Wole Adedeji, Ilorin
The All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Kwara State, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has vowed to repeal the former governors’ pensions law in the state if elected on March 9.
The law grants former governors full salaries, allowances and other entitlements, including mansions in Ilorin, Abuja and Lagos as well as changing their official cars every two years.
The law was made while Dr. Bukola Saraki was the governor. He and his Deputy, Chief Joel Ogundeji are the first beneficiaries of the law.
Abdulrazaq, however, pleaded with the people to vote for APC House of Assembly members in the March 9 elections so that it would be possible to repeal the law when he gets to the office.
“We need to change some terrible laws. We’ll repeal that obnoxious pension law when we get to office,” AbdulRazaq said during his campaign tour of Omu Aran and Pategi in Kwara South and Kwara North respectively.
“It’s a privilege to become governor of a state. It is dubious for anyone to become governor and then earn a pension more than people who served the state for their entire lives.
“We can’t take that anymore. But we need enough lawmakers to push through the repeal of this offensive law,” he said.
He also said that unlike the present government, his administration would not discriminate against anyone but be fair to all segments of the state.
“Our government won’t discriminate against any section of Kwara. We’ll share jobs and appointments fairly,” AbdulRazaq said at the palace of Alofa of Oloffa, Oba Samuel Dada where several traditional rulers in the region met him.
He urged Kwarans to give him a chance to serve them, promising that he would open up rural areas for developments to boost investments in agriculture, agro-processing factories, employment for youths and halt rural-urban exodus.
He also pledged to rebuild public schools and hospitals, strengthen entrepreneurship and small scale businesses in a bid to boost internal generated revenues.
AbdulRazaq also pledged to accord utmost respect to the traditional institutions and ensure that local government areas are allowed to serve the grassroots.
“But to do this, we urge you to vote for APC. We don’t want to be in the opposition in Kwara. We have a lot of great programmes for our people. Importantly, we won’t disrespect our traditional institutions. We will honour our royal fathers.
“We’ve had enough of bad governance and the bleeding of public resources. O to ge. Let’s try something new and different. Our opponents have run out of ideas. We’ll bring development.
“We’ll take special interest in the security of lives and properties. At the moment, there’s hardly any functional bank from Ekiti to Offa.
“Where there’s no banking institution, development will be hard whether you are into saw mailing or agriculture,” he added.
