Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has declared that it is time to focus on citizens’ welfare and politics.
Wike explained that his administration, having invested in physical infrastructure, which, according to him, is expected to bring economic growth and engender socio-economic development, it was necessary to pay attention to the people, adding that his works have been attracting investors to the state.
The governor said: “Now that we have done virtually everything we have promised Rivers people, this is the time now we have to play politics of stomach infrastructure.
The governor who has held the state in a choking power grip in the past 7 years, has only 15 months within which to deliver any welfare dividends to despairing citizens of the state who have endured poor governance delivered by a succession of governors since the return to democratic rule in 1999.
The state has currently the highest unemployment figures of 43percent among the states in the oil bearing Niger Delta
Wike has been largely faulted for running an administration where he functions as an emperor, his word is law and the needs of the most disadvantaged among them women, youth persons with disabilities and more are not given priority as expected under democratic governance. Citizens have been reduced to mere onlookers in the affairs of the state.
With a pliant State House of Assembly filled with his cronies and persons who represent themselves and possibly political godfathers only, Rivers state has failed monumentally to prioritise the needs of the millions of ordinary citizens who are indigenes, as well as persons who live and work in the state.
The soot suffused air in the state is more intense now with sceptical citizens waiting to see how the governor delivers his casually flung promise of ‘stomach infrastructure’ in the 15 months left of his administration, which comes to an end in May, 2023.
