Government at all levels in Nigeria must create schemes to help the weak and fend for the poor, the Rivers State Representative in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Tony Okocha, has submitted.
Okocha, a long-standing politician in the state who is now the caretaker committee chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, said it was the responsibility of any government to look out for the most vulnerable within its jurisdiction.
To show an example, Okocha led his team to donate rice and cash to all the wards in the state and to old peoples homes.
Explaining why he did so, he said they needed to show that there could be a government that has compassion for the less-privileged.
“If we had the opportunity to be in control and in charge of the reigns of governance in the state, we would do better,” he said.
He further told journalists: “By the special grace of God, we were able to knock in some of these items and we share to our members and we made deliberate attempts to also share with indigent homes.”
He urged the elite and well-to-do individuals in society to extend a hand of fellowship to the underprivileged citizens in society.
Okocha said the donations were keeping in tune with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He said: “We are in the administration of Tinubu, who the world knows as a very compassionate person. And of course, that has cascaded down to us here as leaders of the APC in the state.”
He encouraged well-meaning individuals and corporate organisations to always give helping hand to those in need.
“You can see that those in the elderly people’s home can barely walk. So, how do they fend for themselves? They can only fend for themselves via the goodwill that people extend to them. So, it is my craving that anybody who has should extend to others. That is what life is all about.”
Okocha, a chief, who once worked as special assistant to Nyesom Wike as local council chairman and as chief of staff to a former governor (Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi), seems to have all the strategies for mass mobilisation and for success in his bag. In doing so, he has identified food items as the most critical thing to most families.
Thus, items donated to the centres his team visited include bags of rice, cartons of noodles, toiletries and unspecified amount of cash.
The sum of N1.5m cash gift and items were made for the upkeep of inmates in some orphanages and elderly homes in Port Harcourt. Rice and some cash also went to indigent members of the APC in the 319 wards of Rivers State. Many APC members have been pauperised by lack of access to power in the state since they broke away from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last days of the Amaechi administration.
He thus vowed that the APC in Rivers State would stop being seen as a social club but a political party that would be ready to win elections and control power, something party followers anywhere would jump at.
