2023 Guber Race: Tackling Insecurity, Poverty, Unemployment My Priorities – Sen Enoh

• Demands right of first refusal
• Says I’m APC’s best option to win, retain C-River

BY COBHAM NSA – An All Progressives Congress (APC) Governorship aspirant in Cross River State, Senator John Owan Enoh says tackling insecurity, poverty, and unemployment will be his administration’s cardinal agenda given the opportunity as the elected governor come 2023.

This is as he maintained that the APC should naturally offer him the right of first refusal as its gubernatorial flag bearer in the 2019 general elections and the best option to win and retain the State at next year’s polls.

Addressing members of the Cross River State Journalists Forum (CROSSJOF) in Abuja, Senator Enoh said his aspiration is borne out of the desire to offer selfless service toward socio-economic development and growth that will give the State a new lease of life.

Senator Enoh, a third-time House of Representatives member (2003 -2011) and Senator representing the Cross River Central Senatorial District in the 8th Senate, said as an elected governor, the State’s economic fortunes will drastically improve through aggressive policies of job creation, employment generation and poverty alleviation for the teeming youth population.

He also said in addressing the biting poverty across the State, serious attention would be paid to issues of diminishing household income, worrying security challenges, kidnapping, ritual killings, and communal crisis, adding that as the ‘most accessible’ politician in Cross River today, he is committed to providing visionary leadership to move the state forward.

According to him, Cross Riverians are daily confronted with shrinking opportunities and desperately in need of jobs”, adding that job creation and employment generation shall be among the cardinal priorities of his administration when elected as the governor.

“The jobs are needed to support households, put food on the table, and have money in the pocket. Within the first one hundred days of my administration, I will introduce several quick-win programmes with the aim of creating immediate and sustainable jobs in different sectors across the state”, he promised.

On the contentious zoning arrangement, the governorship aspirant said aside from the APC not having zoning in its constitution, after 24 years of democracy where all the three senatorial districts have taken their eight years at governing the State, no one zone can claim that it will suffer injustice if arrangements for the next round begins from any of the senatorial districts.

Senator Enoh, who urged the State ruling party to tread with caution on the zoning issue, said the APC will be positioning itself on the pathway to victory in 2023 by fielding a candidate who is not only competitive but also generally acceptable across the 18 Local Government Areas of the State.

While also acknowledging that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) still remains very formidable in the state despite Governor Ben Ayade’s defection to APC, the former lawmaker said recent political developments clearly indicate that in Cross River State, “We have a government that is APC but we do not have a people that are APC at heart yet.”

He also explained that with APC being most competitive in the Central Senatorial district than the Southern or Northern zones, his candidature presents the most attractive option for the party to win the election and retain the Cross River Government House come 2023.

“The most important agenda for APC is to win the governorship election in 2023 for the state to remain an APC state,” Enoh said, warning that ignoring his competitive and attractive candidacy would be risky with the party priming itself for electoral defeat.