DELTA State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, has said that his administration was already building a vision plan that will span 50 years.
Uduaghan, in a lecture at the Business Hallmark Public Policy Forum Niger Delta: Beyond Resource Control, Burdens and realities of Transformation, in Asaba, said: “The vision to build a Delta State beyond oil, is a daunting one, but clearly conceived in anticipation of the day we will not depend on it entirely or the day oil will be one of the many other revenue streams of the state, not its only revenue stream.
“All over the world, feverish efforts are being made to end oil’s dominance of the energy basket. We will be foolish not to prepare for the end of the oil era.
“To prepare us for that day, this administration has been implementing systematic plans to protect the state from the shock by building infrastructure that will support diversification of the economy. Our infrastructure is both human and physical. We are in a hurry even though our vision spans a 50-year period. We believe that the thinking, planning, and implementation have to begin today.
“Our plan is simple – do that which we can with an abiding concern for the future. We leave when our time is up. When we hand over, it will be a state which others can build on because we had laid a solid foundation for its future, something that is sometimes difficult for our critics to understand.”