From TONY JOHN, Port Harcourt
A governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Tekena Iyagba, has pledged to perfect the legacies of former governor of the state and Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi.
Iyagba declared this during an interactive session with head of media houses and broadcasters in Port Harcourt.
He stated that Rivers State is in dire need of an administrator, with the penchant of industrialization and urbanization.
Iyagba said, “I’m more of an administrator who needs a political office to achieve my purpose. So, as time goes along, I’ll begin to unveil what I intend to do and I believe it will work out in my favour.
“It pains me when I come back to Rivers State and see the state at the level it is. This state under the leadership of His Excellency, Chibuike Amaechi, had legacies.
This not even political, we all know the facts, he (Amaechi) took us to the point where we were all happy that we were going somewhere. He touched every aspect of this state, he touched health, security, every area.
“And if the next government had continued from where he stopped, by now, I think we would have been somewhere else. I share his vision; but, I have my own ideas to perfect his vision, not just to perfect his vision, but to also set them in place, so that it can’t be altered even by the next government.”
Iyagba promised to create institutional structures that would make Rivers State autonomous instead of depending on oil derivation to run its affairs.
The APC governorship aspirant added that it was disheartening to know that Rivers State had derailed from the legacies former governor Amaechi; hence, he had plans perfect those legacies
He expressed: “I have this idea that we must be able to survive as a state without depending on our Federal allocation, which is our oil. What happens if Nigeria runs out of oil tomorrow? What happens to us as a people? So, we must come up with a plan to be able to stand on our own without being dependent on this oil, which is mostly industrialising our state.
“Also, urbanisation is also very important, those are the two key points, industrialisation and urbanisation. We are blessed with many things in this country that we have neglected over the years. We are blessed with natural resources in the sector of agriculture; we think things like cassava just to make garri and starch, but it goes beyond that because if you look properly the chemical industries use it for degradable plastics, coatings, etc.”
In tackling rising insecurity in Rivers State, he said if elected governor of the state, he would create state policing and overhaul the conventional policing, as well as improve security hardwares and employed security officials.
He stated: “I have this idea to create state police, because it’s definitely not going to work from the Federal level. In as much as I intend to create this state police, I intend to do a lot of trainings to carry let me use the word, the bad boys along, because if you have a thief in your house that keeps stealing your money and you give him your money to hold, he obviously can’t steal it.
“So, I intend to carry the bad boys along, but with proper training, proper set up. You know, there is something I observed about Rivers State in terms of security and that’s why European nations have always succeeded with their security.
“They’ve got policing everywhere that are not visible, you don’t have to use the same old method of checkpoints, checking boots. they are civilised ways of handling these things.”