Delta State People’s Democratic Party (PDP), governorship hopeful, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, has pleaded with traditional rulers across the state to rally around him to take youths off the streets when he emerges as governor.
The industrialist said he would run a state where local governments, monarchs, clerics and leaders would go all-out to attract companies and businesses to their respective areas if voted in 2023.
Gbagi made the promise when he paid a consultative visit to the Orosuen of Okere Urhobo Warri Kingdom in Warri South Local Government Area, His Royal Majesty (HRM), Emmanuel Okumagba, at the weekend.
He said without industries to fully engage the youths and take them off the streets, the state would continue to grope in the dark.
The former Minister of State for Education told the monarch that under his watch, it would be an anathema for government to hand over staff of office to a traditional ruler with no viable economic development.
He entreated monarchs and religious leaders in the state to take ownership of their areas.
”I will assign you officers that will ask you what business you are doing. It is the business that I want to see.
“Local governments in Lagos State compete with each other and it is difficult to notice when one enters another council area. That is the kind of state that I want to run.
“The whole idea of having just a staff of office and you sit down there and you fizzle out as a person will not work for me.
“I will do what is called ‘complete engagement of our traditional rulers,” the lawyer and criminologist asserted.
He maintained that he would be governor of the entire state, urging monarchs to use their relationships and contacts to empower their domains economically.
“Before now, every local government had an economy that was running. Today, out of our own shallowness and not wanting to do anything, we say ‘it is well and then church people will start praying for us, nothing is happening and everything has gone back.
“Seventy-two per cent of all our children are no more in the state; they have gone to look for greener pastures and some of them are dying while some live worthless lives because we have failed as a people to put our house together,” he lamented.
According to the philanthropist, who described the HRM Okumagba as a man of integrity, “I am here to inform you that I am in the race by the grace of God to assume the office of the Governor of Delta State come 2023.
“We have done everything we know; the situation is narrowing down and I want to plead with you; we need to industrialize this state.
“I intend to engage traditional rulers and religious leaders very seriously. Unless you have industries, unless you employ your youths, unless these youths are out of the streets and that they can earn a meaningful living, we are wasting our time.
“We have a duty, God does not, will not, can never and have not made mistakes before. It is us that are making mistakes.”
Responding, HRM Okumagba, pledged his support for the governorship aspirant provided he’s God’s choice.
“May God gives you the position you are seeking; may God pick you; when God picks you, I am in support.
“It is how God says something should be, that is how it is. And because God has a hand in it, it will work.
“If you are interested in anything, come out, say it and you must believe in yourself.
“Let your resolve be strengthened by looking up to God just as I did mine and God will do it for you.
“I have my attitude towards you and I can tell you today that it changed towards you this moment,” Orosuen declared.
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