Aspirant for Kaduna South Local Government Chairmanship election on the platform of People’s Redemption Party ( PRP), Yahaya Shinko yesterday impressed stakeholders at a media debate for all the Aspirants in the forthcoming Chairmanship election in the State.
Shinko assured them of good governance and inclusive government if voted to chair the affairs of the local government, adding that he has the expertise and experience to lead the council area.
Three other political parties; All Progressive Congress (APC), People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as well as Labour Party (LP) were invited for the debate, but they did not turn up.
The one-day media debate was organised by Kaduna South Local Government Concerned Citizens as part of moves to ensure good governance at the grassroot level.
The Convener of the debate, Yusuf David told newsmen in an interview that he was disappointed by non appearance of the other Aspirants despite invitation extended to them.
However, PRP Aspirant while fielding questions from newsmen expressed the view that other parties may have withdrawn from the chairmanship race, hence their absence.
According to him, “I think other political parties that did not participate in this debate may have withdrawn their candidates from the Chairmanship race. That is the perception that I have . May be they are no longer interested in the candidature. As you can see it is only me from PRP that participated. They refused to come and meet the people that are going to vote them. They were given the opportunity to come and meet with the stakeholders, and they refused to come. May be they have withdrawn from the race.
“I thank the organisers. The event was historical. At least I was able to express my manifesto to my stakeholders across the local government area. They now understand that I have alot to provide for them if am elected. It is a matter of time, by the special grace of God, we are going to deliver our party because from what we have seen so far, the people have accepted our candidature.
“By the constitution of Nigeria, the issue of security involves all the people at the local government, the State and the national levels. That is to say it is the responsibility of the chairman, the governor and the President. But in particular, we have to be sincere, in an urban centre such as Kaduna south local government, all you have to do is to improve on human capital development because once the youths are engaged and they have something doing, they will have relevant use at the local government. And as far as some criminal activities are concerned, once the youths are fully engaged, it will reduce so that there will be no excuse to get involved in crimes.
“On the other aspect when you talk about maintenance of security it is very difficult for a chairman or even the State governor when you don’t have the command of the military or the police. Atimes a DPO will be posted to your local government without you even knowing and equally the State doesn’t know, you won’t know when the GOC will be replaced, so at the end they will not even take command from the governor. But I am sure that by what federal government is doing, trying to see that community policing is involved in the maintenance of security in the country will help in fighting insecurity by the special grace of God”.
The Convener, David said, “We convened the programme to partner with chairmanship Aspirants of the local government. Whoever that eventually wins, he should be people’s chairman, not political party chairman, he should be chairman that works with the stakeholders of the local government, when I say stakeholders, I mean anybody that resides in the local government area is a stakeholder. So such chairman is coming to lead us because we want to define democracy for what it is. That is why we organised the programme and invited the Aspirants who intended to become our leaders to come and tell us how they intend to lead when they eventually get there.
“The press is also part of progressive governance that we are doing, so I employ you to find out why other invited Aspirants did not turn up for the debate. We extended the invitation to them and I spoke to some of them personally. I gave invitation to PDP Vice chairman Aspirant, ai spoke with him, I spoke with the local government party chairman, I gave him all the invitations. I went to Labour party office by myself, I delivered the invitation for the party and I also invited the interim chairman of the party in the State. I sent the invitation to APC through its members, I personally handed over the invitation to the the party secretary.
“I sent invitation to the speaker of the Kaduna State House of Assembly through his Special Adviser on political matters. I ensured that I did a follow up on the invitation. But I don’t know why they are not here at the event. I spoke to some officials of IPAC of the need to grace the event so that through them some former Aspirants could also attend the programme.
“We want stakeholders to decide who should be the local government chairman, not vote buying, giving us palliatives. There should be no violence when we are electing our leaders. Anybody who wins from any party should be given the seat. We should vote for credible person and not party. If I see a devil in my party and I see an Angel in another party I will go for the Angel. It is all about good governance and everybody must contribute his or her quota.
” I am after good governance, I am not looking for contracts. This is my first time of organising this type of programme of bringing Aspirants together to talk to the stakeholders. Enough of bad governance. Let’s partner to bring good governance. We did not ask any of them to give us money. We paid for the venue from our pockets. Good governance is that all of must contribute to the success of democracy”.
