Brave Dickson
The Governorship Candidate of the Action People’s Party in the 2019 election, Elder Leesi Gborogbosi has expressed concern over the inability of the Rivers State Government to ameliorate the pains of its citizens despite the huge resources of the state.
Elder Gborogbosi who made this known at a stakeholders’ meeting with the executives of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners, Rivers State Council, last week in Port Harcourt, sympathized with the retirees over the faulty pension system in the state.
“There is so much suffering in the state occasioned by bad governance. On one hand, students are not being paid their bursary, on another hand you hear recognized chiefs complaining of arrears is owed including pensioners protesting every day. I think the solution is an alternative candidate in 2019”.
The Guber candidate of the APP, therefore, assured the pensioners and the people of Rivers State of better welfare and a system that will enhance the ease of doing business in the state if elected as governor in 2019.
On their part, the retirees condemned the attitude of the state government towards pensioners’ welfare. saying, “we will only vote candidates that will have our interest at heart”.
The strong discord between some retirees and the state government has been turned into political campaign rhetorics by some political candidates to garner support from the pensioner in the forthcoming 2019 general elections.
Recently, the state government through its Head of Service disowned the retirees, describing them as impostors who never worked for the Rivers State government.
The pensioners who precisely claimed to have retired in 2015 were also accused of doing the bidding of the opposition so as to ridicule the state government, adding that the state government is not owing pensioners till date.
The allegations were perceived to have broken the silence of the pensioners who reacted swiftly, calling for the immediate resignation of the state Head of Service, Rufus Godwin.
The pensioners described Barr Godwin as incompetent whose stock in trade is to mislead the state government, insisting that the state government is allegedly owing them to the tune of over 70 billion naira
