The Kaduna State Commissioner for Budget and Planning and governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, Mohammed Sani-Dattijo, on Tuesday, launched a six-point blueprint agenda on how to move the state forward, come 2023.
Acknowledging that governing the state was not a child’s play, the governorship hopeful formally met officials of the party to express his intent to vie for the coveted seat in the state.
Dattijo is said to be Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s preferred candidate having worked with the governor since 2015 as Chief of Staff and Commissioner.
The commissioner is to slug it out with other APC aspirants such as Senator Uba Sani representing the Kaduna Central Senatorial district, as well as Dr. Mohammed Duruguwa of the National Population Commission.
While addressing party officials at the APC secretariat along Ali Akilu road in the state capital, Dattijo said serving in the state executive council since 2015 and briefly as Chief of Staff to the Governor gave him the opportunity to understudy and understand how governance works.
He noted that governing a state like Kaduna is not a child’s play, adding that “to be honest with you, our leader and the state governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, tried his best and raised the bar in terms of providing infrastructural development and good governance. That is why the state needs a credible person with competence to lead it in 2023.”
He cautioned the party against making a wrong choice, saying “we need to be careful in making a choice that whoever becomes the next governor is someone that is well-experienced and grounded educationally.”
Meanwhile, the governorship aspirant has launched a six-point blueprint agenda on how to govern the state after the tenure of incumbent governor Nasir El-Rufai.
Topmost on the agenda, according to him, is how to further secure the state, saying that to achieve this, he would involve “investing in people and technology, rural transformation by connecting rural economies to agriculture and solid minerals as well as urban infrastructure.”
Others are building a smarter technologically advanced state, investing in the people by investing in health, education and youth development and, lastly, attracting local and international finance for development by working with development partners across the globe to drive the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and ensure no demographic is left behind.
In the six-point-blueprint titled, ‘Moving forward together,’ Dattijo maintained that his ultimate goal is to make “Kaduna a state that is secured, works for everyone, creating an enabling environment for opportunities so that all our residents can thrive.”
The commissioner added that as a development practitioner, he knew all the development partners across the globe, adding that he was out to build a state that would be the start-up capital of the country.
“I know all the development partners. They are my colleagues and they will bring money to the state to develop Kaduna,” he said.
