We’ll Pull 2.3m People Out of Poverty Bracket In 100 Days – Cole

I have come to speak to the people of Rivers State and let them know why tyranny must come to an end; why respect and dignity must rise to the top; why it is important that they vote for people who care about them and why it is critical that Rivers State begins to take its position again in the league of not just states but in the league of nations.
The world has become a much smaller place. Post-COVID, everything became connected and everyone began to notice that individuals matter just as much as nations matter. The ways we elect our leaders are critical. Those who represent us are important to us. We must be able to identify with them, touch them, feel them, hear them, and most importantly let them know that they have to care for us.
Gone are the days when election results are written; gone are the days when results are snatched; gone are the days when the bullet speaks. Today, the ballot box is speaking. And it’s the ballot box that we are interested in. It’s the votes that we are interested in; it’s the people we are interested in. It’s those who can think that we are interested in. I stand here to let the people of Rivers State know that they have seen someone who thinks, who cares and who is ready to represent them nationally, statewide and globally. God bless you.
Job Creation and Poverty Alleviation.
One of the hardest things that you can find is people coming out of poverty. It is very easy for people to fall into poverty. But it is extremely difficult for them to come out of poverty. The first thing we will do is to ensure that not one single person falls back into poverty. And how do you do this? The first thing is to identify what caused these people to fall into poverty. Is it lack of cash; lack of business opportunities; is there an overtaxing of the society and a people at a particular level? So, how do we deal with this?
The first aspect of it is to make sure that we have things like conditional cash transfer for the people who live at the bottom of the pyramid; market women, traders; those who are at the farmers, those who can very easily fall into poverty. You make sure that they never fall into poverty. That’s the first aspect of it.
Then you deal with the ones who have fallen into poverty and how do you bring them out of poverty? There are certain payments that they often make that draw the little monies that they have out of them. They live on a day-to-day subsistence level. You have to be able to ensure that the subsistence level that they live is tackled on a daily basis. You cannot afford to put them in any additional difficulty. I give an example. One of the hardest places that we are hit in Rivers State is in the area of flooding. Within a particular zone where we have the greatest number of farmers in the state, which is one of the biggest employment indices that we have, we have annual flooding. As long as those floods continue to attack the people of the area, they will never come out of poverty. We need to be able to address that.
The other segment is youth unemployment. Youth unemployment usually thrives where opportunities are lacking. In Rivers State we have a huge number of people leaving the state, businesses leaving the state. We need to be able to bring them to the state. I have been in business for most of my life. I understand what the indices are. The first aspect of it is peace and security. The second aspect of it is law and order. Once you create an enabling environment you begin to attract the businesses that have left this state back. You need to have people on the other side of the table that speak with them and understand them. That is what we will be doing. Thank you.
What will you do in the first 100 days to reduce the incidence of unemployment given the parameters you have mentioned?
To reduce poverty in the first hundred days, the first hundred days are very critical in how you want to do this. You have to have a coalition of what we call the coalition of the unlikely. It means that you are bringing together everybody regardless of what party they are, regardless of what leaning they are as long they believe in the development of Rivers State. What we intend to do first and foremost is to work on the blueprint to drive Rivers State forward. We will do that within the first 100 days.
Within the first hundred days we will be determined that we will bring 100,000 people from each of the local governments that we have into an employment segment that begins to see where their talents are and where we can move them forward. Once we can do that, once we can achieve that within the first 100 days or bring them into this bracket then we will be able to develop them out of the poverty bracket or unemployment bracket. That is what we are going to do.
On Multiple Taxation And Creating A Balance Between Improving Internally Generated Revenue and Creating A Better Environment For Businesses
Regarding multiple taxation, it has been proven the world over that where you do not have clarity of taxation, then the willingness to pay goes down. And when you don’t have the willingness to pay tax, then you have people who would begin to dodge tax. When you have people dodging tax, then you have a strong arm of the law coming down. When you have the strong arm of the law coming down, businesses flee. This means that the first problem is multiple taxation that is not clear.
What we then intend to do is to simplify the taxation process. What you do in that case is that you have a single point of entry that is extremely clear, very transparent and people can see exactly what they are paying for. Once people know that there is a simple form of taxation, not complicated but very simple form of taxation, then the willingness to pay increases. But then there is the scum part of it. People want to know that what they had paid for. Are they are actually getting a return for it, which means that the government that collects the tax must use that tax to work for the people.
How do you begin to work for the people? There are three ways. The first aspect of working for the people is making sure that there is a conducive environment that allows them to thrive, allows them to do what they are best suited to do. Where is your talent, where is your skill, and what are you doing as a government to provide that environment? Taxation money does that. Just prepare for that so that they can express themselves.
The second area is in the infrastructure that then allows them to do so. Once you give them the right infrastructure, whether it’s a theatre where they can go and express themselves, whether it’s in schools where they can go to learn what needs to be done, technology with fibre optics which enables technology to thrive. Once people can see that their money is working for them then the willingness to pay the taxation comes in. So, for us as a government, we want to simplify taxation such that we have one single point of entry for all tax matters, then that’s clear. People know exactly what they are paying for. Once you have been able to do that, the last part of taxation which is people trying to dodge taxes will be stemmed. But then there are consequences for dodging taxes.
There is a particular band of people that you should not bother to tax. The poor should not be taxed. So where you have the issue of people going out, harassing market women, collecting all sorts of taxation from them, that’s where you find there is a problem. Allow them. They do not need to be taxed. But then there is too high a taxation level and I have found out from life across the world that when you get to a particular level of tax band and the taxation is too high then those people who know what to do begin to bypass the tax bracket. We don’t want that either. So we need to simplify taxes for everyone to be willing to pay and be able to pay.
What is you plan and blueprint to reindustrialize Rivers State if elected Governor? And what decision would you take concerning the Monorail project?
Industrialisation is based on what sectors and what segments can bring forward. Rivers State has a peculiar problem. And that problem is that it’s a one-city state, where you have everything concentrated within the Port Harcourt region, leaving so many others out of the bracket of what can be done. So, the first aspect of it is that you need to be able to create, build industrial cities, industrial areas. So, one of the things that we have determined to do is to ensure that industrialization is decentralized from Port Harcourt, having industrialsation around technology, technology that works with logistics. We could prove that logistics is one of the fastest and highest growing areas that we can work on. So, new and technology hubs for industrialisation itself outside of Port Harcourt is one of the ways.
One thing that is to have a food basket in Rivers State that feed all and give food security and the industrialsation of the agricultural sector for post-farm processing and exportation are things that we must work on. So, that is the second area that we must deal with.
The third area has to do with the marine aspect of it. The entire riverine community of Rivers State has an industrial sector that has been left totally untapped.
So, you have agriculture, you have what we call the blue economy and lastly you have the technology space. We must be able to work on all three but decentralize it also out of Port Harcourt, where we already have an established space that we can work with. Port Harcourt will be revitalized because you have the infrastructure already in here. But you must diversify from Port Harcourt to make it work.
Monorail project is a project that we have to take a look at. This people already see that one of the problems that they have is that these are things that have been seen across board. In Lagos, the project worked. In Dubai, the project has worked. In Rivers State it did not work because a lot of money had been paid out and the contractors that collected the money did not end up doing anything. So, one of the things that we would do is that we must bring that project down unto the ground level. Rail has become one of the critical transportation successes of any government. You need to have mass transportation. And mass transportation is something that we will invest in.