2023 IBARAPA NORTH AND CENTRAL FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY :OLUSEGUN OKANLAWON UNVEILS 3 POINTS AGENDA

The founder of Olusegun Okanlawon foundation (OOF) and a house of representatives candidate in the forthcoming APC primarily election, Eng. Olusegun Okanlawon has unfold his campaign manifesto geared around 3 points agenda.

According to a release made available to Asako Reporters, his aspiration to contest in the 2023 elections is premised upon three pillars: Representation, Service and Development.

According to him:

“Some weeks ago, I declared my intention to represent the Ibarapa Central/North Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. After making efforts as an individual and as a driver for community development, I came to this decision. After years of calling our political leaders to take steps towards the strategic development of our community, I have seen that the public office holders would only act in accordance with their visions”.

“As the Founder/Chairman of a non-governmental organization, the Olusegun Okanlawon Foundation (OOF), I have seen the extent to which coordinated, targeted investment can positively transform lives and impact communities. I have also seen that, in the midst of great challenges in our society, the resources of an individual or a group of people can accomplish very little. While we can change 100 people’s lives with millions of Naira, a single policy (which often costs far less) can transform the lives of 10,000 people in a month. That is the power of the public office.

We have been behind in development for so long. Our constituency cannot wait any longer. We cannot continue with the status quo. We need to change the story of our region. We need a new vision, which will lead us in a new direction. I am poised to cast the new vision and lead us in a new direction”

“I said earlier that my aspiration to contest in the 2023 elections is premised upon three pillars: Representation, Service and Development”

The 3 points agenda according to the release was analysed below:

Representation: Our constituency deserves quality representation. I desire to represent the aspirations, interests and will of my constituency, visibly projecting them within the broader Nigerian narrative.

Service: You deserve dedicated service. As your representative, my job description is to serve you. My work will be to serve everyone: young and old, men and women, children and aged, indigenes and residents of my constituency.

Development: Our constituency cannot wait forever for the development it deserves. The goal of my representation and service will be to bring substantial, sustainable and impactful development to our constituency.

As the representative of Ibarapa Central/North Federal Constituency, I will champion and support motions, bills and projects that reflect your aspirations. We will focus on areas that help us confront poverty and set the foundations for a prosperous future for our constituency. I will prioritize the low-hanging areas of agriculture, health, and empowerment.

Agriculture

Our fathers have a saying that goes thus, “when hunger is removed from poverty, poverty is defeated.” We have landmass, good soil and capable hands.

Despite the dedication of our people to farming, we have little to show. Our farmers continue to face challenges of inadequate access to inputs, poor transportation networks, and poor access to markets. Many of our farmers lose money to wasted produce annually. Most young people are not interested in agriculture because of these and other challenges. We will use a value chain approach to address our agricultural challenges. This means that we will simultaneously work on input, production, output, processing, marketing and everything in-between. We will work with our communities and other stakeholders to facilitate local and foreign agricultural investments in our constituency.

We will pilot an agribusiness value chain model that combines quality inputs, standard production practices, optimal outputs, enhanced processing and dedicated marketing to transform our agricultural landscape. I am already in talks with local and foreign agricultural experts on the implementation of this model, which will be a public-private partnership. We will work actively with local, state, national and international stakeholders to set up and implement the project. This project will produce a minimum of 1,000 direct and indirect jobs across our constituency in the first two years. We will start the implementation with cassava, maize and poultry. Following this, we would extend into other crops.

We expect that our constituency will begin to export high-value agricultural products by the third year of the model’s implementation. This will give us access to further funds to enhance our agriculture and make life better for our people.

Healthcare

“Health is wealth” is a common wise saying. Our people must be healthy if our community will be wealthy. I am committed to working on health from a healthcare perspective. Healthcare is not all about hospitals where sick people are treated. Healthcare comprises all the elements necessary to prevent, diagnose, treat or cure diseases or injuries. Our approach to healthcare will touch upon each of these components of healthcare. We will prioritize prevention so that our people do not fall sick unnecessarily. We will pay attention to the most vulnerable population: children, pregnant women and the aged. This is because I believe that when we give people the tools to lead healthy, productive lives, we help them lift themselves out of poverty.

Water – Water is life. Bad water can cut life short. When people drink dirty water or use such water for household activities, they are exposed to water-borne diseases. It is unfortunate that the majority of our people still lack access to a potable water supply. As your representative, I will work to ensure that at least half of the people in our villages and towns have relatively easy access to good water within my first three years in office. In my personal capacity, I already embarked on a project to drill 10 new boreholes and repair 20 existing ones. I will leverage the access and influence provided by the assignment you give me at the House of Representatives to attract different sizes of water supply projects to the constituency.

Sanitation – Cleanliness, they say, is next to godliness. I strongly believe that a clean environment is a necessity for a healthy community. A great number of our people still practice open defecation, which exposes us to diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, etc. We will make our constituency join the global community to eliminate open defecation by

2030. We will evolve models for building and managing defecation systems that are appropriate for our communities.

Another area of focus will be on our drainage system. Poor drainage systems provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other insects that cause diseases. They also expose us to the risk of floods. We will facilitate drainage projects that will ensure that our constituency has very good drainage networks.

Hospitals – We will work with public and private stakeholders to ensure that hospitals in our constituency are functioning optimally. Primary health care clinics, in particular, will be optimised to ensure that they can attend to the primary health care issues. Our hospitals will have the necessary equipment for the diagnosis, management and treatment of patients. We will facilitate the availability of ambulances and personnel to ensure proper first aid and smooth transfer of patients to secondary and tertiary healthcare hospitals.

