The CLO of Host Community Producing Oil and Gas, Mr. Kelly Okpo has described the challenges faced by the country, to begin from the erroneous perception that going to school or graduating from the higher institutions was to be employed in the white-collar job. And that the educational attainment was for the mental build-up to be sound, smart, and successful in trade, business and investment; and not seemingly been mentally lazy. “…the school system was to get graduates mentally ready and alert for any challenges in life and businesses”.
While summing up the picture of Akwa Ibom State as a case study from 1999-2020, Mr. Okpo explained that between 1999-2007, the Akwa Ibom government was on the track of discovery as a land of promise where former governor Victor Attah spent years fighting resource control, and from 2007-2015, the administration of the former governor according to him was about the giving of the people food and fishes rather than teaching them on how to produce the food and fishes.
He noted that the former governor even though he was a giver by nature, was dashing the people money instead of building business empires and opportunities for Akwa Ibom; which now led the people to beg for survival in Udom Emmanuel’s administration as those food and fishes were no more available. “But Senator Akpabio will always be remembered as the best governor of infrastructural development in Akwa Ibom state”
Mr. Kelly Okpo who in 1994 owned a cocoa plantation with 48 workers in the Republic of Cameroun, trading Nigeria-Cameroun, faulted the statistics of unemployment in Akwa Ibom saying “an average Akwa Ibom person is not unemployed; it’s an erroneous perception and inability of the government to put things right”.
The CLO frown at the system of elections in Nigeria that culminated in producing leaders through imposition. “There have never been holistic elections from the local government areas to the presidency. Our leaders have always been imposed. Yar’dua, Buhari and Udom are from the products of imposition”.
The CLO of the Host Community Producing Oil and Gas, while bearing his mind on the issues of the Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC, explained that the commission was set up by the North to close the mouth and the agitations of the Niger Deltans. And that the major contractors and those making money from the commission were the Northerners.
He sees the problems of the NDDC crop up from the inability of the minister of the Niger Delta, Senator Godswill Akpabio, allowing the trends of those not from the region, to milk the major shares of the region as usual. “When it was under the presidency there was neither problem nor corruption in the commission”. He stressed.
Mr. Okpo advises the youths to seek their right and fight for reform and justice peacefully while counseling the government to surmount the agitations through accountability to the people, good governance, equality, and fairness to all segments of the Nigerian populace.
