Kwara 2023: SDP Guber Candidate, Hakeem Lawal, engages media, explains agenda

As part of activities to intimate and canvass support for his candidacy in the 2023 general election, the Social Democratic Party, SDP, governorship candidate in Kwara state, Alhaji Hakeem Oladimeji Lawal on Wednesday, held an interactive session with selected journalists and media practitioners in the state.

Speaking on his candidature, Lawal said the realities of present Nigeria and Kwara in particular, show that the state needs a leader with ingenuity come 2023.

He disclosed that his administration when elected as Governor will make three things a priority, namely: infrastructure, industrialization and human capital development.

The SDP guber candidate said he would make the state more financially buoyant through the internally generated revenue, (IGR) which he projected at N10 billion.

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Said to achieve this target, “what our administration would do is to block all loopholes, reduce activities of consultants in revenue generation and motivate staff of Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS). This will help the state accrue more revenue because consultants will only take a percentage of want they collect. We will also improve staff welfare and reward excellent performance by civil servants.

He also promised to rejig the education policy of the state, saying this is necessary to be able to make school leavers compete favourably with their counterparts anywhere, most especially in the technical area “we will revive our Technical Schools and Colleges. As of today, our people can hardly compete when it comes to technical know-how. If you look at the Building Industry for instance, many of the professionals competing there are from places like Republic of Benin, Togo Ghana, etc.

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“For Kwara to move forward and regain the glory of the past, we must first begin to re-assess ourselves and set up the same modules across these areas. It has worked for us in the past and must work for us again,” he said.

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Also canvassed support for SDP, the Director-General (Operations) of the SDP campaign, Architect Kale Belgore, said “the O to ge revolution of 2019 that enthroned the present administration in the state was a collective struggle, but regrettably, we are on a different lane today. But, we are lucky to have Hakeem Lawal as our governorship candidate, because he has been part of politicking for more than a decade, brainy, born and bred in Ilorin and a proud son of Kwara.”