The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Bauchi State, Air Marshall Saddique Abubakar, has lamented the high maternal mortality and morbidity rate in the state, alleging that 1,549 women out of every 100,000 births die during childbirth.

The former Chief of Air Staff stated this while interacting with journalists in Bauchi.

Abubakar had been declared the winner of a keenly contested primary after he polled a total of 370 votes to defeat six other aspirants.

He also lamented the high rate of out-of-school children in the state, pointing out that only 29.9 percent of young people attended school in the state, adding that he was worried about the teeming jobless youths in the state, “a platform must be created for all of them to be engaged.”

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Speaking on what he intends to do to change the situation, the former Air Chief said, “I want to assure members of the All Progressives Congress that in 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 and make sure that everybody is able to put in some ideas as to how to resolve some of these 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 protecting the lives of our women.

“We have problems with 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, a teeming population that require support, 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 fundamental issues, some of which I’ve just mentioned.”

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Abubakar, who expressed gratitude to the leadership of the APC and the party’s electoral committee for creating the enabling environment for a hitch-free exercise, also thanked the delegates for finding him worthy to be given the ticket of the party.

“We want to 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 of 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 to ensure that we are able to address the fundamental problems that are facing our people here in Bauchi state,” he assured.