Alaghodaro isn't economic team, but NGO—Ighodalo

Candidate of Peoples Democratic Party in Saturday September 21st governorship election, Asue Ighodalo has clarified that Alaghodaro summit group is not economic team of Governor Godwin Obaseki-led government, but a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), contrary to speculations that Alaghodaro is economic the State’s ‘economic think-tank’.

Ighodalo who cleared the myth surrounding the NGO’s operational protocol, but did not reveal the pay package for unnamed non-state actors and members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) behind the NGO, which has being behind the ruling government over the past seven years in the State.

Speaking during a pidgin English radio interview on Tuesday morning in Benin, Ighodalo said Alaghodaro, which connotes progress in Edo language, was put together by private sector NGO where Chief Executive officers in businesses interrogate, think through, and tweak the State government policies where and when necessary in the State.

“Let me take time to explain certain things to you. Alaghodaro is a private sector Organization like NGO. It’s a private sector NGO. Our task is not that of economic team that Oshiomhole had or in Presidency. That one is different.

“Our responsibility is to sit with the Governor and his Advisers in Government from time to time. We are not Obaseki’s Advisers.

“But our duty is to engage the government Advisers and Commissioners as well as other Stakeholders to review government policies. Think through them and make recommendations to the government where necessary”.

“Every year, we (Alaghodaro) holds summit where businesses Executives and CEOs across Nigeria are brought into the State to take a look at what the State has done. And what the government is doing. We bring our own ideas and they bring their own ideas together”, he said.

The PDP Candidate who was the chairman of the annual Alaghodaro summit explained that strings of businesses and investments in some parts of the State, including Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of the State are among the bye product of Alaghodaro summit.

He also denied any link with a Planwell ponzi Scheme, now defunct, after some Nigerians in Edo State lost their life savings over the past 30 years without compensation.