Kaduna state governorship aspirant under the opposition All Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Sulaiman Usman Hunkuyi, has outlined the course of economic decline, deficit budgeting, and underdevelopment across African countries, with Kaduna, a state in northwestern Nigeria, as a case study.
According to him, providing a flexible economy that favours both citizens and government should always be the priority, but instead, some Nigerian governors prefer to borrow from western countries to fund budgets for infrastructure, road construction, and other projects that have no meaningful impact on the growth of the economy or the welfare of citizens.
Hunkuyi stated this while presenting his plans and agenda for Kaduna state before a panel of the organised Nigerian labour Congress NLC at a public dialogue organised for governorship aspirants ahead of the 2023 general election in Kaduna on Monday, November 14, 2022.
Although the leadership of the NLC had earlier reiterated a commitment to the program and issued a brief, maintaining that the program is not a political gathering but a dialogue to understand the mandates of every aspirant, for such, every member of the union, from market women, traders, and hawkers to those in both the public and private sectors, will understand who and why to vote for a candidate.
However, in the course of answering questions from representatives of the textile sector, Hukuyi proffered solutions to internal revenue generation, founding states’ budgets, and developing a state and its citizens’ welfare without dehumanization, demolition, or threat to any life or business.
According to him, growing the agricultural sector, investing in entrepreneurship, initiating a train-the-trainee program, and partnering with the police and sister security agencies to ensure citizens and businesses are protected are key to making not only Kaduna heaven but the entire nation a better place.
This cannot be achieved without voters’ willingness to vote foe a government of inclusion and not a government by default by the 2023 general election, as we witnessed in the 2019 election in Kaduna, where there were about 4.1 million registered voters but only about 1.8 million votes, and about 800,000 voters refused to, a situation that helplessly returned a government by default. Hukunyi mentioned.
In my manifesto, security, the welfare of workers, education, and the health sector will be priorities. I will ensure to reinstall the sacked traditional leaders, and civil servants and revisit the school fee hike. He added
