehia, an aspiring governor of River State of Nigeria has urged African politicians to honour promises they make to the electorate without fail when they are voted to office.
He said it was such sacred contract that influenced the people to vote for them and that failure to implement such promises was tantamount to been lied to, fooling and insulting the integrity of the electorate.
Sir Omehia, who is standing on the ticket of All Progressives Grand Alliance party (APGA), was speaking after he had addressed Nigerians in Ghana, especially those from the River State in Ghana as part of his diasporan campaign to win the River State Governorship in Accra on Saturday.
Sir Omehia added that although Progressives Grand Alliance party was a national party, it had adopted Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as its Presidential candidate.”
According to him, African politicians must perceive their electorate as people without sense, who could be lied to and convinced to cast their vote for them.
“We should know that our people are very intelligent and when they realise that politicians are taking them for a ride, they would pay such politicians back in the hard way. After all, it is their resources that they entrust in hands and they expect us to manage it better for them.”
Sir Omehia, who was the governor of the River State in 2007, noted that although he had a short stay in office, he was able to initiate most of the promises he made to the people, including building the Institute for Strategic Political Studies and flyovers.
He was confident that he would be voted for because the people would consider his past record, especially in the area of poverty alleviation through employment, use of diplomacy to bring calm to the oil drilling communities.
He promised the people of River State living in Ghana, especially students that were under his administration, he would establish a youth affairs think-tank that would provide an avenue for the youth in the state to come out with their own policies and programmes and assist to execute them.
According to Sir Omehia, the move was a two-prong approach to ensure that the youth had the platform to build their capacity as future leaders with practical experience and also be part of the governance process in the state.
He said the youth would also be assisted to undertake research into various fields, whiles those who could not make it in education would be supported to undergo vocational and technical training.
He added that his administration would ensure that it was open to public scrutiny as a way of showing probity, accountability, due process and our unquenchable desire to achieve good governance. “We urge you to join us in strengthening the solid foundation laid by our beloved Leaders in the past and other stakeholders.”
Sir Omehia added that although Progressives Grand Alliance party was a national party, it would not field a presidential candidate because “we believe that your bold support for our great party would translate to massive votes for us and for all APGA candidates in the State and National Assembly elections and finally for our adopted Presidential candidate Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.”