Incompetent Leaders Reasons for Bayelsa Underdevelopment, Says LP Guber Candidate

*Restates commitment to job creation  

Julius Osahon, Yenagoa

Former President of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and Labour Party gubernatorial candidate for the November 11, 2023 Bayelsa Governorship election, Engr. Udengs Eradiri, has blamed the underdevelopment of the state on incompetent leadership in the past and present.

Eradiri, who restated his resolve towards job creation and development of the state posited that the state is presently going through a lot and attributed the challenges to those leaders whose shoulders were saddled with leadership, but has failed woefully.

Eradiri, a one time national President IYC and former Commissioner in the state’s ministries of Environment and Youths development, gave the indications during a pre-campaign media briefing held in Yenagoa, the State capital.

He said, while the state was richly blessed with both human and natural resources, funds accruing to the state had been allegedly mismanaged by the incumbent administration of Governor Douye Diri and his handlers.

He said, “We lack competent leadership in Bayelsa state, if you compare Bayelsa state to every other state in the country, you will discover that we are backward in every indices and yet we are suppose to be the richest state in term of allocation accruing to us, we have had trillions of Naira over the years , yet nothing to show on ground.”

The Labour Party’s gubernatorial standard bearer who also spoke on the need to diversify the state’s economy noted that the state has comparative advantage in maritime economy and some food crops, maintaining that if elected governor of the state in the forthcoming polls, he intend to create numerous employment opportunities through the natural aquatic environment of the state, as well as rice and cassava plantations, amongst others.

He also took a swipe on the governor Diri’s administration for allegedly abandoning existing structures and building new infrastructure in the health and educational sectors of the state, saying it was due to leadership disconnection with its citizens, the spate of poverty and underdevelopment has increased in the state.

Eradiri said: “We’ve evolved a roadmap called PEAP. The first ‘P’ stands for the people, the ‘E’ is for Education, ‘A’ for Agriculture and the last ‘P’ stands for Power.
“We will put the people first in all we do as a government. We’ld consult the people when carrying policies and programmes in the state. We’ve to first prepare their mindset for the task ahead in the developmental processes of the state.

“In agriculture, we would provide incentives for our people to grow and process rice, cassava and other agricultural produce for our local consumption and for export to neighbouring states and other parts of the world and grow our sources of revenue.

“We would construct roads to hit the Atlantic in Agge, Brass, Foropa, etc and develop the ‘blue economy’ of the state and create Atlantic cities in Brass so that this issue of mono-city in Bayelsa can be resolved. We don’t need to play politics with the construction of the Nembe-Brass road project.

“I’ll provide Bayelsa State with an inspirational leadership, establish a microfinance bank and appropriate 500 Million monthly to help grow small and medium scale enterprise and the Agricultural sector so that we can create a local economy for the state and create job opportunities for our people.”