2023 Election: Gobir Mapped-Out Plan To Rescues Kwarans Out Of Poverty

The governorship candidate for Young Progressive Party, YPP, in Kwara State, Mallam Yakub Gobir on Wednesday mapped out his plans on how to rescue the people of the state.

Mr Gobir made this known during an interactive session with journalists at his home residence in Ilorin, Kwara state capital.

According to him “My name is Yakub Gobir, a name that is associated with the highest standard of excellence, I came from a lineage of people that have dedicated their lives to selfless service to Kwara and Nigeria.

“I am a pharmacist by profession, I graduated at the age of 19 from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna state. A serial entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience in the private sector, such as the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare, marketing, distribution and logistics.

“I have toured around the world and schooled in the best institutions, including Harvard Business school.

“I have used every resource at my disposal to uplift as many Kwarans as I can out of poverty through my foundation, Gobir organization foundation.

“Imagine how much more I will be able to do with the backing of legitimate government with the resources of the state. We will be able to improve the lives of so many more than what we are currently doing.

“I am in the race for governorship because I believe Kwara deserve a leader who can give them better than average performance and I believe with the support of Kwarans and electorate I will be the next governor of the state.

Responding to questions on the debt profile of the state and his plans, Gobir said “of what benefits are those projects attached to loans assessed to poor masses wallowing in poverty, visual art centre, the bridge at Tanke when a large part of Kaiama, Baruten, Edu, Moro and Kwara south where food is being grown and people can not access their farms due to bad roads can be fixed and create employment and wealth through agriculture.

“I don’t have a problem with borrowing but I believe It should be attached to projects that are capable of creating wealth and employment for the teeming youth, rather than misplace priority projects.

On how to tackle poverty, Gobir said “the good thing is that since the last election in 2019, I did not run away, I stay on and carried out research on how to address poverty through our foundation, and this led to how greatly I have invested in small scale enterprises, especially among trader women in the state.

“We have been doing micro-lending without interest, #10, 000, #20,000 up to #50,000.

“The good thing about the initiative was that we started scientifically by first carrying out research on our beneficiaries by studying their businesses,

“Embarked on the initiative in a scientifically way, by firstly studying the business those women doing, before lending, we went ahead to look at their capital, turnover and open an account for them in Zenith and FCMB Banks and disburse to them through account and it has been successful.

‘We will continue to do this and introduce more packages when we get to government.

“Poverty and unemployment are the two major problems in the land, and there is one misconception that Kwara is a civil servant state, let’s look at it this way, we have a population of roughly 3 million people.

Let’s say half of them are of employment age, how many of them are civil servants? I don’t think it’s more than 100,000 so that is a very small percentage of the employable population in the state, what are the remaining ones doing?

“You need to think of the blue ocean, think outside of the box. A serious government should think of what the remaining larger population, not civil servants should be engaged in, let’s take agriculture for instance, in the Gobir organization foundation we are in partnership with CSO in the state to do needs assessment across 193 wards, 16 LGAs.

“We are focusing on the needs of people, such as water, electricity, health, and roads with more interest in rural communities because most of the rural communities where farming is taking place are not accessible due to bad roads.

“Moreover, these communities need healthcare facilities, schools for their children and other basic amenities because if we want to make agriculture attractive to young and able body people, we need to make living in rural communities pleasurable and safe.

“That is what we are hoping to get from the needs assessment initiative we are doing across the 16 LGAs in the state.

“We have a well-mapped-out plan to engage our teeming youth and make them wealth creators through agriculture and other sectors.

Speaking on the popularity of YPP in the state, Gobir said “We are not social media politicians, our strategy is about connecting with the masses and real voters at the grassroots with our solid structure across 193 wards, 16 LGAs and state exco.

The governorship candidate also announced his running mate to be Hon. Bolujoko George, from the Ifelodun local area of the state.