Janet Samuel, Abuja
The Former Minister of Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba has promised to bring in TRUST agenda to transform Edo state if given the mandate to govern the state.
Prince Agba made this known while speaking with Newsman shortly after submitting his nomination and expression of interest forms on Wednesday, at the party Secretariat in Abuja.
He said his vision for Edo State is to develop the rural and urban space through his Trust initiative by providing access road and improving agro corridors for the farmers in the state.
“For me, what I’m I bringing to the table? Is what I call the TRUST initiative. Some people call it the TRUST agenda, but whatever you want to call it, we want to transform our rural urban spaces together. That’s what TRUST means to me. If you’re developing the urban areas, you should simultaneously be developing the rural areas.
“You should be providing access road especially around the agro corridors. So that sixty percent harvest that goes to waste, which is a low hanging fruit will be recovered not mechanization,
“Until we deal with the issue of access to market for these products, which has to do with ensuring that there are roads, either for the farmer to get to the market or the market to come to the farmer and ensuring that there is power. I’m not talking about the national grid. I’m talking about captive power. So once you have captive power available, you’ll find that cottage industries begin to develop around these farm settlements. What will happen is people will set up storage facilities, others will begin to set up processing facilities.”
He described himself as the most experienced and suitable for the position based on his private sector background with state and federal level exposure as commissioner and minister of state respectively.
“You know as Edo is the heartbeat of Nigeria, they do require someone with experience. Someone with the right competencies. Someone who has the knowledge of the organized private sector and also the public sector.”
“Someone who has worked at the sub- national level and also at the national level. And who has the connect today between the sub-national government and the national government and the opportunities that avail themselves. Someone who understands and was dealing with multilateral agencies and doing all the negotiations for government.Would that not be a right man to govern Edo state”.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had fixed the governorship elections in Edo State for September 21 this year.
