By Chukwuma Umeorah
The incumbent Governor of Bayelsa state, Douye Diri has said that some political actors in the state who seek to attain power at all costs have taken to discredit his works as governor.
Diri who was on Arise Morning Show, Thursday spoke specifically about criticisms from the Labour Party (LP) gubernatorial aspirant, Udengs Eradiri.
In his words, “Those who are power hungry and those who have come to oppose, rather than looking at issues, they would come from the viewpoint of attack. They have eyes but cannot see. They have ears but cannot hear.”
According to him, rather than addressing real issues bothering Bayelsans, Eradiri was focused on throwing tantrums despite his under-performance as commissioner.
“In all the offices that he held as commissioner for environment, we still have flood and erosion. What did he do while in office.”
Diri, who clinched the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the upcoming gubernatorial elections with no contenders, said that the good works and projects he had implemented in his time in office had made him the choice of the people.
This is even as he reiterated his commitment to moving the state forward while uniting its people. Citing the peace and high-level security being enjoyed by Bayelsans as one his most remarkable achievements, he also mentioned many infrastructural projects and human development projects that his administration has achieved.
Diri, however, addressed some of the criticisms against him in the areas of unemployment rate, low internally generated revenue of 8 percent, drop in the index of ease of doing business in the state and overdependence on federal allocation among others.
The governor said that the decline in the state’s internal revenue was as a result of the government taking away resources and expropriating it to external institutes rather than allowing the state to capitalize on it for development.
However, he said that his government is working assiduously to improve in the areas where it had not done so well. “We have encouraged our people to invest in the private sector. We are setting asides huge sums of money monthly to support our own small and medium scale entrepreneurs across the state to become employers of labour and to contribute to the economy.”
He also highlighted some of the efforts that his administration had put in the areas of education, sports development and improving security even as he urged Bayelsans to disregard tantrums and attacks from opposition parties and to vote for him for second term.