A former aspirant for the 2024 Edo governorship poll, Prof. Sylvester Akhaine, has expressed disappointment over the failure of the candidates to hinge their campaigns on how to solve the state’s challenges.

Mr Akhaine, who contested the All Progressives Congress primaries, expressed the disappointment in a statement issued on Sunday in Benin.

He regretted that the campaigns had been devoid of substance, with candidates focusing on rhetoric rather than presenting tangible solutions to the state’s challenges.

According to him, Edo State has suffered years of infrastructure deficit as a result of a self-serving crop of leaders that had governed the state.

“Today, the landscape of Edo State is visibly underlined by infrastructural deficit and the absence of basic social facilities. The condition of schools is damnable to the extent that only an insignificant number of staff is on the government payroll. Others are hired by development associations and old boys associations. Education budgets are among the lowest in the country. Indeed, this reality contradicts claims by successive governments to the effect of having addressed them with billions of our hard-earned resources,” the professor said.

The APC chieftain, who also decried the security situation in the state, said the state needed a new government bold enough to invest in infrastructure and education.

“Whoever wishes to govern the state must pre-occupy him/herself with the issues outlined above. The aspirant must explain the issues clearly to our people, including how resources will be mobilised to solve the problems beyond the monthly allocation from the central pool. We need a government bold enough to invest in infrastructure and education. We need policies and programmes that are meaningful to the ordinary people, not social media figures and propaganda,” Mr Odion-Akhaine said.

He added that in comparative and relative terms, Edo State could not be ranked as a leader in any notable sector of socio-economic activities due to neglect by successive governments. 

(NAN)