TheCable

The Rivers chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) says the state government must “wake up from slumber” and work for its residents. 

In a statement on Wednesday by Darlington Nwauju, Rivers APC spokesperson, the opposition party said the state residents would not accept the “excuse of political distractions” if Siminalayi Fubara, the governor, fails to perform.

Recently, a political crisis rocked the Rivers chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and almost resulted in the impeachment of Fubura as governor of the state.

The crisis in the state was linked to a rumoured rift between Fubara and Nyesom Wike, minister of the federal capital territory (FCT).

It took the intervention of President Bola Tinubu before the conflict attained resolution.

Reacting to the crisis, Rivers APC said Fubara must now focus on governance and invest in areas that will touch the lives of the people.

“We demand that the state government wakes up from slumber by working with the resources of Rivers people for the benefit of Rivers people,” the statement reads.

“Rivers people cannot accept the excuse of political distractions for failing to work assiduously to reduce insecurity, and unemployment and improve access to education, provision of access to clean drinking water and electricity, reduce poverty by encouraging entrepreneurship, and to achieve lower cost of living in Rivers State by investing massively in housing, transportation, and agriculture.

“Initiate reforms aimed at simplifying tax payments for the self-employed in Rivers State to stimulate business investments and encourage our young people to venture into entrepreneurship. By this, Rivers State government will be offering support to small businesses.

“Small business owners in our hostile environment take so much risks to make investments to build their businesses, therefore, Rivers State government must not destroy the confidence of these small investors.

“The system must encourage them by discarding policies that will damage their businesses. Doing otherwise will be morally and economically wrong.

“No government in the world can go far without deliberately investing in the potentials of its people. Government in Rivers State must invest in its own people going forward (e.g. innovations in arts/culture, information technology, agropreneurship, etc).

“Government must also, going forward, think outside the box by looking out for mandatory work placements for unemployed graduates to improve their skills and increase their employability.

“We need to cut down taxes for those who work hard to keep our economy moving. It’s a way to incentivise this class of people, increase the population of those captured in the tax net and improve our internally generated revenue (IGR).

“We can also do more by capturing self-employed people in the state government’s pension scheme as part of the state’s welfare policy.”