By current matters
Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has charged his newly appointed Secretary to State Government (SSG), Dr Dagogo Wokoma and Chief of Staff, Government House, Sunny Ewule, not to abuse the confidence reposed in them warning them against attending nocturnal political meetings.
The governor gave the warning on Thursday while swearing-in the two men in Government House,Port Harcourt.
He said, “This appointment is not for any political empowerment, that you are appointed to start raising or believing that you have a platform to abuse, insult, or create a problem. It is an appointment to help this administration succeed”.
According to him,Dagogo having studied mathematics to a PhD level must be a thorough, dedicated and objective person, and should represent the state in a way that would bring success to the administration.
“The most important thing to this administration is to see that the good works that we started and the ones we met are concluded in a way that will bring progress and development to our dear state”, Fubara said.
The governor said Dagogo was expected to represent the state government in an honourable way and discharge other functions of his office dutifully.
Addressing the Chief of Staff, the governor said: “You are working under me. You are my personal aide. It is not a position that as you are leaving here now you start holding meetings and calling people without my permission.
“Let me sound here very clearly, your activity is to make sure that administratively, image making, liaising with whoever that is coming for every official assignment here is handled perfectly well. If you involve yourself in nocturnal meeting and all that, I will sack you.
“What is important to me today is peace, progress and prosperity of this State. It is important and I am not going to compromise anything for it”.
Fubara added, “I believe that those that have worked closely with me, I don’t say what I won’t do. May be before a few things might have gone wrong because of my not being very observant, and I let everything to go. This time I am not letting anything go. I am watching everyone and any step that will bring any form of embarrassment to this government or to my person I assure you will meet adequate sanctions for it”.
The governor, however, congratulated the appointees and expressed optimism that they would deliver on their assignments.
He vowed to addresss the issue of permanent secretaries especially persons, who had refused to vacate their offices after their retirements.
The governor said a team would visit and scrutinise each permanent secretary to address the matter and allow room for growth in the civil service.
“I have given you people enough time, but I am going to do something as regard to your matter by next week. So those of you who are already retired should prepare your hand over notes”, the governor said.
On the mission of his government, he said: “Whatever time that we have is to work and make sure that we succeed as a government and that cooperation is what I require from everyone of you here. Everything that has a beginning must definitely have an end, so don’t be too scared.
“I need all your cooperation for us to succeed. Success achieved by one person is not a consolidated success, but success achieved collectively is unbreakable. For us to succeed as a government, everyone needs to come together and contribute his own quota rightly so that we can make the right difference.”
