Why Henry Seriake Dickson Must Not Return As Governor. - by John Ayebaralate Okhai
What is leadership without the people's interest? Every true leader is a glorified servant, whose primary duty is to, with diligence and commitment, serve his people, by charting a course that is primarily geared towards enhancing the prosperity of his people. In other words, meeting the needs and aspirations of a people is the cardinal purpose of being in front, providing leadership. It is on the basis of this firm believe that I make bold to say, there's a leadership lacuna in Bayelsa state.
I believe the late Dr Myles Munroe, a famous leadership author and a man of purpose, had the leadership impasse in Bayelsa in mind when he asserted that "when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse becomes inevitable". Bayelsans have seen first hand what it means to abuse the purpose of a thing, thanks to Gov. Dickson's jiggery-pokery with Bayelsans in every imaginable ramification.
We are so unfortunate to have a man who goes about forgetting his thinking cap in his closet as governor, that whenever he makes a public appearance to make pronouncements on affairs of the state, he ends up embarrassing not just his exalted office but Bayelsans as a whole with his nonsensical utterances riddled with deceit. Sadly, he doesn't just stop at making utterances that depicts a juvenile delinquent manning the highest office in a State, he backs them up with actions that clearly shows how insensitive he is to humanity.
For instance, why would a governor tell pensioners that they are unproductive and so therefore cannot be paid their pensions? That smacks of insolence to the gray hair on the pensioners head and the long years they've put into service. A governor who ought to know that our students sent abroad for studies on scholarship are studying in countries that prohibits foreign students from working while studying, but still displayed his irrationality by asking the students to get part-time jobs, so as to augment his shortcomings in meeting his responsibility to them, has only succeeded in exposing his naivety in the art of governance.
What manner of governor marches into a court in session with thugs, turns the court upside down and gets everyone in sight beaten up? We truly have a lawless law-man as a governor, but such executive rascality is no longer tenable, no, not at a time such as this, when we are striving to see a change in the way governance is being administered.
A leader who looks straight into the eyes of his subjects, and with impunity lies to them about a nonexistent savings during his mendacious transparency briefings that rather leaves Bayelsans with an opaque view of the state’s fiscal state, is not deserving of the people's trust. We were lied to about the BDIC, with 10 billion ploughed into it, wherein lies the benefit of that investment to the Bayelsa economy?
Dickson emblematise corruption, the indomie cartons story is still very fresh in our minds. While he has on account of dwindling revenue in the state put governance on hold, he has not spared a dime in pursuing his personal ambition using the resources of the state. Thanks to Dickson, we have a new toga as the dirtiest state in Nigeria, as our streets and major roads wears a new look of garbage posing as skyscrapers, that's what happens when a governor abdicates his responsibility in pursuit of his personal interest just to bloat his ego.
Dickson, like a bull in a China shop seems inexorably resolved to damage our psyche and break the bond of unity that holds us together as a people. Any leader who relishes a constant spew of divisive speeches laced with vile hatred, is unworthy to lead. Like a prankster who goes to the mountain top to shout "lion lion" leaving everyone in a state of anxiety, while there's no such invasion from the jungle king, Dickson has endlessly been playing his polarisation card, flying false kites that pitches brothers against brothers, a deleterious act fraught with unbridled greed for power. How can such a man continue to lead us as a people?
Sadly when Dickson throws up his ethnocentric card, majority of the people are easily beguiled by his antics, either out of lack of capacity to thoroughly analyse the issues or out of sheer hatred for another, deliberately refuse to analyse issues and sieve out the truth from it. This is where Dickson is making a political fortune from, to the detriment of our collective interest. He purloined the people's mandate to be where he is today, now he has become an advocate of free and fair election overnight. Meanwhile, he has an army of blood thirsty thugs at his beck and call, who he has been unleashing on hapless voters and some members of the APC. Anyone with a modicum of commonsense, not the Ben Murray Bruce 's type of fatally skewed commonsense though, should know that Dickson’s personal interest supercedes our collective interest as a people, if we through the lens of objectivity analyse his actions and utterances.
- John Ayebaralate Okhai
