Rivers State today has more IDPs than at least 90% of states in Nigeria. There has been more killings in this state by "awa boys" than herdsmen have killed in all the states in Nigeria combined. When I say these things it sounds strange because, admittedly, most people in the state don't know them because there is a conspiracy of silence in the media, they're all on Nyesom Wike's payroll. In all of 2016 through 2017, the people of Okwale, the largest garri producing community in the state, were displaced from their homes without even a mention in the media. My friends who teach in that community went for their PGD and masters degree programs in different states of the country while receiving salary every month for a teaching job they didn't do because the community school was closed down. As at today, life is not fully normal in that community, they still live in fear and majority of them are not at home.
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There is another community in Tai LGA called Kporgor, for sometime now, militants have taken over that community and all the real owners of the land are living in strange places that no one can account for. I still recall the day the Distinguished Senator Magnus Abe visited that community, there were bullets and and gun particles on the ground, with most of the buildings raze down without even a single soul anywhere.
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One of these days I'll list the number of communities in the state where people have been chased away from their homes and give a figure to the number of deaths we've recorded since Nyesom Wike took over. That will happen on another day, but for today, the question I want to ask is...
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Why has Nyesom Wike remained silent over all these killings and criminality going on in the state but quick to run to another state better off than his own to donate N200 million? Why is Wike playing politics with Rivers people money? Why are the victims in Benue State more deserving of attention from the Rivers State government than the victims in Rivers State?
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N200 million can pay the school fees of all the final year students the state gave scholarship abroad but abandoned by this administration. N200 million can change the circumstances of 1,000 displaced persons in the state by giving them N200,000 each. N200,000 injected into 1,000 small businesses in the state would spike up the state economy. A friend told me this morning that his community, Egbeka in Etche, does not have light and no good road. That money could give them light and road and change the lives of the people in that community. There are hundreds of communities like that in Rivers State but the governor does not care, all he cares about is to play politics with Rivers money. The people in Benue State deserves our sympathy and care, but charity they say begins at home.
