Abia State government has pledged to tackle poverty in the rural areas through provision of infrastructure and information and communication technology , especially, internet services.
\nThe new Commissioner for Co-operatives, Poverty Alleviation and Rural Development, Chief Israel Amanze, who made the pledge shortly after taking charge of the ministry\u2019s affairs, also assured that the ministry would evolve rehabilitation programmes for commercial motorcyclists (Okada riders) whose operations government recently banned in the metropolitan local governments.
\nBeaming with smiles after receiving the handover note from the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Ojum Ekeoma Ogwo Amanze said in an interview with The Tide that the ministry was specifically created to find solutions to rural development and empowerment of the ruralites to alleviate poverty in the state.
\n\u201cWe can never neglect the rural areas because over 75 per cent of our people live there. So these are the people we need to touch their lives. It is this ministry that is encumbered with the responsibility of improving their lives by provision of rural infrastructure: rural roads, rural electricity, formation of cooperatives and maintenance of such structures and alleviation of poverty for our vulnerable groups. I feel this is the best time for us to make a mark in this area,\u201d the former Abia State Chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) said.
\n\u201cWe will try to do our best to cushion the effects of poverty, using government policies, through this ministry, to touch the lives of our people so that they will be positively influenced and positively motivated,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cSo, having come in as commissioner, I have already challenged the directors, we will find out immediately what we can do to alleviate poverty, to improve rural infrastructure and what we can do to improve the lives of our people in the rural areas. So it is a challenge and with the goodwill of His Excellency, Governor T.A.Orji (Ochendo) who has said he is interested in the people, he wants to move the people forward, we will succeed in doing that,\u201d he assured.
\n\u201cAs the dry season is coming, I want to see how we can galvanise ourselves to go into the field to see how we can improve rural infrastructure. I have also seen what is going on with our people who are Okada riders, we want to see how to alleviate their plight but it is something I want to discuss with His Excellency before I will know how we will go about it. But it is an area I want us to go into\u201d the commissioner added.
\nOn sensitising the populace on the programmes of his ministry, Amanze said that apart from using the media, the ministry \u201cwill also explore the possibilities of doing some rural internet services.\u201d He said plans were afoot to get those to install the facilities and link up the various rural communities and make the relevant in the new information age.
\nThe United Nations consultant said he was on a familiar terrain, having been participating in \u201crural empowerment.\u201d \u201cI have worked in the rural areas in farmers\u2019 emancipation and empowerment of the rural poor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abia State government has pledged to tackle poverty in the rural areas through provision of infrastructure and information and communication technology , especially, internet services. The new Commissioner for Co-operatives, Poverty Alleviation and Rural Development, Chief Israel Amanze, who made the pledge shortly after taking charge of the ministry\u2019s affairs, also assured that the ministry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}