It was on Monday evening when Zulum’s motorcade was moving to Monguno in northern part of the state.

About 12 young girls standing by the road side while the motorcade moves slowly. Suddenly on spotting the young children, Governor Zulum ordered the convoy to stop.

All of us wondering what could have made the Governor stopped the convoy bearing in mind the dangers associated in stopping at the road known for Boko Haram activities.

Then the Governor zoomed out of his official car and headed straight to where the girls stand, he asked what they have come to do at this place, about 15km to the town of Monguno.

They were fetching firewood, which serves as source of energy to devastated local residents whose livelihoods were denied as a result of the over decade long insurgency.

Governor Zulum ordered to give the little girls a lift back to Monguno, their firewood was equally conveyed on another vehicle.

Plateau State Governor Simon Bako Lalong has sworn in the new head of the State Civil Service Engr. Sunday Chong Hyat and 14 new Permanent Secretaries with a warning for them to guard against politicising the service.

Governor Lalong said the appointments which were made purely on merit, became necessary to fill existing vacancies created by the retirement of the Head of Service Mr. Izam Azi, mni and some Permanent Secretaries.

He urged them to consider their appointments as a great privilege to contribute their quota towards building a greater Plateau State by showing excellence and patriotism.

He said “Your appointments are not opportunities to engage in self-aggrandizement, self-enrichment and pursuance of parochial interests. Rather, these responsibilities demand that you take your commitments to the next level by exhibiting high sense of duty and patriotism. I expect you to be above board in your conduct in order to assert yourselves and earn the confidence of those under you. You must play strategic roles as mentors and leaders and be able to punish indolence and reward excellence and loyalty. Do not celebrate nor promote mediocrity, laziness and non-performance”.

Lalong also warned them against promoting the matters of ethnicity and politics in the civil service saying “I will also be watching you closely to ensure that you do not only supervise those under you, but will not hesitate to sanction any of you who fails to deliver his or her duties as expected. Let me warn you against promoting ethnicity, religion or politicising the civil service. Such actions will not be tolerated as the civil service is a professional calling which must remain so”.

To further strengthen professionalism in the civil service, the Governor directed that henceforth, appointments to the position of Permanent Secretary shall be based on professional aptitude tests and examinations that are ICT-based. This will also cascade down to other levels as we move governance towards e-platforms that will improve efficiency, productivity and value.

Lalong used the occasion to reassure Plateau State civil servants of the commitment of his administration to continue to prioritise their welfare and well-being. He challenged the new Head of Service and Permanent Secretaries to work hard and promote better industrial harmony between the Government and its employees, saying he has directed that a Permanent Secretary be designated to handle labour matters in the office of the Head of Service.

Responding on behalf of the appointees, the new Head Service Engr. Sunday Hyat appreciated the Governor for the previlege offered them and assured that they will put in their best to serve the administration and the people of the State.

.. Task Wike to Face Governance Not Amaechi

.. Party Leaders Must Step Up Revalidation Exercise To Grab Power In Rivers State!

Apparently perplexed by the pernicious effects of the defective public service approach of Gov. Nyesom Wike and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), on Rivers people, who now seem as helpless as a flock of shepherdless sheep, Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress(APC) and erstwhile National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP), Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has mentioned with special approbation, efforts by men of conscience and lovers of humanity, in bringing to the fore, the Governor’s weird and disturbing leadership fashion characterized by satiety, distaste, and hostility with very little or no impact on the suffering populace who count their loses on daily basis.

Particularly applauding the rare piquancy, commitment and renewed sense of vigour with which the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH), Prof. Henry Ugboma, is advocating and championing the cause of Rivers people, Chief Eze, in a statement made available to media houses in Port Harcourt and AFRICA PRIME NEWS, said it is unsavory for the enlightened regiment to keep mute and watch a democratic society gradually slip into modern oligarchy in the guise of party politics, describing it as gross travesty and parody of the tenets of true democracy and self-government as promulgated in the small ancient Greek City State.

“Dismissing the criticism offered by the Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr. Paulinus Nsirim, against the counsel of the UPTH Chief Medical Director to Gov. Wike, to concentrate on governance rather than dissipate energies on his favourite hobby and cardinal agenda of persistently harassing and hounding the former Rivers Governor and Nigeria’s Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi CON., who has been constantly preoccupied with national engagements and public service assignments, and on whose wings the governor rose to relevance, the party Chief said Nsirim and his likes have lost touch with reality as they continue to dwell in their cocooned state of moral and mental thralldom under the piercing claws of Governor Wike’s model of political administration where the mental and physical visions of government officials are obscured from seeing through the hollowness, the sham, silliness and emptiness of a Governor exuding self-glorification.

