A Clarion Call On Governor Wike To Reopen Our Primary Schools

The Patriots Alliance have watched with great displeasure the continuous 'shut down' of our Primary Schools by security staff of the schools, due to non payment of salaries by the Rivers State Government.

We understand that there is some sort of ongoing rift between the Rivers State Government and the security staff, hence, the continuous lock down of primary schools.

However, we expect any Governor that mounts the saddle of power in Rivers State, to be up and doing, especially in proffering and implementing damage control measures in government activities.

We want to unequivocally state that for no reason should our children be locked out of their schools because of government's inefficiency at properly managing her institutions. We believe that a Nigerian child should not be dragged through the traumatic lane of abandonment by a resource endowed government. Moreso, no primary school pupil in Rivers State should suffer because of the refusal of Rivers State Government to maintain her own part of payment agreement with security staff. It is expected that the Government having fixed the School resumption date, ought to have responsibly addressed all outstanding issues before the chosen date.

In view of the foregoing, we call on the Rivers State Government to live up to her statutory mandate of providing quality education to the citizenry, by paying up the outstanding salaries of these security personnels. We pray that this is done as soon as possible in order to maintain the standard primary school facilities which were timely conceived and actualised by the administration of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, former Governor of Rivers State. Recall that we raised an alarm over the unkempt state of our Primary Schools at the advent of this academic session, which is sadly still the case in most of the schools.

Solomon Okocha
For: The Patriots Alliance
[email protected]