2023: How Hakeem Lawal plans to change trend of leadership in Kwara
…as he submits SDP governorship nomination form
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, one of the gubernatorial aspirants under the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Hakeem Oladimeji Lawal has promised to deliver dividends of democracy to Kwarans if elected.
The Governorship hopeful made the remarks on Monday at the Secretariat of Kwara State Chapter of the party after submitting his expression of interest form.
Lawal, who arrived at the Secretariat around 2 pm was welcomed amid thrills and gongs by party executives, faithful and well-wishers who had thronged down to witness the event.
Speaking to the newsmen, the Guber aspirant promised to deliver all-encompassing social services, infrastructural development and an enabling environment for youths and businesses to thrive.
In his own remarks, the Chairman of the party in the State, Abdulazeez Afolabi enjoined all the aspirants to come to terms amongst themselves and cautioned them against selfish interests.
The Chairman commended Honourable Lawal for his efforts toward stabilizing the party and wished him the best in his ambition.
Lawal, who intends to champion a tech-driven seized the moment to roll out some of his plans to the party faithful and donate a sum of N500,000 to the party executives alongside Computer and printing machines to ease administrative works at the party Secretariat.
Housing Policy
“There’s quite a lot of things to do. Our housing Policy is very important because many people try to develop of SMEs and MSMes and key to the development of the society is Housing” he noted.
He believes that businesses (small, medium and large) can’t be run without loans. While many loan companies need security to guarantee their investments ,he promised to drive a goverment where provision of housing will be private-sector-driven with government only providing shared capital.
“Our aims and intention are to build a 200 housing units in every month and by the end of the year we will be able to deliver about 2,400 housing units to our people” pledged the Guber hopeful.
Agriculture
“Our economic sector in the State is mainly Agrarian and we need to begin to look for how to re-engineer that- The whole of Kwara North is left idle. All of them are farmers and one of the major issues they have is infrastructure, so if we can open the road from Ilesha Baruba all the way to Bode-Saadu,Bacita and Patigi- it will help them to bring all the products in to town market” he said.
The astute financial expert espoused the idea of farm clusters to create a seamless value chain for Agricultural products with the purpose of harnessing the potential of each product.
He further outlined the idea of farm clusters where sparse land will be made available for farmers based on their speciality as a way of encouraging a direct chain of production that will involve technology in a bid to help reduce unemployment and aid productivity in society.
Education, Youth and Technology
The world is now driven by Technology and the UK-trained accountant believes shared the need to redefine the Education policy of the State in order to be in tune with the ideas of the fourth industrial revolution.
The fight for SDP Governorship ticket
Among many other aspirants that have thrown their hats into the ring to contest for the Governorship election under the same party are Engr. Sunday Adebayo Babalola, Khaleel Adebayo, Alhaji Tajudeen Abdulkadir Audu and Professor Oba Abdulraheem.
Which method should the party use to choose its flagbearer?
“It’s not for me to suggest; it’s left to the party to choose which method is best for us. What is left for us is to achieve success and whichever method they use is what we believe will bring us the success,” remarked Lawal when asked about his take on direct or indirect primaries.
Background
Lawal is one of the aggrieved politicians who left APC due to what they termed as ‘shortchanging’ and ‘sidelining’ of some party members by the administration of Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq.
“We worked for the emergence of the government but what was promised was never delivered. So some of us rejected the injustice and held that the promises must be fulfilled. We had to leave because of injustice”.
SDP as a party in the State is regarded by many Political onlookers as ‘Third Force’ who are keen to wrestle the power away from the present administration.
Who is Hakeem Oladimeji Lawal?
Hakeem is the son of the late Military Administrator of Ogun State and one-time civilian Governor of Kwara State, Rear Admiral Mohammed Alabi Lawal.
The famous Barewa college of Zaria alumnus is a financial expert, Chartered Accountant and Politician who has been nursing the ambition to govern Kwara State like his late father since the 2015 general elections.