“Excerpts from Prof. Ugboma’s wise counsel to Wike reads …”Governor Wike should leave the Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi alone. Amaechi is very busy putting the country in shape. Go to civilized societies, the railway line is the means of Transportation and Amaechi is doing this so that the economy of the Country will improve to connect the food basket of the whole states together, transporting people from one end to the other.

” Wike should concentrate on comparing what he is doing in Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor with what we are doing in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH), which is the face of the APC here in the state…”

“Mr. Paulinus Nsirim, rather than respond to Prof. Ugboma’s genuine concerns, fiendishly embarked on a careless academic exercise, exhuming the most demeaning adjectival phrases from his grammatical archives, to describe a man whose legacies in the service to God and humanity offer a shining example of public service to the likes of Wike and Nsirim and remain the favourite and pride of posterity.

“The State Commissioner for Informational and Communication, a man of straw and an avowed contemptible bigot, in a statement from his office described Ugboma as an “ignoble Professor” an “errand boy” etc., and thus, speaking from …an apparent state of amnesia.

The statement partly reads: …”in the said publication, the supposed Chief Medical Director, now turned political errand boy of the Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, appeared to be urging the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, to focus on governance and stop denigrating the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.

In an apparent state of amnesia, Professor Henry Ugboma was quoted as saying Gov. Wike should leave the Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi alone. Amaechi is busy putting the country in shape, go to civilized societies, the railway line is the means of Transportation and Amaechi is doing this so that the economy of the Country will improve to connect the food basket of the whole states together, transporting people from one end to the other…

.It indeed would be foolhardy to join issues with Henry Ugboma who has betrayed his social reputation by insinuating in that briefing that “what is development if not (the flag off of narrow gauge rail line) that? It is not in the roads that the Governor of Rivers State is doing in Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor local government areas. That is not what will connect the nation…”

Describing the excerpts above credited to Nsirim as begging the question, Chief Eze called on the reading public to discountenance the piece in circulation and boodle same together with the author into the waste bin where they appropriately belong, stressing that such trash does not worth the time of any prudent and discerning mind.

Eze laughed to scorn, Nsirim’s expression of extravagant pride over the invitation of some PDP leaders and allies in the country to commission some of the low quality few kilometers roads executed by the PDP administration in Rivers State, describing the Gasconade as the idle boast of a docile administration.

Reminding Nsirim and his likes of the huge but noiseless achievements of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, when he held sway as Rivers Governor, Eze said over 250 prototype model  primary schools were completed across the state, and going by Wike’s standard, that would have taken Amaechi and the state government 250 days (almost one year) and billions of Tax Payers money to inaugurate because each of the model schools would have taken one day to commission.

The party chief said Gov. Wike and his team are mere lazybones who are bereft of ideas on how to administer the state and impact on livelihoods and as a result, they go to the center of cities to blow their trumpets on mountain tops, even when they have achieved no meaningful feats for which to make noise, stressing that it remains the duty of the national media and other independent assessors to do their assessment properly and inform Nigerians accordingly.l

Eze called on Nigerians to forgive the sophisticated ignorance of Wike and his political fiefs over the eastern rail line groundbreaking ceremony, noting that the Governor and his band of unenlightened abecedarians will be needing a rudimentary training on the importance and socio-economic impacts of a modern infrastructure as critical as a railway project in modern crimes

He said Gov. Wike’s appalling ignorance on the subject further exposes the meanness of the vile projects he brags about on the media which can at best be consigned to the 15th century, stressing that the barrenness of his psychical geography is having a big toll on all sectors of state’s economy thereby compounding challenges of development for the APC government to be inaugurated in 2023

“Admonishing Gov. Wike to visit the Governors of Ebonyi, Lagos, Oyo, Borno etc to learn the art of governance having failed to take a clue from his predecessor and benefactor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, Eze said Umahi, Sanwolu, Zulum and Makinde have achieved a lot for the people of Ebonyi, Lagos, Borno and Oyo respectively without having to budget billions for publicity. He said Wike’s style of leadership has added credence to the aphorism; “empty drums make much noise”.

“Chief Eze called on leaders of the Rivers APC to make haste in mobilizing supporters and admirers of the party to partake in the membership drive, noting that the exercise remains a veritable tool in enthroning good governance and ending the years of the canker worms and caterpillars”, he concludes.