. Ex-agitator carpets Wike
Convener of the Network for the Defence of Democracy and Good Governance, Sobomabo Jackrich, has vowed to resist imposition in Rivers State ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Speaking in Port Harcourt, on Tuesday, during the official opening of office and inauguration of the state and LGA executive members of NDDGG, said he would particularly stop any plan by political actors to impose a governor on the people.
He said that the state needed a better deal in 2023 and urged the people to prepare to participate fully in the electoral process to enthrone good administration for equitable development.
He said that a call for accountability was not witch-hunt that leaders should groan about, adding that the state needed only a leader that would be accountable in 2023.
Jackrich said, “We gave you power to lead us, that doesn’t mean that you are more powerful than us. We collectively gave you power and now you deem us slaves. We are not slaves; so when you current tenure expires or you finish leading according to your style, when you leave office, others will decide to bring in new leaders, not you.
“We will not allow you to bring in new leaders, because if you do, they will behave like you.”
Jackrich said that the people were ready to fight injustice together despite their different ethnic leanings.
He said, “We came here to fight the oppression and marginalisation happening in this state, Rivers State is a state with mixed ethnicities. We have the Ogba, Ikwerre, Kalabari, Abua and many others; no one is stronger than the other.
“We are all together in unity like marriage, but sometimes when a marriage doesn’t work, the couple can divorce and part ways. The way this state is being governed is bad enough to cause a divorce, but we will endure and fight and make sure we change the narrative.
“Rivers people deserve to be respected and the only way we can change this enslavement and tyranny is by our collective effort and how do we do it, go and get your voter card and go out to vote come election.
“You cannot vote in the house, you cannot vote with your debit cards, you can have all it takes but if you don’t have the authority to vote, then you are nothing.
“What all of us should be doing now is to make sure that we and our loved ones are registered properly and after registration is done, we need to talk to each other. Let us assess everyone across party lines because a divided house will not stand; that is the only way we can change the governance narrative”.
Juxtaposing the past and the present adminisreations, Jackrich said councillors under the former governor of Rivers State, Mr. Chibuike Amaechi, were better than commissioners working with the incumbent Governor Nyesom Wike.
He insisted that aides under Amaechi, now the Minister of Transportation, were given freedom to carry out their official responsibilities without much interference from their principal.
He claimed that under the present administration that the governor does not allow his commissioners to run their offices freely, adding that they(commissioners) were also stifled of fund.
He opined that local government area councillors under Amaechi in the state had better welfare and lived better lives, noting that a commissioner under Wike could not comfortably doll ou
t N5000.
While inaugurateing the office he said, “This office is a place of rescue and refuge for those who are marginalised. Those looking for succur, they will find rest here.”