The Gubernatorial Candidate of the Social Democratic Party, (SDP) in Kwara State, North Central Nigeria for the 2023 election, Alhaji Hakeem Lawal, has restated his commitment to restore the fortune of the state and bring it back to the path of progress and prosperity.
Lawal, while interacting with media executives and journalists in Ilorin, the state capital, disclosed that the dynamics of the present realities require that things must be done differently to get refreshing results to positively affect the lives of the people.
He stated that his three-point agenda of ’Infrastructural development’, ’Industrialization’ and ’Human capital development’ stands as the primary foundations on which he intends to build his administration if he is elected as the next Executive Governor of Kwara state.
Financial base
To secure a solid financial base for the state, the SDP candidate projected a revenue target of about N10 billion from the current N2billion Internally Generated Revenue, (IGR) of the State.
According to him, “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)”.
He stated that this will help the state accrue more revenue because consultants will only take a percentage of what they collect and that his administration will also improve staff welfare and reward excellent performance by civil servants.
“And when it comes to taxation, we realized that every single civil servant gets taxed, but the private sector doesn’t get taxed sufficiently. Why? This must be corrected.”
He stated that for education and human capital development, he will provide a solution for the people of the state. “It means we must 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 the Republic of Benin, Togo Ghana, etc.
Also speaking at the event, the Director-General (Operations) of the SDP Campaign Council, Architect Kale Belgore, emphasized that the party remained the only credible alternative for Kwarans in the present circumstances.
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. We are lucky to have Akeem Lawal and the party took the right decision to field him because he was born and bred in Ilorin and a proud son of Kwara.”
The SDP Gubernatorial candidate, Akeem Lawal is the son of the late Governor of Kwara State, Admiral Mohammed Lawal.
Olusola Akintonde
