Date Published: 07/01/10
AN OPEN APPEAL TO GOVERNOR CHIBUIKE ROTIMI AMAECHI
Towards an encouragement of credibility and merit: A case for Rivers State Graduates and Youths
Your Excellency,
Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi,
Executive Governor,
Rivers State,
SIR, I wish to use this available, popular and approachable medium to salute you, your wife and members of your tireless ‘Rivers-focused’ Cabinet. Your vision of a harmonious and prosperous Rivers State is indeed an ordained climax, which every progressive-minded Rivers man, woman, youth and child is praying and hoping for, even as the truth would not be humbled to claim that Rivers State, under your leadership, now has a bevy of democracy dividends we can boast about.
Your Excellency, please reflect on the followings:
1. Shortly after my NYSC, precisely 2008, all unemployed graduates of Rivers origin were invited to participate in an aptitude test at RSUST by RSSDA for what was termed Graduate Work Empowerment Scheme, GWEPS, this was in December of the year 2008. This initiative by your government stirred quite a lot of excitements amidst the populous unemployed graduates and youths of our state. As usual, the exam was conducted, and followed by expectations of results, which till date was never released nor published. It happened that some candidates, adjudged to have been successful (I am among), were called on phone to give further details of their curriculum, this was followed by a promise that they would get to us soon. My Governor, when will RSSDA justify the huge treasury you have entrusted to that agency, and when will Rivers people through such agencies get what they deserve on merit, could it be the entire exercise of December 2008 under Mr.Bolaji Ogunseye was a whole charade?
2. Graduates outside Science, Law and Engineering courses are always taunted and discouraged, borrowing the idea of former President Obasanjo, who blamed a caller on a national radio program for studying Philosophy, adding that he would remain unemployed, thus invoking a curse on graduates of Humanities across the country, Nigeria. My Governor, I do firmly believe that distinguished graduates in Humanities from Rivers State can be encouraged by special scholarships within and outside Rivers State by your government. This would no doubt add to the base of our intellectuals, who shall mount various academic faculties and departments in our state’s institutions of higher learning. If my governor does not intervene, what will become of graduates and undergraduates of Humanities from Rivers State, still better, is it worthwhile for Rivers indigenes to delve into studies in Humanities at all?
3. Within the youth circle, there is the popular thought that those of us who did not take to arms, and who subsequently did not engage in militant activities would definitely find it difficult to benefit from any government agenda. The opinion is also held that those of us who, while in school did not belong to Vikings, Black axe, Eye, Pirates, Buccaneer, Mafia, Jezebel, Black bra etc, would find it a hard nut to crack getting any employment within the Niger-Delta, the reason being that, almost all our governors were in these groupings at one point in their lives or the other. Little wonder, my peers jeer at me saying, despite an avalanche of credentials and awards I parade, and even though I stood at the fore-front of battling cultism at Imo State University, at a time when Rivers State students were accused of infiltrating the institution with cults, I still stand unrecognised for any benefit from the same state which image I stood to redeem during my regimes as dual president, SUG and NFCS, Imo State University, Owerri, 2004/2005. DOES GOOD FIGHT REALLY PAY?
4. My Governor, it is true that your credibility as a student union leader endeared you to many elder statesmen, who today, by God’s special grace, smacked with a divine ordination, encouraged the dream that has now materialised in you becoming the number one man in West Africa’s oil rich Rivers State of Nigeria. I am the first person to disagree you became endeared to your then political godfathers through a membership of any clandestine unit called by whatever names. Your Excellency, there are a good number of Rivers State graduates who took to excellence while at the citadels of higher learning, and are today degenerating owing to lack of contact with government. MAY YOUR ATTENTION TURN ON THESE! My Governor, if this is done, it will encourage our youths in tertiary institutions to give priority first to credibility and then to imaging River State and the Rivers person in positive light against the backdrop of the impression that every Rivers student within and outside Rivers State is a cultist, and that after graduation, their godfathers and lords would always secure them jobs at choicest companies, while those of us who had refused to belong, even with 1st Class Upper and 2nd Class Upper cannot see the light of the day. Our Governor, this is almost true in our state, YOU CAN CHANGE IT. YOU ARE A CHANGE ADVOCATE, YOU HAVE SHOWN THE WORLD THAT YOU CAN!
Finally, because I believe what God can do for Rivers State, I speak on behalf of many unemployed Rivers State Graduates calling on Your Excellency to accept our calls that you seek another four (4) years’ slot at the brick house, come 2011. This will enable us consolidate on Rivers’ journey to a land of permanent prosperity, where credibility, merit and uprightness shall be a stamp in the palms and on the foreheads of Rivers people, especially those called for public service. Meanwhile, I pray you practically consider Rivers State Graduates, who have made distinctions and excellence, home and abroad, during their years of studies but are currently degenerating into oblivion because of un-connectedness. OUR GOVERNOR, GIVE AN EAR TO THIS, PLEASE.
Yours’ faithfully,
Godspower Atonsemi Igwe, BA.Hons.,
Former President, SUG, IMSU, & NFCS, IMSU, Former P.R.O NANS, Zone B.
07036247417, gpmary2003@yahoo.com. ALESA- ELEME. |
