AN ADDRESS PRESENTED BY THE TRADITIONAL RULERS, CHIEFS AND LEADERS OF KALABARI-IJAW PEOPLE OF RIVERS STATE ON THE OCCASION OF A SOLIDARITY VISIT TO HIS EXCELLENCY, SIR. SIMINALAYI FUBARA, GSSRS, GOVERNOR OF RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA, ON THE 11TH OF FEBRUARY, 2025.
Your Excellency, the Governor of Rivers State,
1). PREAMBLE
We, the traditional rulers, chiefs, leaders and people of Kalabari-Ijaw in the three local government areas of Degema, Asari-Toru and Akuku-Toru are greatly honoured to be here on a solidarity visit to Your Excellency. We thank you for granting us audience. We bring to you the goodwill, fraternal greetings and prayers of our people.
Permit us, to begin by wishing Your Excellency a belated 50th birthday anniversary. The momentous occasion of 28th January 2025 set the entire state in a festive and celebratory mood. Never in the history of Rivers State had the people voluntarily and spontaneously expressed such a massive outpouring of love and passion for a sitting governor.
Your groundbreaking and people-centred developmental programmes have earned you the tremendous support and goodwill of Rivers people. This love is massively demonstrated in the people’s stiff resentment and resistance of the hegemonic forces that have set themselves against your administration.
In less than two years in office, you have left no one in doubt about your determination to take Rivers State to enviable heights. Our state has witnessed a quantum leap in the provision of critical infrastructure, especially in the construction of roads and bridges across the swamps and mangroves—an area that previous administrations dreaded to tread.
Despite the attempts by forces of retrogression to distract your administration and destabilize the state, there is a prevailing atmosphere of calm which is occasioned by your peaceful disposition. There is a renewed feeling of hope across Rivers State.
We pray that God grants you many more returns in good health, abundant wisdom, and protection as you pilot the affairs of our dear state.
Happy Birthday once again, our dear Governor.
ANIÈ WA BE BRA ANIA!
2). WHY WE ARE HERE?
Your Excellency, we are here for a number of reasons, but the one that is uppermost and the one that we are most excited about is to convey to you the love and appreciation that the generality of Kalabari have for you and your administration.
We are here to express our heartfelt gratitude and deep commitment to your administration and to assure you of our unalloyed support and partnership.
Our love for you is particularly seamless and exciting because you first showered us with love. It is therefore our desire that this visit will add further mileage to our relationship with Your Excellency.
3). OUR GRATITUDE
Your Excellency, we wish to, on behalf of the entire Kalabari, most profoundly express our deepest appreciation to you for the monumental infrastructure projects that your administration has executed and is executing in Kalabari land.
We most heartily thank you for your paradigm-shifting feats in road infrastructure in Rivers-Ijaw land, prominent among which is the Original Trans-Kalabari Road.
We thank you for restoring the Trans-Kalabari Road to its original design and the commencement of the phase that connects Bakana, Oguama, Bukuma, and Tombia to the capital city of Port Harcourt.
You have changed the story of road construction in Rivers State by building roads and bridges through swamps and opening up economic opportunities for our people.
We thank you for the total reconstruction and dualization of the Emohua-Kalabari Road, the ongoing reconstruction of the 19.7-kilometre Buguma-Abalama-Tema-Degema-Abonnema road, and the rehabilitation of the Degema General Hospital.
Your Excellency, Kalabari people have enjoyed very generous consideration in your government, and we are profoundly grateful.
We thank you for appointing Kalabari sons and daughters into very high positions in your government and supporting them in elective positions, especially the Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Tammy Wenike Danagogo, and others in positions of authority.
Your Excellency, we are encouraged by your love for Kalabari to further place before you some projects that are dear to our hearts. These are:
Sand filling and shore protection of Kalabari communities.
A University or any tertiary institution in Kalabari land.
Recognition and upgrading of more traditional stools in Kalabari.
Rehabilitation of the internal roads of the old Degema Provincial Headquarters.
Buguma Ring Road.
Rehabilitation of Abonnema General Hospital.
ANIË WA BE BRA ANIA!
4). THE UNFORTUNATE ATTEMPTS AT DESTABILIZING YOUR GOVERNMENT
Your Excellency, we have watched carefully, sometimes with alarm, trepidation, and utter dismay, the actions of a handful of unpatriotic politicians who are bent on unsettling your government and destabilizing Rivers State for selfish reasons.
We condemn the actions of misguided Kalabari persons who have made themselves available as instruments for distracting your government and destabilizing the state. These persons do not represent Kalabari.
We are proud of the massive support that the Simplified Movement enjoys in Kalabari and call on all Kalabari sons and daughters who have gone astray to retrace their footsteps.
We commend Your Excellency for your firm belief in peace-building. We admire your calmness, wisdom, and maturity in the face of extreme provocation.
ANIË WA BE BRA ANIA!
5). OUR UNFLINCHING SUPPORT
As Kalabari, we are proud of you as Governor of Rivers State, particularly as an Ijaw son, following in the footsteps of King Alfred Diete-Spiff, Late Chief Melford Okilo, and Chief Rufus Ada-George, Sir Dr. Odili, and others.
We are proud to say that Kalabari stood firmly with all these former Rivers State governors.
We therefore owe Your Excellency our unflinching support and we make bold to say that you can always count on us.
In line with our unimpeachable support for Your Excellency, we hereby call on you to run for a well-deserved second term in office in the year 2027.
ANIË WA BE BRA ANIA!
Kalabari are prepared to lead the campaign for your second term as governor of Rivers State. The massive support Your Excellency enjoys across the state and beyond makes this task much easier. Your humility, uncommon achievements, and commitment to the “Rivers First” philosophy have endeared you to Rivers people.
We therefore unanimously endorse Your Excellency for a second term.
ANIË WA BE BRA ANIA!
6). CONCLUSION
On behalf of the entire Kalabari, we appreciate Your Excellency for receiving us in the Brick House of the people of Rivers State. It is our expectation that this solidarity visit would bring about sustained goodwill for your administration, promote the unity of Rivers-Ijaw people and the generality of the Ijaw tribe, and ensure the happiness of all Rivers people.
We are extremely delighted to be counted as allies of Your Excellency in the onerous task of building an inclusive, tranquil, and true home for all Rivers people and for future generations.
We shall continue as Kalabari-Ijaw people to maintain, to the very last day of your administration, the momentum that our relationship with Your Excellency has generated.
THANK YOU & GOD BLESS YOU!
LONG LIVE KALABARI-Ijaw
LONG LIVE RIVERS-IJAW
LONG LIVE RIVERS STATE
LONG LIVE NIGERIA
