Editorial
Rivers Youth: Towards Self Sufficiency
Rivers State Governor, Rt Hon Chibuike Amaechi, last Tuesday, urged 115 beneficiaries of youth empowerment scheme to maximize the opportunity offered by the training to be responsible citizens of the state.
Represented by his deputy, Engr Tele Ikuru, the state chief executive gave the charge during the presentation of certificates and starter packs to the granduands through the Ministry of Youth Development. The programme was indeed a fulfillment of the state government’s plan of action for its teeming youth in 2012.
Having placed the youth on a higher pedestal in 2011, the Ministry of Youth Development successfully coordinated various robust programmes such as: youth Holiday camping, youth Youwin Scheme, Emerging Leaders Conference, Global Peace Convention, Capacity Building Workshop, International Youth Celebration and Abuja Youth Parliament, among others. To sustain this trend, the ministry mapped out more pragmatic programmes for the youth in the years ahead.
In challenging the youth to aspire for true greatness, Governor Amaechi was not unmindful of some sharp practices that could derail the modest achievements thus far made and directed the Ministry to embark on routine supervision of the activities of the latest beneficiaries with a view to sanctioning offenders. By so doing, the Governor pre-empted some beneficiaries who like others in the past quickly disposed of their starter packs for immediate ephemeral gains, only to continue with the long circle of poverty thereafter.
Amaechi’s directive is therefore imperative like the Biblical expression that the man who can be trusted in little things can be trusted in great things and vice versa.
The Tide shares this view, for the singular fact that over the years the state government, private organisations and multinational oil firms had offered similar means of livelihood to the youth some of who simply blew the opportunity and channelled their acquired skills negatively in the society.
We therefore commend genuine efforts by the state government to tap the potentials of the willing young men and women with the aim of developing, empowering and integrating them into the mainstream production segment of the state.
It is sad that out of an estimated 4.5 million youth in the state, not a handful can boast of impacting on the state economy. In fact, most vital services required of core craftsmen and artisans, are provided by strangers while many Rivers youth remain aloof, not given to the economic intricacies of these trades and therefore stay unemployed. Not even the efforts of successive state governments to create the desired awareness on economic value and impact on such lucrative businesses in the state yielded any fruit. Instead that informal sector permanently remains outside the control of Rivers people. Same way the road-side mechanics, welders and masons are mainly people from other states.
There is no gainsaying that rural-urban migration is a basic fact and that informs why these people from other states compete to establish themselves in cities like Port Harcourt. Surprisingly, while we drift to the town many of them migrate to our villages and occupy every available space as we wallow in utter inertia.
We therefore advise the Rivers youth to embrace the state government’s empowerment initiatives to acquire necessary skills and be self-reliant. They need also key in to government policy of education for all as a basic ingredient of their existence.
That away, they would not give room to such vices like militancy as an option or consider being used as tools by rogue politicians or even enlist in apprenticeship to local criminals in view of its easy benefits. These are indeed deadly baits which rewards are never enduring.
There are moments in the life of a legislature when plain speaking becomes a public service. Senator Adams Oshiomhole provided such a moment on the floor of the Senate when he accused the Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi, of manifestly neglecting critical federal arteries in Edo and Delta States, and implored his colleagues to prevail on the Minister to adopt a more equitable and genuinely national approach to road infrastructure delivery. It was blunt, it was uncomfortable, and it was necessary.
The specifics of his complaint deserve restating. Drawing attention to the recent approval of some 20 new road projects despite the parlous state of existing ones, the former Edo State governor lamented that Nigerians cannot travel from Benin to Warri, Benin to Asaba, Benin to Auchi, or Auchi to Okene without encountering severe distress. He alleged a deliberate omission of these corridors from the national budget in the last three years, save for palliative interventions directed by President Bola Tinubu through tax credit arrangements. His question — “What have we done wrong?” — resonates far beyond the chambers of the National Assembly.
We lend our full and unequivocal support to that call. The Auchi-Benin Road, for instance, has been in a deplorable and near-impassable condition for several years, turning what should be a two-hour journey into an all-day ordeal of broken axles, extortionate fares, and despondent commuters. The media have, on multiple occasions, chronicled the suffering of motorists, traders, and students who ply that route. To describe it as a federal road today is to stretch the meaning of the term beyond recognition.
