Rivers State elder statesman and Niger Delta activist, Sokari Soberekon has called for government monetary bonus to Rivers State citizens who are 50 years and above as part of the Golden Jubilee anniversary celebration of the State.
In an interview with The Tide, Saturday in Port Harcourt, Sokari who is also called “Rivers Strongman” said the bonus would enable the recipients to “celebrate the Jubilee and plan their families.”
He said, “as part of Rivers State 50th anniversary celebration, I call on Governor Nyesom Wike to use his good offices to grant every 50-year-old Rivers indigene alive, N50,000 each to celebrate the jubilee and plan their families.”
Sokari said the governor should not subject the bonus to legislation by the Rivers State House of Assembly but use his executive powers to take the action which, he said, “will never be forgotten in the history of the State and the Niger Delta Republic that would be created in the future. The gesture, Sokari said, should be non-partisan.
On the 50th anniversary celebration proper, Sokari appealed that the event be held at the Isaac Boro cenotaph in Port Harcourt where men and women who fought for the creation of the State are being remembered and not in any “air conditioned enclosure.”
According to him, the creation of Rivers State was fought for, through the barrel of the gun and not by a stroke of the pen.
He called on the Federal Government and international organsiations including the United Nations to give active support to the call for the restructuring of the Nigerian State, saying at 50, it is time to create the Niger Delta Republic.
While commending the State government for its development strides, the Rivers Strongman said Wike’s fulfillment of his election campaign promise of completing and commissioning the Trans-Kalabari Road will endear him to people of Kalabari Kingdom.
Sokari called on the State government to introduce a modern mass transit system in the State that would phase out the small “kia kia” buses and introduce state-of-the art buses that would ply the good road network.
He reiterated his demand for the rebuilding of the old Port Harcourt Main Market destroyed during the Nigerian Civil War, urging Wike to ask the Federal Government to undertake the project.
According to him, the Nigeria Police unilaterally built a Police Children School on the site of the market when Police Commissioner Fidelis Oyakhilome (rtd) was military Governor of Rivers State.
He requested that the Police should move its school to the old Police Football field which is now being used as a vehicle scrap dump in the old Port Harcourt Township.
If rebuilt Port Harcourt Main market will improve trade and commerce in Port Harcourt as well as check trading at unauthorized places, which the State government is fight, Sokari said.

Donald Mike-Jaja