ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi
No fewer than 1,549 out of every 100,000 women in Bauchi State die during childbirth, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the state, Air Marshal Saddique Abubakar (rtd), has said.
He stated this during an interacting with journalists in Bauchi, on the heels of his victory at the keenly contested primary election in which he polled a total of 370 votes to defeat six other aspirants,
Abubakar, the immediate past Chief of Air Staff, who also lamented the high rate of out-of-school children in the state pointed out that only 29.9 percent of young people attend school in the state.
The governorship aspirant said he was worried about the teeming jobless youths in the state, “a platform must be created for all of them to be engaged.”
He vowed to change the situation of things particularly in the health and education sectors in the state, saying that all hands must be on deck for that to be achieved.
“I want to assure members of the All Progressives Congress that all that we are going to do, we will involve everybody. The problems we are facing in our society today are problems you cannot solve as an individual or just as a government.
“We need the involvement of the people, you need to really teach out and make sure that everybody is able to put in some ideas as to how to resolve some of this serious problems.
“Health is an issue, we have quite a number of women that are dying, 1,549 women for every 100,000 births, die because of issues that are related to health facilities, the absence of adequate support for them. This is no small loss that our state is making and I believe that everyone must be committed just as we are to changing the narrative and protect the lives of our women,” he declared.
He added that: “We have problems with the education which is a very serious one, 1.4 million out-of-school children that are all looking up to us to see how we can provide the required leadership that will get them back into their classes.
“If you look at even the attendance, the people attending schools, we have only 29.9 percent of students that are attending school for various reasons. These are very serious issues that we will sit together and put all hands on deck so we can find solutions to that.
“Our youths, teeming population that require support, they are at the stage of their lives that they have all the energy they require but unfortunately, we need to create a platform where we can channel that energy for the benefit of society.
“We are looking at all these and in due course, we will come out with a more comprehensive reform agenda that will address all these fundamentals issues, some of which I’ve just mentioned.”
While expressing gratitude to the leadership of the APC and the party’s electoral committee for creating the enabling environment for a hitch-free exercise, he thanked the delegates for finding him worthy to be given the ticket of the party.
He said: “We want thank Allah who has made it possible for us to be able to conduct the entire exercise very peacefully and that everything went well, nobody lost his/her life and nobody was injured. The entire process was transparently aired for everyone to see.
“I want to also commend other aspirants for their sportsmanship spirit that they demonstrated. We are all brothers, we came out to add value to our society to ensure that we get our people an environment that will enable them to pursue their legitimate aspirations. I believe that was what informed the decision of all us to come out and contest for the governorship ticket.
“I’m very happy with the relationship and I want to assure you that we will work together as a family, work together hand-in-hand in order to ensure that we are able to address the fundamental problems that are facing out people here in Bauchi state.”
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