Mike Wabali
The handlers of the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, are good. You should give it to them. They are good in the sense that they have succeeded in a way to shield the governor from public scrutiny in many of his failings.
On social media, it is like a cult followership with potentialities to be insulted and assaulted. Every little achievement by the governor, no matter how absurd it is, is magnified with a microscope that ends up showing nothing but the petrifying depth that we have sunk as a nation. It is violence on common sense.
There are youths whose job it is to generate trends, no matter how awful they are to the eyes, in praise of the government. These are the jobs that the government has created in the last 3 years.
There is also an impression being created that the people are happy with their governor. The governor also basks in the euphoria of such belief that the people are happy with his achievements so far. In as much as it is true in a way that the governor enjoys a reasonable level of goodwill from the masses, it should also frighten him. He should, however, not forget that unemployment is still estimated in the state to be at a staggering 42%.
Now, any serious government should be afraid of such numbers. In short, it should at best, declare a state of emergency on joblessness in the state. However, that is not the case here. We see the governor and those on the other side of the political coin benefiting massively from that staggering number of unemployed residents as more youths have turned into political sycophancy now than ever before. They abuse each other on social media platforms, threatening each other and fight for the respective owners of their conscience in real life.
It is either those who are close to the governor do not in any way render any solid advice to him or maybe, he just like Nebukadneza, does not listen.
If they do not render solid advice to him, the governor should be able to find those who will tell him some of the things he would not like to hear, those who are blunt enough to point out the obvious. If he doesn’t listen to the advice gifted him by those who are close to him, then it is bad, miserably bad, for democracy.
Dear Governor Wike, where are the jobs?
During the media parley at Government House Port Harcourt which was put together in line with series of celebrations to mark the 3rd-year-anniversary of Governor Wike’s administration, where the governor spoke to select number of journalists and the so-called opinion shapers, having followed the event curiosity since the transcript of that event began trickling in, I have been hoping to read or listen to a section of that media chat where the governor was asked critical questions, questions like job creation, what he is doing about it, how is he creating an enabling environment and how is he engaging the youths through entrepreneurship.
Those questions were not asked. It would have offered the people the chance to understand what the governor is doing as regards job creation or as it is in saner climes, the creation of an enabling environment by the government for those who are to create the jobs to thrive. In as much as painting of roads are good, making sure there is food on the table of the masses is even better. But the governor seems lost as regards jobs. He seizes every opportunity to tell people that handing contracts over to few cronies without any bidding process will create jobs. How about sustainability and wealth generation?
That media chat also explained a lot: the media which is to hold government accountable has become part of the problem, with little to no attention to details and with little understanding of what the responsibilities of government are. The media has become a part of the conspiracy to keep the people uninformed and the government undisturbed in their attempts to annihilate those whom they are meant to serve.
I have always maintained that the rich take care of their own through the construction of key projects that will benefit the rich while the poor will be forced to clap for the rich when such projects are commissioned.
Construction of infrastructures and beautification of the city is a good thing but it becomes utterly difficult to find peace in such when the people are hungry and unemployed.
How the projects being Commissioned and awarded here and there benefits the ordinary man beyond the sights and sounds of a few connected individuals is still yet to be seen and the effects felt.
But the people are hungry and hunger forces people to go into crime. The governor said that his biggest challenge has been insecurity but do you manage insecurity without providing enabling environment for entrepreneurship to function and become fully operational?
It is a fact, not fiction, that entrepreneurs in Port Harcourt are susceptible to over 50 different taxations in a year. That was the usual complaint fielded as challenges during a business submit in one of the business schools in GRA Portharcourt that I was invited to. It is most disturbing and I have been disturbed ever since. How are people empowered to disrupt an economy trying to survive beyond oil?
Successive governments in Rivers State did not find it worthwhile to prepare for a post-oil economy. In short, shedding oil dependency from the mindset of the youths should be given topmost priority but we are not doing it.
The oil may not dry up but it might become almost twice as good as coal in the age of electric cars, ships and lorries. But the government is not thinking that far.
As the government wastes money on unnecessary celebration, it should remember that people are hungry.
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