In this interview with select Journalists Chief Daniel Eke, a renowned accountant and governorship aspirant in Abia state under control platform of the All Progress Congress, bares his mind on why he joined the 2023 governorship race.
Let's meet you sir
My name is chief Daniel Eke, I'm from Amaokwe Igbere in Bende Local Government of Abia . I was born and bred at Aba, precisely the ama moung part of Ngwa road.
I had my primary school education at Danfido school primary and my secondary School at Eziama High school Aba After my secondary School I worked for a world Bank funded project before I traveled to America where I studied accountancy. I have been a chartered accountant for over thirty years now and I have my own company Daniel Eke and associates in Washington DC area.
For how long have you been in politics?
Basically I wasn't involved in politics but I have been around politicians all my life. My friends have held several positions ranging from attorney general, commissioner, Governor, but because of what I have seen happening in Abia state, the mismanagement and lack of accountability made me to join the governorship contest on the All Progressive Congress platform to help remedy the state.
What will be your major area of focus if you get the ticket of party and eventually win the election?
There are many areas of focus. For example in the education sector where we have various issues in paying teachers, pensioners, and other workers. My take is that paying the people that work for you is not a big issue rather it is what you have to do. But here it's seen as an achievement.
We will focus on education and improve on it by making sure that teachers are paid on time.
We will look into the decay of infrastructures in school and ensure that the school environment is conducive for the students to learn.
What do you consider as a major challenge of the state?
Funding is one of those challenges, but we will look for a way to be judicious in using our funds so that we can go far with the little we have. We will also look for agencies to partner with to drive development in the state.
How do see Umuahia as the state capital?
I don't see why Abia shouldn't have a government house like other states. For whatever reason we don't. I was thinking that by now they would have finished what they started and we will have a befitting government house in the state, but nonetheless we will do our possible best to prioritize the building of government house for the state.
We will reignite Aba the commercial hub of the state as the Japan of Africa and if we can successful do that, then the internally generated revenue , that we will get will be used to develop the other areas of the state.We will do our possible best to reignite that enterprising spirit of our people because it will go a long way to help us.
We will commercialize filth and make it profitable. If there are filths anywhere we will turn it to money because we will enter into public private partnership with a renowned recycling plant company to come to Abia and take advantage of the heap of filth we have in Abia and make it commercially viable because filth is businesses these days.
How would reduce youth unemployment in the state if elected Governor?
We will be thinking outside the box. We will look at what is working and what has worked in other climes. Borrow them and them work here, look at India, they have turned knowledge into money. How do they do it they take the youth that are learned and retrain them in areas that are profitable.
For instance you know that computer engineering is the way forward now. Let's say you take orcle financial which is a software that powers a lot of financial system, payroll, employment, personnel management. It is so complicated that a lot of people didn't understand it. What the Indians did was that they trained their people in that area to offer services in Oracle financial system for the Western world. If you are facing any problem in Oracle financial system in the Western world you pick up phone and call, you might be thinking that you are talking to someone in America but you are actually taking to someone in India
How do they benefit from that. If you talk to someone in America you will pay fifty dollars per hour. But if you talk to someone in India you pay them 10 to 15 dollars per hour, but the Indians will be happy because that's a lot of money because if you pay someone in Nigeria 15 dollars per hour, you will be big man.
The Indians have built a knowledge industry and sold it to the world. That's the kind of things I want to do. I want to use skill acquisition such that we could focus on critical areas of need in the Western world and train our youths in those areas.with organized infrastructures they can source that knowledge in the Western world and make a good living still living in Nigeria.
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