“Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every
defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear
of God,” 2 Corinthians 7:1.
Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State is now doing well. One unique
thing we have observed about him in recent times is that he has a
listening ear, unlike his once posturing of a diehard. His projects in the
areas of education, health care, security, urban renewal and provision of
infrastructure are meeting his talk, not that he has done very well, and we
hope they fully meet their destinations.
What Amaechi calls “my covenant with God” should help him and be his
guiding rules to governance. He should always remember this covenant that
he would serve the public without any reservation while praying concerning
his objective to be governor in 2007. For this reason, perhaps, was why
some of his projects are people-oriented. And he should make sure that the
ones that are not completed are completed.
This is the time Amaechi should begin to take stock whether his
administration was able to meet this covenant with his God or not. Because,
it is not always about being out of all proportion striving about projects
execution, but about the many that were really executed. However, it is not
easy for a government to operate under a hash economy as all the world
businesses are facing difficult time since the event that characterized the
economic recession. So, it is imperative that Amaechi should look at the
financial framework of his government if it is in consonance with the
economic reality of today and hence face the reality that are pro-poor and
pro-society and eschew others. Government is not all about spending too
much money to fund people’s responsibilities, but about the economic aspect
why the money was spent.
We thank him for his choice of promise to reduce the pains that parents
feel in the state on education by making sure that every child has the
opportunity to acquire education. But he should also check if the children
are really going to school and if their parents are not suffering the same
pains. We knew that he had seen and known pains when he was in the school,
and we advise that he should not be far from the people.
Amaechi should in earnest send out genuine people to find out if our Rivers
people are really appreciative of what he is doing, because it is hard you
read people praising his government again, unlike what they exhibited
during his first term as governor, perhaps thinking that he would share
money.
Is it because he does not share money that the yesmen outside the corridors
of his power once praising him disappeared? Notwithstanding, how long has
the people’s expression of sensation of Amaechi’s government been heard?
There is a painstaking of people in his first tenure saying that why was
Amaechi campaigning for a second term when they believed that his
government programmes had touched lives. Therefore, we appeal that he
should check today if he is given a third term whether the people will say
the same.
Moreover, why did the branding project for Rivers State which was Amaechi’s
idea stopped? Have people outside the state killed their unenthusiastic
discernment about the state? Are investors no longer afraid to come into
the state? Is their confidence about our state rebuilt? Amaechi was once
afraid that the consciousness of the residents of Rivers State had been
assaulted, and believed that the residents even run for their dear lives
even on hearing the sound of fireworks. Thus, the governor was getting
people to participate in this branding project through his agents, but
quite unfortunate, the branding project has gone oblivion.
The branding project was not supposed to stop, because we need the branding
project ambassadors than we need to remind the governor of the ills around.
Things like this are supposed to live beyond their pioneers. The people who
will attend the schools and hospitals he is building need this awareness to
rejuvenate their minds. But, it is unfortunate. There is no how the
government will be above the ground without, for a while, touching on those
things and areas that put people’s hope on him. What about the town hall
meeting with the different towns and villages that Amaechi was organizing
and holding with the people? Let him not see it that a lot of the work had
been done, whereas some people could be murmuring, but had no voice of
their own to say what was on their minds.
Has Rivers State under Amaechi really got any change? We know this
government as a government that has told the residents of the residual
change it intended. Everybody between 2007-2011 was talking about ‘change’.
Have we seen the “Change We Can See”? which was the slogan of Amaechi’s
governorship election campaign in 2011. Who is today talking about the
government and the projects because we knew that during the 2011 elections
there was a division of labour where the campaign job was separated from
the job of the state’s Ministry of Information. Does the campaign team
remind the governor of the promises he made during that period that might
not have been fulfilled, or did it dissolved as soon as Amaechi was
announced the winner of the 2011 gubernatorial election in Rivers State? If
that team no longer exists, it is haughty.
Amaechi should always have a genuine story to tell on the jobs he has done,
and should not be thinking that he has changed the countenance of Rivers
State therefore he should relax. No. He should think deeply if he has
authentically changed the face of governance in Rivers, and where the state
will be when he steps down. He should not feel relaxed, because it is not
yet uhuru.
This is the time he should work assiduously for the judge called posterity
to pass its verdict when tomorrow comes. He should strengthen himself more
and serve the people, because they have no other eyes and ears than him. He
should also allow people to participate in the governance if he believes
that democracy is government of the people, by the people, and for the
people, because of the covenant he said that he had with his God.
We wish him the best.
