Alaghodaro: We have redesigned Edo for growth – Obaseki

Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, has said that his administration has redesigned and re-engineered the state for social- economic and infrastructural growth.

Speaking during the 7th Alaghodaro Summit held in Benin City, the state capital, Obaseki said the process of shared opportunity that led Edo into the future started seven years ago during his first Alaghodaro Summit.

“In laying the foundation for the future, we identified seven areas which are, education, institutional reforms, economic, agriculture, manufacturing and production. All the things we set for ourselves in our first summit have been achieved”, the governor said.

“We are lucky that we took this step seven years ago in our first Alaghodaro Summit. What the country is facing now means we must go back to redesign and re-engineer the country for growth. We have 200 million people yearning for goods and services every day, but we don’t have the Foreign Exchange earnings to support the level of imports that we have seen over the years. We are paying the price of not being able to hold the value of our local currency.”

Governor Obaseki added that the key to changing the narrative as a country or state “is to encourage production”, saying, “70 percent of what we import into the country can be produced in Edo state.”

“So, if the government is redesigned to work with the private sector to have more productions going on in the country, then we would reduce the pressure on the foreign exchange, whether in educational or health service among other services.” Obaseki postulated.

He said there was no reason paying two to three billion dollars annually on school fee abroad, adding that that was the reason he and his predecessor in collaboration with the private sector established a university affiliated with schools in Europe and America, so that parents would not send their children out of the country for quality education.

“The future we see is to have the best educational institution where every child must have a skill, vocation by age 15 and a global source and destination for tech talents, health tourism among others. So, we just need as a state and country to focus on production, and the key to ensuring that we produce the thing we need is to train our people, ensuring our educational system is right and people have skills because the raw materials already exist and it is not rocketing science”, Obaseki said.