The need to continuously find a synergy between politics and business for the overall development of the country was again on the front burner, as Senator Ifeanyi Uba hosted businessman and philanthropist Festus Mbisiogu in his Abuja home yesterday.
Mbisiogu, who is Chairman of both Blue Diamond Logistics, China and Shanghai Engineering Works and Industrial Ltd, was in Abuja on a business trip, but took out time to pay a courtesy visit on the Senator from Anambra State, whom he said has been able to bring his wealth of experience in business to bear positively on lawmaker and nation-building.
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The meeting discussed sundry national issues, with particular emphasis on the welfare and development of the South East geopolitical zone.
Sen. Uba, a billionaire businessman-turned politician, noted that his “passion is to make Anambra look like China in terms of industrialization”, and that is what drove him into politics ab initio.
According to him, to achieve positive change and meaningful economic development, you oftentimes need political power.
Uba narrated how his visit to China opened his eyes to the ideology of how the Chinese were able to create employment for their teaming population.
The Senator described the current security situation in the south east as a disaster, noting that the negative impact of what is going, if not well handled, and urgently too, would ultimately cripple the entire south east zone economically.
According to him, such an economic setback could take the zone more than a decade to recover from.
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He encouraged Mbisiogu to continue with his good work of creating employment for the youth and people of Imo State and Nigeria in general. He also gave the Shanghai Engineering boss kudos for his ground breaking philanthropic efforts with his Uzotex Foundation. His words:
“if few elite in the south east zone can do what you are doing, that will surely reduce unemployment, create gainful job opportunities and, in turn, reduce crime and general restiveness in the South East zone”.
On his part, Mbisiogu applauded the lawmaker for his doggedness and passion for the South East zone especially, Anambra state, where he not only contested the recent governorship election, but also decided to make the sacrifice of immediately congratulating the eventual winner, Chukwuma Soludo, rather than stoke up tension by going to court to challenge the victory.
Mbisiogu further recalled how Sen. Ubah had responded to so many challenges facing the Igbo traders in various markets, especially in Lagos, urging him not to give up on the struggle. For according to the Blue Diamond boss, “it is for cases like this that as that God elevated you to this position of Senator”.
Making reference to the scriptures, Mbisiogu likened Sen. Uba to the biblical Esther whom God elevated Esther, to enable her use her position to save the Jews.