7th Anniversary: We have redesigned, reengineered Edo for growth – Obaseki

Gov. Godwin Obaseki of Edo on Friday said his administration had redesigned and re-engineered the state for social, economic and infrastructural growth, to compete with any state.

Obaseki, who disclosed this during the 7th Alaghodaro Summit in Benin, said the process of shared opportunity that would lead Edo into the future started seven years ago during his first Alaghodaro Summit.

He said “in laying the foundation for the future, we identified seven areas, which are in education, institutional reforms, economy, investment, agriculture, manufacturing and production.

“All the promises we made and the target we set for ourselves in our first summit have been achieved,” he said.

The governor explained that with the challenges Nigeria was facing today, the Federal Government must redesign and reengineer the country for the country to experience growth and move the nation forward.

“We are lucky that we took this step seven years ago in our first Alaghodaro summit.

“We have 200 million people yearning for good and services every day but we do not have the foreign exchange earning to support the level of import that we have seen over the years.

“We are paying the price of not being able to hold the value of our local currency.

“Changing the narrative as a country or state is to encourage production, because 70 per cent of what we import into the country can be produced in Edo State.

“So if 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,” he added.

Obaseki explained that there was no reason paying two to three billion dollars annually on school fees abroad, saying that it was the reason himself and his predecessor established “an excellent university affiliated with schools in Europe and America.

“The future we see is to have the best educational institution where every child must have a vocational skill by age 15 and a global source and destination for tech talents, health tourism among others.”

Earlier, the summit Chairman, Asuen Ighodalo, said it was organised to showcase the progress recorded in transforming the state into an investment haven.

He stated that the Alaghodaro Summit was a platform for interaction with business people to exchange ideas that could move the state forward.