"APC is growing and deepening its acceptability among the people"- Gov. Lalong

TALKING POINTS FOR H.E. RT. HON. (DR) SIMON BAKO LALONG, KSGG AT THE PLATEAU STATE APC STAKEHOLDERS MEETING HELD AT ON 27TH JANUARY 2020.

PROTOCOLS

1. I welcome you to this family meeting of our great party, the All Progressives Congress in Plateau State.

2. Let me first wish us all a happy new year and pray that this year will be a great year for our State, our people and our great party the APC.

3. The last time we met here, we had fruitful discussions and also fashioned out strategies on how to secure victory at the bye-election for the Southern Senatorial Seat.

4. To the glory of God, the commitment and hardwork of our party leadership and members, as well as the support of the electorate, the APC emerged victorious by defeating our opponents with a clear margin.

5. Let me therefore congratulate our brand new Senator, Distinguished Senator (Professor) Nora Dadu’ut on this well-deserved victory and for being the first woman from Plateau State and one of the few in the country to seat in the Red Chambers of the National Assembly.

6. I also thank and congratulate the party leadership led by Chief Letep Dabang and the Campaign Council led by Senator Victor Lar as well as all our party structure throughout the Southern Zone who mobilised our people to victory.

7. This is evidence that our party the APC is growing and deepening its acceptability among the people of Plateau State. We have to continue to build on this trajectory.

8.  As an APC led Government, our administration has continued to implement the blueprint of our party despite the harsh economic realities that came up as a result of the Corona virus pandemic and economic recession.

9. Our three point policy of peace security and good governance, infrastructural development and sustainable economic rebirth is very much on course.

10. We have continued to complete abandoned projects that we inherited as well as those we initiated across the State. These cut across health, education, security, infrastructure, social development and the economy. 

11. In health for instance, the abandoned hospitals in Riyom, Kanke, Mabudi are almost completed while ongoing ones including the Lalong Legacy Projects are at various stages of completion. We are building a Teaching Hospital in Shendam to serve the new faculty of health sciences soon to take off at the Plateau State University Bokkos.

12. Apart from establishing the Plateau Contributory Health Insurance Scheme, we recently recruited more health workers including doctors to ensure that our people get access to quality, affordable and timely healthcare.

13. The same is happening in the education sector where we are building and upgrading more schools both under the legacy projects, SUBEB and SDGs. Our tertiary institutions are also receiving attention as we are making them better. 

14. Apart from providing funds for on-going road projects, we recently re-awarded contracts for Tahoss/Ganawuri road, Mangu by-pass road, Shinkwan/Tunkus/ Shendam bye pass road as well as the rehabilitation of Kwande Byen-Byen Road.

15. In the area of security, we have commenced the implementation of the Community Policing with the training and deployment of the first batch of 592 constables. We have reinvigorated the Operation Rainbow and also provided more support to security agencies for better performance.

16. To address the ugly cases of kidnapping, land grabbing, cultism and other violent crimes, we passed and signed into law the bill that provides death sentence for anyone convicted of kidnapping in Plateau State. We are waiting to make an example and I am ready to sign the death warrant for anyone convicted.

17. We have equally pushed on with our human capital development initiative to train, empower and re-orientate our citizens towards entrepreneurship, job creation and independence. Thousands of youths and women have been trained and empowered by PLASMIDA with support from the ITF on various skills.

18. We have kept faith with the regular payment of salaries despite the economic crunch and have also gone ahead to implement the new minimum wage for workers. 

19. We are taking a bold and historic step to settle the issue of pension, gratuity, death benefits and other liabilities of our retired civil servants through a partnership with some financial institutions. This we hope to implement with the issuance of promissory notes to willing beneficiaries. Of course when the discussions are concluded, the initiative will be totally voluntary and there will be no compulsion.

20. I have taken time to highlight these among many of our achievements because of the propaganda by our detractors and the opposition who are bent on discrediting our good work. As members of the APC, it is our collective responsibility to project our achievements wherever we find ourselves.

21. As we set out to revalidate and register more members into our party, we should realise that it is our works that we speak for us and that our opponents will naturally stage their propaganda to try to dissuade people from registering. The people of Plateau State know where we took over from the PDP and the difference we have made. There is substantial peace and more visitors and investors are coming into the State.

22.  We have to consolidate on these gains and draw in more people into our party during this exercise. Let us not allow our individual interests and ambitions to interfere with the process as clear guidelines have been set out by the national leadership of our party for a smooth exercise. 

23. As stakeholders, we must show good conduct and lead by example to deny out opponents any window of distraction.

24. I wish to draw our attention to the ravaging impact of Covid 19 particularly in this second wave. As at today, we have lost about 53 people to the disease in Plateau State including VIPs. Myself, the Party Chairman and many of us seated here are victims who were lucky to survive. 

25. Let us please talk to our followers to observe the protocols and also show an example to them. The rate of infection is growing and we cannot afford another lockdown.

26. Finally, I wish to commend some of our members who got appointed into various positions at the Federal and pray that more of those appointments will come. 

27. Thank you and God bless Plateau State and our great party, the APC.

Rt. Hon. (Dr) Simon Bako Lalong, KSGG

Executive Governor, Plateau State.

27th January 2021.