Someone may ask: would it not be too costly to achieve these healthcare objectives? My response is this: is it not too expensive when we lose children, women, fathers and loved ones to preventable deaths? Is it not too expensive when we are not able to learn, work or earn because of preventable diseases? The cost of investing in healthcare will pale when we compare the costs of not having a good healthcare system with the cost of putting it in place. Just imagine the ripple effects of healthy individuals, families and communities on our collective living and economy!

Empowerment

I am not one of those who prefer to give people crumbs because they feel threatened by the success of others. Instead, I strongly believe that the world has enough abundance to go around everyone. I know that we rise by lifting others and that we are stronger together. Hence, I am happy to be the ladder that others climb towards their success, and I heartily share in their joys as they achieve greatness. Our empowerment agenda will aim at making many people succeed together.

I am a firm believer in the fact that every human being has innate abilities. These abilities must be identified and nurtured. In addition, we must create a society that makes it easy to use these abilities. Most “empowerment programs” fail because they focus on skills that suit the trainers/funders rather than skills that interest/suit the trainees. Without a focus on the individual’s natural powers, there can be no lasting empowerment. Hence, our approach to empowerment will focus on helping our people to detect, develop and deploy their innate powers. This, I believe is the key to lasting empowerment. It is a sure way out of poverty.

We will channel our empowerment drive through Education, Games and Sports, as well as Information and Communication Technology.

Education – Education remains a useful tool to bridge the socio-economic gaps across generations. I will facilitate the inclusion of our schools in educational initiatives and projects aimed at the renovation of structures, upgrading of facilities and construction of new buildings. We will work with stakeholders to raise the bar of education in our constituency. I see a future where Ibarapa students value education and excel in the state, national and international examinations. This is my vision, and we will work towards achieving it. We will encourage healthy academic competitions by hosting debates, quizzes and other such events. We will launch initiatives that encourage and reward excellence among our students, from primary school to the university.

We will complement academic education with technical and vocational training across the 2 local governments and 1 local council development area in Ibarapa Central/North Federal Constituency. With these, we will guarantee that our young ones have skills that are relevant for the 21st century. We will engage competent sporting and technical institutions to help discover, develop and deploy the talents of our teenagers and youths in diverse sectors. Thus, they will have more options for productive living as they go through life.

In addition, we will support existing artisans, traders and small businesses to learn more about their chosen lines of activity. Where necessary, we will provide business grants to grow their enterprises. I believe that when they prosper, their families will benefit, and our community will be better.

Games and Sports – It is a well-known fact that games and sports are powerful tools for development across the world. We cannot overemphasize the potential of games and sports in combatting social vices and in teaching values to both young and old. Young people are able to apply the disciplines that they learn while developing their skills in these areas to other sectors of their lives (education, business, career, family, etc.)

I am constantly inspired by the way that Ibarapa youths manage to thrive despite the very difficult conditions around them. My experience hosting games and sports competitions over the last few years has shown me the abundant talents (footballers, athletes, coaches, referees, etc.) that we have among us. After every edition of our sports fiesta, I am challenged to find better ways to harness these talents for the benefit of the individuals, their families and our community. I am confident that our constituency will become a hub for international signings if we consistently provide effective support systems for our talents.

As your representative, I will work to create opportunities for our young people to explore their potential, develop such potential, and thrive (make a living, earn recognition) with them. We will showcase our young people for local and international signings by creating local platforms and sponsoring them to participate in state, national and international competitions. We will also provide the necessary support systems to ensure that our talents are rewarded appropriately for their skills and contributions.

We have started seeing our potential with football and athletics. What about our talents in sports like swimming, tennis, hockey, etc.? We will work with relevant stakeholders to identify, develop and showcase talents in these and other sports.

You may recall that a teenage girl won the two editions of Ibarapa Marathon hosted by OOF. Imagine how great she can become if she (and others) got the support they need to develop their skills and participate in international competitions! Imagine the glory they would bring to their families and to our constituency! How do we make this happen? Finding answers to questions like these are things that keep my mind busy.

I have been clamouring about the need for a standard stadium in Ibarapa land. I know that a stadium will bring several direct and indirect benefits to us as a people. As your representative, I will use the influence that comes with representation to get our constituency a stadium. This stadium will serve as a platform for consistent training and development of talents.

Information and Communication Technology – It is no news that the world is now a global village. We are much more connected than we have ever been to the rest of the world. Today’s working environment is not limited by physical space but by access to information and skills through the internet. We will ensure that our children and our youths are not left out in this progress.

We will partner with tech companies to train our people in skills such as content/digital marketing, graphic design, coding, data science, machine learning, software development, cyber security, cloud infrastructure development, etc. that are relevant to their natural abilities and interests. We will facilitate an ecosystem where these skills can be developed and harnessed for personal and professional benefits. This ecosystem will be an innovation hub that will be accessible to all (trainees, skilled individuals, entrepreneurs and clients). We will provide dedicated and specialized support to members of this ecosystem as well as provide seed funding to entrepreneurs.

Ultimately, we envisage that our youths will begin to create ICT solutions for national and global clients, working with international partners, and earning in both local and foreign currencies for their products and services. This will greatly impact the socio-economic standing of these individuals and their families.

While I labour to accomplish the above, I will constantly work with relevant stakeholders to ensure that our constituency is free from insecurity. Considering the sensitivity of security issues, the details of our liaison with stakeholders will be presented in due course.

Accountability: As an employee is expected to report his/her activities and outputs to the employer, I strongly believe that I am accountable to you as your representative. I owe you feedback on the progress of the assignment you give me. Apart from the regular newsletters and updates that I will share with you, I will host quarterly town hall meetings where we will discuss the progress of our shared aspirations for our constituency. I will use this medium to report how your constituency allocations are spent.

Furthermore, our town hall meetings at the end of each legislative year will feature a comprehensive review of our plans so that we can adapt them to evolving situations in our constituency.