Health, education, agric to lead Rivers’ budget in 2025 – Fubara

Governor Sim Fubara of Rivers State has said that the proposed budget of the State for 2025 will focus more on healthcare, education and agriculture.

Governor Fubara spoke in Port Harcourt on Wednesday against the backdrop of a seven-day ultimatum given to him by Nyesom Wike-backed lawmakers headed by Martin Amaewhule.

While commenting on the status of Wike-backed lawmakers, Governor Fubara specifically said they stopped being lawmakers far back as December 13, 2023, when he said their seats were declared vacant.

The governor said that his Administration had started preparing details of the 2025 Appropriation Bill, with priority placed on education, healthcare and agriculture.

Governor Fubara said the defected lawmakers were gone for allegedly defecting from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the platform on which they won their election to the All Progressives Congress (APC), voluntarily.

The governor spoke when he received on solidarity visit the leaders and people of Etche and Omuma Local Council Area led by Ogbakor Etche to Government House in Port Harcourt.

Read also: Aftermath of Appeal Court ruling: Fubara gets ultimatum as Rivers’ factional Assemblies hold parallel sessions

The governor, who dismissed the embattled lawmakers’ recent statements as ‘noise-making from delusional folks’, urged the 25 lawmakers to wake up from their slumber to see the ship of governance in the State sailing on smoothly.

On the 2025 budget, he said, “Let me assure you that agriculture is an area that we have promised the very special and peace-loving people of Rivers State that our 2025 budget, which we have already started preparing, will address.”

He said his opponents thought he was still sleeping, saying, “Let me tell you people so that they can hear anywhere they are. I wanted to help them, sincerely because I know them.

“And I have said it before, these are people that I have helped. I paid their children’s school fees. I paid their house rents. So, I wanted to help them.”

Governor Fubara explained that the three priority areas that the 2025 budget would focus on would ensure that even if more roads would be constructed, emphasis would be placed on providing quality healthcare services to keep the people healthy, and that children of statState must attend quality schools and people must access standard healthcare.

“And when we get to the issue of agriculture, it will address the issue of unemployment. When we start engaging our youths, they wouldn’t have time to be involved in crime. So, our thinking is to secure and protect our State.

“If it is only being on our knees to rule that is the way that they will see us as being loyal, then, I will pack my few things that I have here, and go and relax in my house comfortably because it will be a disaster, not just to me but to everyone in the State and even my own generation”, he said.

Governor Fubara, while responding to the requests of the people, said his Administration was working with the Nigeria Police to find lasting solutions to the hydra-headed issue of herdsmen attacks on farmlands and farmers in the area, while urging the people to continue to provide vital information of strange people and their operations to the relevant authorities.