Ahead of the 2023 elections, the governorship candidate of the Action Democratic Party in Rivers State, Victor Fingesi, has said the Peoples Democratic Party is now a minority in the state, despite being the party in government.
He said the party had lost popularity because there was a silent majority who did not belong to any party, but were ready to vote for good governance.
Fingesi, who said this while speaking with newsmen in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, noted that the PDP had lost its popularity going by developments in the state and the failure of the government to deliver democratic dividends.
Fingesi, who was recently unveiled as the ADP governorship candidate, described himself as the most “credible” alternative for the state at this time, assuring that he would deliver proper democratic dividends to the people.
He said: “The PDP is a minority in Rivers State. There is a silent majority in Rivers State that is just there.
“Go to your villages, many of them are not members of a political party, but they are just there to vote. Their leaders will push them to vote here or there.
“The population of Rivers State compared to the population of people who claim to be members of the PDP there are very insignificant.
“But because we are a state that since 1999 voted PDP, most people think there is infrastructure but there is no infrastructure,” he said.
While noting that poverty was the major problem facing the state, the ADP governorship candidate said it explained the rise in crime.
Fingesi pointed out that Rivers State had all it takes to be amongst the richest places in the world.
He, however, promised to tackle the menace of poverty in the state within two years in office as governor through an aggressive investment in agriculture.
Fingesi disclosed that 25 per cent of the state budget would be devoted to education, saying people at all levels of society would be trained especially in technology and formal and vocational forms of education.
“There will be no more poverty in Rivers State in the first two years of our administration. It sounds impossible and difficult for people to believe but the state has all it takes for everybody to be rich.
“Being rich is not to have a billion naira in the account, being rich is to be very comfortable to live without stress and live where children can go to school freely.
“The major problem we have is poverty. Poverty is the reason we are having an increased rate of crime and insecurity.
“A state that is blessed with natural and human resources, generating N57.3 billion annually, yet having over 1,714,188 unemployed youths, 188,590 out-of-school teenagers (as recorded by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics), clearly shows that something is not right. Obviously, that is leadership,” he said.
