For the Rivers State Governor and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the current problems arising from insurgency,kidnapping and other social vices could be linked to poverty and unemployment in the country.
Amaechi disclosed this when the Senate Committee on Privatization and Commercialization paid him a courtesy visit at Government House, Port Harcourt shortly after a facility tour of Federal Government-owned parastatals and agencies in Rivers State.
He explained that his administration started creating employment opportunities when he assumed office in 2007 by building over 140 primary health centres and over 300 model primary schools which created job opportunities in the state.
According to him, “the current problem we are having in Nigeria is tied to poverty and unemployment. I believe that one solution to this insurgency is education and employment. The easiest employment is farming, because, a large number of them are not educated and unskilled. I applied it here in Rivers State and it worked.
“Most of them who were given guns by the ex-militants, when we asked them, they told us that their parents could not train them, that is why we introduced free education and free healthcare programmes. And it occurred to us that to address this problem, we need social policing, and while you are doing physical policing, you must also do social and economic policing. And to do that, we started creating employment opportunities. If you visit these projects, there is no way you will not see up to at least 50 workers in each of the schools”, Amaechi said.
Amaechi said, “we created the Banana farms that have created jobs for over 2000 persons, we revived the Risonpalm, it was dead when we came, and it has employed over 5,000 workers. Also, the Songhai farm has employed over 2,000 workers, while five fish farms in strategic locations have been completed. We have done all that to create employment opportunities for our people. I am very sure that the establishment of farms will go a long way to reduce the recruitment of Boko Haram members.
The Federal Government must take education, employment and reduction of poverty as priority. We do appreciate the challenges the Federal Government is facing now”, Amaechi said.
He, however said his administration is perfecting measures to ensure 24 hours regular power supply in the state, and expressed dismay over the inability of the federal government to pay what is due to the state government on its investment to improve power supply in the state.
”From the time I became governor in the past seven years, we have been buying gas from Agip and Shell in billions of naira, and the federal agencies have been collecting the revenue without remitting anything to the state. When they said, distribution was a problem, the state government was able to build 88 sub-stations which are yet to be commissioned, but they are all working.
We invited them to our exco meeting and asked them how we can get back our funds, and they said, it is not from them, that all the money they realized had been paid to their regulators, including our money for the past seven years.
Yet, they tell us they are privatised, when they are still using Rivers State Government facilities to generate and distribute power”, Amaechi said.
If they pay us half of what they are owing us, we assure you, we will run 24 hours power supply, because we are only funding it and getting nothing out of it. This arrangement is not conducive for the state”, Amaechi stated.
Governor Amaechi further called on investors in the state to improve in their investment potential and seek ways of creating more opportunities for job seekers.
On his part, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Privatization and commercialization, Senator Olugbenga Obadara said they were in Rivers State to see ongoing activities in the privatization sector of the Federal Government, access the retrenchment of workers in the labour market and seek ways of bridging the gap.
The committee equally commended Governor Amaechi on his developmental strides and achievements which it noted, have given the state a face-lift.
“When we were also coming, we saw how you modernized the colonial buildings. This is a way of taking us from the past to the present”, he added.

L-R: Chinese Prime Minister, Mr Li Keqiang, President Goodluck Jonathan and the Founder/Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum, Prof Klaus Schwab, at the opening of 2014 World Economic Forum on Africa in Abuja, yesterday