TELL Magazine

Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, has appointed 14,000 advisers, 319 ward and 40 local government liaison officers.

In a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Media, Kelvin Ebiri on Tuesday, the governor said the advisers will play a pivotal role in the administration. But he did not elaborate on the nature of work they will do for the government.

The statement said that the appointments took immediate effect.

Wike had of recent been engrossed in a political war with the national leadership of his party the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as he called for the resignation of the National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu. He had warned that he would not give the votes of Rivers State to PDP if his demand was not met.

The governor had also come under criticism after the recent recruitment by Rivers State University benefited mainly people from his hometown, Rumuepirikom and his Ikwerre ethnic group.

He has also been criticised having a poor human empowerment programme for not recruiting young people into the state’s workforce in all his eight years in government. The well-advertised recruitment of 5,000 youths into the civil service never worked out since 2019 when applications were collected.

The governor had promised early this year that he would embark on social empowerment as he wound up his administration. Party faithful had waited to hear from him since then. But these latest appointments might just be it.