Edo Guber: I will create 300,000 jobs through Agric revolution— Ovienmhada

Mr. Michael Ovienmhada is a Governorship aspirant in Edo State under the New Nigeria Peoples’ Party (NNPP). He is a businessman, author and poet. He is a man who has traversed the world and is armed with unquantifiable experience in many aspects of life. In this interview with Business Hallmark team, he exposes details of his exciting plans for Edo state.

Why are you running?

I’m running because I’m angry. It’s been 63 years since Independence. We have no one to blame now but ourselves. How can we be like this? Children are malnourished. The youth have no jobs. The old retire into penury. The sick die because they cannot afford basic healthcare. Our women die at childbirth. Our girls trade their bodies for survival. Our boys are now into wholesale crime. They even have training schools for those who wish to learn. The moral fabric of our society is in the abyss. We need answers quickly. I believe I have the answers.

It’s just about one year to the contest, do you have enough time to do all the work involved?

The first work that needs to be done is to woo Party members to nominate me to be the candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party, the NNPP. Once I get the platform, I’ll be putting everyone on notice. I’ll be ready to give the big parties hell. I will be asking them a simple question: You’ve had 24 years to fix Edo State. Have you been sleeping on the job?

What is your practical political experience this far?

I worked for a presidential campaign in 2015. I worked for a governorship campaign in 2016 in Edo State. I worked for the same candidate again in 2020. That’s all I have by way of political involvement.

What are your core programmes? What difference do you intend to make?

I’d like to be that person who created jobs for our kids. That’s the legacy I would love to leave behind. At the core of it, I plan to create 300,000 jobs by launching an Agricultural revolution. I plan to establish a Commodity Marketing Board to purchase all the produce at harvest time. We will face the bush, open it up and allocate 6-10 acres of land to each young farmer. We will have tractors available in every Agricultural cluster for their use. We will mechanize agriculture to make it attractive. We will build processing facilities in every Local Government area to add value to the farmer’s produce. Each of these farmers will have the ability to create at least 10 jobs over 4 years to give us 3 million jobs. That is my promise. That is how I want to be judged. No more, no less.

What do you think about political god-fatherism. Who is your own godfather?

I want the ordinary people to be my godfather. That’s about the only way our democracy can succeed. The people must take ownership of the candidates.

How do you intend to win the election?

Sadly, our people have been so impoverished that we have stopped dreaming.

I want to help us to dream again, to dream of possibilities, what we can do to be the State with the best teachers and highest paid teachers, and highest paid Civil Servants in Nigeria. Our teachers would be first class. Our doctors would be first class. We will become the educational capital of Nigeria along with being the agricultural capital of Nigeria, and also along with being the medical capital of Nigeria. All that foreign exchange that Nigerians are carrying abroad to spend on education and medical tourism, we want them to bring the money to Edo State.

I want to bring America to Edo State with 24/7 electricity and first class roads in 4 years.

With a population of 5 million people and a land area of 18,300 sq km, Edo State is bigger than 64 countries. We should not be in bed with poverty. The present state of affairs should not be allowed to stand.

I want to build a Railway line from Edo South to Edo North to Edo Central. We can do it in a short period of time, to leapfrog our State to number one, ahead of Lagos. That’s the dream I want to sell to our people. That’s the dream I want us to achieve together as a people. The damage that the political class has done to the people in 24 years does not define us. We are better than this. Our better Angels will prevail. We can accomplish great things together. That’s where I want to take us.