By Kelechi Esogwa-Amadi
Former governor of Rivers State and current Minister of Transport, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has revealed why the state is witnessing a high rate of insecurity.
Speaking today at the All Progressives Congress (APC) Secretariat at Aba Road, Port Harcourt while officially welcoming some members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who decamped to the APC, Amaechi said that lack of job opportunities, inadequate security Intelligence, insensitivity to the plight of the people, among others, were responsible for the high rate of criminality in the state.
He said during his time as governor, he deployed a full arsenal on criminals and chased them away, adding that he never locked any police station or slept in the army barracks.
“I created employment opportunities. I brought contractors and paid them so that they could pay the people. I established Songhai Farm, Banana Farm, Buguma Fish Farm. I employed 13,000 teachers. But today all those things have been destroyed…,” he said.
The former Rivers governor said he also made the Rivers electorate understand that they were his employer while he was their servant.
He charged the people to know that they are superior to political leaders because they elect them, warning that the moment they lose sight of this, political leaders would take them for a ride. The transport minister congratulated the decampees for deciding to join the APC.
Some of the decampees include former commissioner for urban development and town planning, Reason Onyia; former PDP chieftain in Akuku Toru, Austin Bob-Manuel, Charles Nwaorgu, Worlu Joshua, Miebaka Nabiebu, Alaye Eremie, Asitoa Charles Horsfall, Emma Ajikeru, Ebelogu Chinasa Sampson, Newton Gordon Kpasa, Peter Bob, Bethel Chigozie Ernest, Nkechi Anyike, Lawrence Thompson, among others.
