Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Pastor Paulinus Nsirim has said that the New Year agenda as pronounced by the state Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, is designed primarily to make the state safe and healthy for the citizenry.
Nsirim gave the assurance at a meeting with Chief Executives of Rivers State Government-owned media organisations in his office in Port Harcourt, yesterday.
The commissioner, therefore, enjoined the media in the state to drive a conversation that would enlist the support of those living and doing business in Rivers State towards the achievement of the desired objectives of the state government.
“We must use our media houses to make our people not to politicise what the governor is doing in this direction.
“Governor Wike means well for Rivers people. It is only a man who has the interest of the people he is governing at heart that will come up with that kind of New Year agenda,” he said.
He said the media have the responsibility to handle the government’s policies and decisions in this regard in a way that everybody living and doing business in the state would feel the pulse of its positive impact.
“Of course, we are all aware that illegal bunkering and artisanal refineries contribute highly to the environmental challenges we are facing with soot in the state.
“And from the governor’s New Year broadcast, you find that there is a strategic move to end illegal bunkering and artisanal refineries in the state.
“This meeting is to draw our attention to the fact that we need to play a very prominent role in advocacy, enlightenment and sensitisation of the citizenry to buy into this positive agenda of government.
“We owe our state that obligation to ensure that the state is safe and healthy so that people whose stock in trade is to always see no good in policies of government are shunned.
“The people must shun all these naysayers. The people must shun those who are playing to the gallery, those who are looking for cheap popularity and publicity”, he said.
Nsirim charged the media to drive a conversation through their different programmes in a way that all well-meaning citizens would understand that everything Governor Wike says and does are in the overall interest of the people.
“It should be aggressive. Let it permeate the minds of all those living and doing business in Rivers State that this is what we should all join hands with the government to do,” he said.
Responding on behalf of his colleagues, the General Manager, Rivers State Broadcasting Corporation, Mr. Samson Fiberesima assured the commissioner that the state government-owned media outfits would implement the directive by putting the issues on the front burner.