This pattern of sidelining is not confined to Edo or Delta. Even here in Rivers State, the disposition of the Federal Ministry of Works has left much to be desired, particularly along the Eleme axis of the East-West Road. That road, which ought to be a flagship of federal presence in the Niger Delta, has remained in a wretched state for long. Those who use it daily — workers at the Eleme Petrochemical Complex, the two refineries, Onne Port, and the countless ancillary industries — can attest to its deterioration. Work has proceeded in fits and starts without the sustained urgency such a strategic road demands.
The Eleme stretch is not a mere intra-state byway. It is the gateway to the nation’s economic jugular. According to the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing’s 2023 Highway Condition Survey, only about 35 per cent of the country’s 36,000 kilometres of federal roads are rated as being in good or fair condition, with the remainder classified as poor or very poor. The East-West Road, conceived in the 1970s to bind the entire Niger Delta, remains unfinished in critical sections more than four decades after. If it had been treated as a priority, the perennial gridlock, carnage, and economic loss on the Eleme-Refinery junction would have long been consigned to history.
The irony is as painful as it is glaring. The Niger Delta remains the goose that lays the golden eggs. Data from the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative [NEITI 2023 Oil and Gas Audit] show that the region still accounts for over 78 per cent of Nigeria’s federally collected export earnings and about 65 per cent of total government revenue. The National Bureau of Statistics [NBS Foreign Trade Report Q4 2024] similarly confirms that crude oil continues to dominate export receipts. By every metric of equity and economic logic, a region that sustains the national purse deserves first-rate consideration in the allocation of infrastructure, not afterthoughts and tokenism.
Road infrastructure is not largesse to be dispensed by favour; it is the skeleton upon which commerce, cohesion, and citizenship hang. When contracts are concentrated in one geopolitical zone while other zones are left to contend with craters, it erodes trust in the federation itself. The World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update [June 2023] estimated that poor transport connectivity inflates the cost of moving goods by up to 40 per cent and costs the Nigerian economy an estimated $1.5 billion annually in lost man-hours and vehicle maintenance. If we profess to be one country, then equity must be the compass that guides key institutions before any project is executed. Development must spread round, not pool in one place as though other regions do not matter.
There is also a grave security dimension that can no longer be ignored. The deplorable condition of federal roads has become a veritable enabler of criminality. The NBS Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey reported over 2.5 million incidents of kidnapping-related occurrences nationally, with transport workers identifying bad road spots as prime ambush points. When vehicles are forced to crawl at 10 kilometres per hour through failed sections at Auchi, Sapele Road, or Eleme, they become sitting ducks for armed gangs. Fixing bad roads, therefore, is not merely about convenience; it is about safeguarding lives.
By his intervention, Senator Oshiomhole has hit the nail on the head and reminded Minister Umahi of a fundamental constitutional truth: public office is held in trust. The Ministry of Works is not a personal estate where contracts are awarded according to whim or political convenience. It is a national institution funded by the collective resources of Nigerians, including the oil and gas rents from the very communities whose roads are now neglected. The Minister must demonstrate balance, transparency, and a pan-Nigerian outlook in the distribution of projects that impact the daily existence of citizens. Selective neglect breeds suspicion, and suspicion is corrosive at a time when the nation is preaching unity, oneness, equity, and justice.
Consequently, the National Assembly must go beyond rhetoric and assert its oversight powers with vigour. Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution [as amended] empower the legislature to investigate and expose any maladministration in the execution of federal projects. If an office holder is not acting rightly, it is the duty of the Senate and the House of Representatives to call him to order. Oversight must not be reduced to budget approval ceremonies; it must translate to field verification, public hearings, and insistence that the Federal Character principle, as enshrined in Section 14(3) of the Constitution, reflects in road awards.
Let the Auchi-Okene, Benin-Warri, Benin-Asaba, and Eleme East-West gangways be restored to motorable dignity. Let priority be given to completing existing, economically vital roads before embarking on new ones. If those who, through their resources, sustain the federation are sidelined in the distribution of tangible dividends, it tells poorly of our nationhood. Bad roads must be fixed, and they must be fixed now, with fairness as the guiding standard.
