By Dele Moses, Ilorin
Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State, Salihu Yakubu Danladi has said the focus of his administration would be on development of both the rural and urban areas of the state if elected the governor.
The governorship candidate disclosed this at an interactive programme of the correspondents’ chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the state tagged “Newskeg”.
He said though he was from a rural area he also lived in the urban areas and was equipped with the experience to meet up with the challenges of the two areas.
Danladi, who is also the incumbent Speaker of the state House of Assembly, said none of the other governorship candidates in the state knows the rural areas and urban areas of the state with their challenges better than him.
He said he had been to all the 193 wards in the state due to oversight function and other functions the legislative house perform with effects on the wards.
“There is hardly any ward in Kwara that I have not been to. I am a local boy. My interest is in all our local areas, and I intend to touch all these places,” he said.
Danladi said in his over seven years of being the Speaker he has got involved in grassroots development in the state by personally executing projects or using his office to facilitate them.
He mentioned such projects to include the installation of more than 210 boreholes and the facilitation of road infrastructure with the support of the state government in his Ilesha-Baruba/Gwanara constituency in Baruten Local Government Area.
He also disclosed that his office had facilitated the training of 300 vigilantes in partnership with the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), citing the area’s proximity to the international border as a major security consideration.
The governorship candidate also said his involvement in the state’s budget appropriation process as Speaker of the House of Assembly had placed him in a position where he has had deep understanding of budgeting for every sector in the state with an experience enough to appropriately address the need of each of the sectors.
He maintained that the major infrastructure projects executed by Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq’s administration were products of appropriation processes in which the legislature played a critical role.
He said the experience had provided him with an opportunity to understand the financial and developmental requirements of the state, as well as the workings of government across its various sectors.
“Appropriation process is a key ingredient in governance, and I can attest that all the landmark projects of Governor Abdulrazaq emerged from this process,” he said.
Danladi, who described his governorship ticket as a collective project belonging to the people of Kwara rather than an individual ambition, was accompanied to the engagement by his running mate, David Oluwaseun Oguniyi.
Oguniyi, in his brief remarks, highlighted his private-sector background and described his relationship with Danladi as one built on what he called productive synergy.
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