By Lateef Ibrahim
Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the November 11 governorship election in Kogi State, Senator Dino Melaye has declared that with about fifty-two (52) mineral resources available in the state, it is too blessed to be poor.
Melaye said this on Friday during the formal submission of the report of the Policy Drafting Committee for Kogi State Governorship election at the party’s national Secretariat, in Abuja.
This is even as Melaye lamented that Kogi State accounts for the largest number of missing persons throughout the country.
Responding after the submission of the report by the committee headed by Professor Sam Amdi, the PDP gubernatorial candidate pointed out that among all the candidates and parties participating in the governorship election in Kogi State, only the PDP is working on a policy document.
Melaye maintained that Kogi State, which is also referred to as the ‘Confluence State’, has no reason, whatsoever to be poor, considering the abundant mineral resources that God has blessed the state with.
“Kogi is too blessed to be poor, i brought people from outside Nigeria who did a scientific research and gave me the mineral resources in Kogi State.
“We have 52 mineral resources in Kogi State out of which only one has been tapped, limestone. The rest are just there.
“We have Uranium, we have the largest deposit of Uranium in Nigeria in Kogi State. Yet we are participating in this market. We have others in commercial quantity”, he said.
Speaking on the issue of missing persons in the State, the erstwhile Senator, who represented Kogi West district in the National Assembly, said, “In the history of the state, we have the largest number of missing persons in Nigeria, even the PDP Chairman of Okene local government area, for four years, we are still looking for him.
“You can only imagine the number of missing persons in Kogi State, not to talk of those murdered in broad daylight. Two months ago 27 people were killed in Ejule in one day.
“This shows that we have a lot of work to do because the state has been completely bastardized, economy in shambles, hospitals are mere consulting clinics, no roads.
The great water works done by former Governor Ibrahim Idris, today it is eleven months, no water in Lokoja the state capital. That is the type of state we are going to inherit”, he stated.
The policy document, according to the Chairman of the Committee, Prof Amdi, consisted of over a hundred pages based on “hard work by members who are from different fields”.
The committee, he added, “ recommended that there must be an Independent Kogi Economic Development Commission and when he (Melaye) becomes the governor, we are insisting that the people that will constitute that committee should be above board and should have influence on the activities of the Governor.
“The commission should be independent of the Governor, it should be people with pedigree, integrity, so that where it is going wrong, he will be put right.”
