By Ernest Chinwo in Port Harcourt
As activities gather momentum ahead of the 2019 general election, a political pressure group within the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, the Rivers Unity House (RUH), has called on youths to engage in activities and programmes that will rescue the state from bad governance.
Addressing members of the group from Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state Wednesday in Port Harcourt, the leader of RUH, Kingsley Wali, said it would be disastrous for the state if the current generation of youths fails to come to the rescue.
He said the current generation of leaders of the state had failed the people and called on the youths to come to the rescue.
Wali said: “My generation has failed Rivers State. My generation brought violence to the politics of Rivers State. My generation brought unbridled hatred to the politics of Rivers State. Talk about taking corruption to unprecedented level, we brought to Rivers State.
“So, I believe and strongly, that if we could stand a chance, if Rivers State stands the benefit of another chance, it is your generation that will start that fight. You will agree with me that it is almost getting late because the generation is seeing the need not to work hard.
“All you need to do is to visit somebody with hatred, visit somebody with violence, visit somebody with backbiting and you will make it. If you sit back and do nothing, even the ones behind you will be worse because they have not seen anything good about Rivers State.”
He said apart from galvanising genuine followership for the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the group is working towards ensuring the restoration of good governance in the state.
The RUH leader said: “The basis of why we are gathered here is for fight and sacrifice. It is not a fight of bottles, knives and guns. It is the fight for ideas; it is the fight to enthrone change. The change that you can see, the type that you can feel. Not the change from good governance to bad governance. Not the kind of change we had in Rivers State in 2015. Didn’t we have change in 2015?
“The fact is that the word ‘change’ does not always connote something positive. So you need to be definitive about it to say I want the type of change that will bring progress.
“In Rivers Unity House, one thing is constant, that is the fact that only people who believe are welcomed here. We have no money to give to anybody; we have no office to give to anybody. What we have to give to all of us and those outside is the truth because they say in the Bible, ‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free’.
“Rivers Unity House was set up for one single purpose to make sure that Rotimi Amaechi begins to have genuine followership. We want to join others who mean well to ensure that our state gets to the next level.”