Mike Odiegwu, Port Harcourt
A former agitator and founder of the Network for the Defense of Democracy and Good Governance (NDDGG), High Chief Soboma Jackrich, has faulted Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike on the state’s unemployment rate released by the National Bureau of Statistics ( NBS).
The NBS, in its recent publication, categorised Rivers as the top three states with the highest unemployment rate in Nigeria.
But the Governor described the report of the NBS as fake and political, insisting his government had provided about 100,000 jobs.
But Jackrich differed, saying since the inception of Wike’s administration in 2015, there had not been the employment of civil servants, promotion of civil servants, and payment of pensioners and gratuities.
He said: “The only jobs Rivers citizens have benefited under him are menial jobs of daily pay for our youths; task force jobs which have turned our youths to touts; and all state-owned enterprises which were hitherto functional before now are grounded and not revived and no new investments in place that would create employment for Rivers people.
“This accounts for the senseless wave of crime among our youths owing partly to the treacherous ‘use and dump’ politics we play in Rivers state.
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“Our governor may need to learn from our neighboring Akwa Ibom and Cross River states that have respectively floated a successful Airline with fleet and several industries creating innovative jobs for their people.
“We have a multi-billion dollar NLNG Train seven project about taking off in Rivers State and the state has the opportunity to train our youths in strategic skill areas to qualify them and make them relevant for the very high paid project with the potentiality of creating up to thousands of jobs”.
Jackrich urged Wike to put on his thinking cap and allow innovation to thrive in the state because “everything is not and must not be about politics”.
“While we advise the Governor to look out for innovative solutions and support to address our teething problems, NDDGG and its partners offer our wealth of innovative network to help the Wike government on request at no cost if need be in specific areas, to help Rivers state succeed better than its past for the next three years because we are already making huge contributions in our own way as a patriotic organisation in our various communities”.
