By Olufemi Oni, Ilorin

The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara state, Alhaji Abdullahi Shuaib Yarman, has promised to revamp the economy of the state if given the mandate by the electorate in 2023 and make the state less reliant on the monthly federal allocation.

Yarnan, who was fielding questions on Tuesday in Ilorin from journalists at the ‘Newskeg’ programme of the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kwara state Council, , said the state is richly endowed with enough resources to create clusters of production for aggressive and productive youths in the state, adding that from this the state could exact some taxes to be ploughed into the social infrastructure part of governance like education, health and social security.

He said: “It is not enough to go to Abuja every month to collect monthly allocation to bring and spend in Kwara.

“A governor is elected to create more money from what is given to him; he is expected to be creative and not to borrow recklessly in such a manner as to plunge future generations in debt.”

Speaking further, the governorship candidate lamented over the alleged huge debt incurred by the state under the current administration of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.

“As we speak, Kwara state is indebted to an amount in excess of N100 billion and we service debt by as much as N1.3 billion per month,” accusing the APC administration of not thinking outside the box.

Giving an inkling as to his plans if elected governor, the PDP candidate opined that with the abundance of natural resources and existing infrastructure like state cargo airport, nothing would stop the country from exporting cotton which can be grown in the Kaiama axis of the state.

“As a matter of fact, that area has same soil that can grow cotton, flower and many other products that can be exported via our cargo airport in Ilorin.

“There are only four airports in the country that has the quality of runaway we have on our airport, ” he added.

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