An Edo State chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Kassim Afegbua, has accused the incumbent Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governor, Godwin Obaseki of plunging the state into debt.
The former Commissioner for Information and Orientation revealed that the governor would be leaving a huge debt burden of N325 billion for his successor.
Speaking with journalists in Abuja on Friday, Afegbua stated that he would turn the fortune of the state around for the people if given the mandate to serve.
He said: “For me, anybody who is taking over from the governor of Edo State with N325 billion as our debts will have a huge task on our hands. So, we must put our thinking cap on and think outside the box that can generate ideas.
“We must keep the conversation around governance to ensure that we are able to do that which will help our people to advance their collective interest.”
Speaking further, Afegbua said he would beg the Federal Government, if the situation so demands, to fix the bad road from Auchi to Benin.
He said the road has become so deplorable that it should provoke action from any state chief executive to do whatever was legally possible to bring succour to the people.
Afegbua said he was the best aspirant among the about thirty persons seeking the acceptability of the members of the party to fly the flag of the APC in the Edo gubernatorial election.
According to him, it would not be out of place to plead with the federal government to get a special grant to construct the road from Auchi to Edo State capital.
He said: “For God’s sake, Edo State is in the news for the wrong reason; there is huge infrastructural decay; address them. Instead, you go and put a signboard and say this is federal government roads. What about the ones that are state roads, have you done anything to warrant applause from the people?”
“Have you impacted on the state road so that we can say that you have done all the internal roads and community roads such that we are happy with you?
“Why do I have to play politics with everything? If I am opportune to be the governor of Edo state today, I will go cap in hand to go and plead with the federal government and say that this is an APC State, we need to do this road, please give us with a special grant. If it is N20bn, let us fix the road between Auchi and Benin.
“Edo is a major artery to reach out to the North, South West and South East, so Edo state, is a state in transit, there is so much to this, and a lot of people do not connect with this, they need to understand that Edo State is divinely positioned as middle, the situation which earned it the term Midwest.”