By Francis Sadhere, Warri
Former House of Representatives member and an aspirant for the Delta South Senatorial seat, Hon Olivia Agbajoh and the member representing Warri North Constituency in the Delta State House of Assembly and also a senatorial aspirant for the Delta South Senatorial seat, Hon Micheal Diden have both commended the Warri South Chairman, Hon Micheal Tidi for organizing the maiden Warri Economic Summit.
They both described the summit as a huge success, noting that the Warri Economic Summit will once again reposition Warri and place it on the economic world map.
Hon Diden and Hon Agbajoh while noting that the economic Summit had served as an eye opener for the youths in the world of business called on Warri youths to make themselves relevant and contribute their quota to the development of Warri.
Hon Diden and Hon Agbajoh who both spoke to our correspondent in separate interviews at the second day of the Warri Economic Summit, stressed on the need for the Delta state House of Assembly to enact laws to curb the collection of development levies, popularly called “deve” by the youths in the state, saying that creating an enabling law will put a check on the above menace.
Hon Agbajoh said, “I am indeed very surprised that such a conference can take place here in Warri that was almost abandoned. But suddenly, Warri is coming alive again with this economic Summit and people are saying that the Warri South chairman is a good leader.
“He (Hon Tidi) has suddenly become like our “Moses” and we thank God for that because he is trying to reposition Warri and place it on the world map. The chairman it’s trying to create a situation whereby the Warri port can come alive because this is what we really need at this time. This summit will also solve youth unemployment, which is our greatest problem not only here in Warri, but all over the world.
“We thank God for this kind of summit because a lot of people responded. Prominent eminent personalities responded very well to the summit. The governor of the state, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa was here yesterday. Even the immediate past governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, The Olu of Warri, and other prominent people attended too. I don’t know how he ( Hon Tidi) did it but it is a huge success. He is living by example and he is the only local government chairman that is using the electronic system to collect revenue in the state. El’Rufai did it in Kaduna and it worked. I think every local government chairman should emulate him because this two days economic summit is a huge success.”
“My advice to youths in Warri is that they should take a queue from what Hon. Tidi is doing because if you look at the resource persons, they are mostly youths. Look at Francis Okumagba and the professor from Bayero University, he was a bus driver before he became a professor. Look at Alex Eyengho, he was a messenger, but today he is well known all over the world in the movie industry. The youths should emulate these kind of people and not those who involve themselves in youth restiveness. This issue of ‘deve’ is a serious issue and should be stopped by all means. I want a law to be put in place to prohibit this so called development levy. If this issue is not tackled now it is going be a big problem in the future.”
On his part, Hon Diden said, “This issue of “deve” though we started it long time ago, this was not the way we were doing it then. In those days we used to make sure that anything comes from the Federal Government gets to our people. Take for example, the issue if NDDC, when they started, we did not get anything. So myself, late Friday Ani and Sheriff Oborevwori, who is now the speaker of the State, said we can no longer allow them to marginalized us. We mobilized from here to Port Harcourt and went to NDDC office and made a case for this area. That was how NDDC started attending to the people of this area.
“I want the youths of this area to create the enabling environment for investors to come and develop our place. They should allow investors to come into Warri so that they can help us develop Warri and at the end of the day, we will be the ones to benefit.
“Let me give you another example, during the Warri crisis, we made sure that we protected all the oil installations in our areas because we know that at the end of the day, the oil companies will have to come back to do business in our land again. As we are talking today, Shell and Chevron have their headquarters in Lagos and they don’t have anything here.
Hon Diden who also talked about his senatorial ambition said, “I want to go there and make sure that investors that are coming to Warri and those who are already in Warri don’t leave Warri. No rich man can enjoy his wealth when there is no peace. When these oil workers where here there was no kidnapping because the youths were gainfully employed. We all know that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. So we need to cure this idle mind so that more investors will come and do business in Warri.”
