By Joe Ezuma
Assistant Editor, South South
Rivers, a state endowed with the liquid gold but infested with crime and killings, is firing on all cylinders to create jobs, train youths in skills, and to pacify Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Ogoniland to stem the blood spill.
Deputy Governor, Ipalibo Harry-Banigo, has urged all residents to join hands with Governor Nyesom Wike to fish out criminals, including cult members, who keep the state under siege.
Commissioner of Police, Musa Kimo, has also held a town hall meeting in Port Harcourt where security stakeholders deliberated on the tension between local communities and Fulani herdsmen.
Crime is sweeping through the oil-rich but volatile state in the Deep South, with political murders, cult killings, and kidnapping crippling lives and businesses.
Banigo urged residents to offer useful tips to the security agencies to fight crime rather than trade blames, since security is a collective responsibility.
Soldiers in Ogoni
Wike recently urged the military to move into Ogoni and crime infested areas, which the All Progressives Congress (APC) described as self reversal, because he had initially opposed the presence of soldiers in Ogoni.
But Banigo urged the APC not to misrepresent Wike’s position.
”The opposition should not misrepresent the position of Wike in seeking the support of the military to tackle kidnapping and cult activities in some parts of the state,” she stressed.
What Wike does not want, she explained, is the demand by an opposition party for military presence for political reasons, because it is anti-democratic.
Banigo expressed surprise that while Wike is trying to encourage security agents to curtail crime, some politicians are playing politics with security matters.
She also stressed that the completion of major roads by the administration in the past one year is a sure way to revive businesses and boost tourism.
In her view, the construction of the Borokiri New Road, Abonnema Wharf Road, and 1.3-kilometre Industry Road, will help expand revenue base.
She reiterated that Wike is committed to fulfilling all promises made during his electioneering and will improve the state’s economy through the provision of infrastructure to attract investors.
Banigo praised Wike for his development efforts toward restoring Port Harcourt to its Garden City status, stressing that the Port Harcourt Pleasure Park on Aba Road would stimulate healthy interaction and recreation for children and adults alike.
She implored residents to support the government to actualise its New Rivers Vision and thanked host communities for their co-operation in the execution of projects.
Strategy for jobs, skills, empowerment
The state government has also unfolded measures to strengthen residents’ ability to survive the national economic hardship.
The measures include crime reduction, job creation, training programmes, and skills acquisition as well as encouraging sacrifice by the people.
Banigo said the government has concluded plans to sponsor 200 youths to acquire vocational skills in Israel and that Wike has directed commissioners and special advisers to buy 10 “Win a trip to Israel’’ ticket lotteries for the less privileged.
She said the training in various skills is going on at the same time with the sending of youths and ministers of God to Israel.
The aim, as she put it, “is to promote technological and cultural ties with Israel, create opportunities for capacity development, job creation and empowerment of the youth in line with the New Rivers Vision of the present administration ….
“Wike gave the directive in fulfillment of his social contract with the people, to bridge the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor and the social disequilibrium in the state.”
The programme is to make the participants “employable and be employers of labour,” Banigo added, because the era of going to Israel for pilgrimage as a jamboree is gone.
She urged residents to embrace the administration’s philosophy of sacrifice and “be your brother’s keeper”.
She said since Wike assumed office a year ago, he has demonstrated the political will to institutionalise sacrifice and hard work among politicians and public office holders.
According to her, despite dwindling federal allocation, Rivers has earmarked N23 million to sponsor less privileged youths and ministers of God to Israel in this year’s Christian pilgrimage.
Brainstorm on security
At the town hall meeting, Kimo called for synergy between communities, security agencies and herdsmen to check the rising attacks of cattle rearers on local communities.
Participants included representatives of the police, the Department of State Security (DSS), Immigration, Prisons, Customs, Army, Navy, Air Force, council caretaker chairmen, traditional rulers, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), and journalists.
They also included members of the Farmers’ Association of Nigeria and Hausa/Fulani cattle owners and herdsmen.
Kimo said it is necessary to strengthen the “harmonious relationship” between the police and other security agencies on the one hand and between residents and security agencies on the other.
”We experience cult-related crimes that have snowballed into other crimes like kidnapping, armed robbery, killings.
“The most recent and very alarming is the phenomenon of herdsmen scourge which is more prevalent in the North Central but also has extended to parts of the South East as well as cattle rustling,” he warned.
Kimo noted that lives have been lost, villages pillaged and burnt down, and urged communities, residents, and security agencies to form a formidable front to confront the monster.
Participants agreed that police community relations should be energised and the security agencies be pro-active in tackling dangerous herdsmen who have no “business with AK47 riffles.”The meeting sought more powers for councils to combat crime, since they are close to the grassroots where most crimes, especially herdsmen attacks, take place.
Stand-off in Niger Delta
However, the stand-off between Abuja and Niger Delta militants over pipeline vandalism may drag longer, given the rigid positions of both parties.
Most speakers at the flag off of the clean up of Ogoni and other impacted communities in Bodo on Thursday, June 2 traced oil pollution to sabotage and pipeline vandalism as well as laxity by oil multinationals.
President Muhammadu Buhari, represented by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, warned Niger Delta militants, vandals, and oil thieves that his administration will not tolerate any act of criminality.
He said crude oil theft, blowing up of facilities, and kidnapping of oil workers, all have negative impacts on gas supply for electricity generation and the economy.
Buhari lamented the loss of lives in Ogoni and the entire Niger Delta, and blamed oil companies and past governments for not addressing the environmental hazard caused by oil production.
He warmed that the federal government will deal decisively with oil theft and pipeline vandalism, and called for co-operation in the clean-up to ensure full and proper execution.
But Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) shave pledged to continue the destruction of oil facilities in the region because of what they see as unequal distribution of national assets.
In turn, the military – particularly the Air Force – has vowed to deal with the NDA if it continues with criminal activities.
