By Daniel Alabrah
John Idumange, you portray a terrible image of yourself as you frequently churn out trash that is meant to be a criticism of Governor Douye Diri and his administration.
For somebody who prides himself as an intellectual, you attract so much opprobrium to this special breed with your ignorance and hollowness. To think that somebody hired you to do this disingenuous hatchet job is a sheer waste of resources.
It is just as sad that either in your haste to misinform or to impress your Paymaster, you toe the path of infamy by deliberately dishing out falsehood in the guise of objectivism and sincere public commentary.
If you truly intend to make the minutest of impact with your so-called criticism, you would have known that the Bayelsa Health Insurance Scheme is no longer where our leader and the former governor left it in 2020.
If you care about facts and not noise-making, you would have known that the Diri administration deepened the policy by building a befitting complex for the scheme.
By February 2020 when Senator Seriake Dickson left office, only civil servants and their family members had been captured and enjoyed the benefits of health insurance in the state. But today under the Diri administration, the scheme has been expanded to accommodate the private sector and the figure of beneficiaries has almost doubled.
The success of the scheme has equally attracted access to funding from the federal government.
To further put a lie to your misinformation about the health sector that nothing new had been done, the current administration introduced the delivery of drugs and medication to our rural and riverine communities using drone technology. This was made possible through a partnership with Zipline. To confirm this, Google is always available (See https://guardian.ng/…/nigerias-bayelsa-state-and…/)
For your information, only three states in Nigeria – Bayelsa, Cross River, and Kaduna – have such a partnership with Zipline.
Also in the education sector, Bayelsa has not retrogressed from the standards set by the Senator Dickson administration either in academics or infrastructure. If you also bother about facts, you would have found out that the Diri administration has gone a step further to introduce an innovative teaching and learning method known as the BayelsaPRIME. It means Bayelsa Promoting Reform To Improve and Modernise Education. This involves the introduction of digital technology at the basic (primary) education level in our school system. To cure your ignorance, see this link: https://bayelsaprime.ng/
Another policy of the administration is the focus on technical and science education, which has resulted in the siting and building of new technical schools in all the local government areas.
On infrastructure in this sector, the Diri administration has also built new classrooms and renovated buildings across schools in the eight local government areas.
I again challenge you to prove me wrong with your own contrary facts.
The fact that we do not make noise is simply because we are focused on sincerely serving Bayelsans and not engaging in propaganda as you do. Bayelsans who feel the positive impacts of the Diri administration know what we do and they testify to these every day. And they will never be hoodwinked or swindled by your falsehood and the lies of your ilk and your Paymaster.
Let it be clear that our respected and former leader made no mistake in settling for Senator Diri as his successor. By every available information (and not the rumours you dwell on), Senator Dickson is very proud of SDD’s performance and his modest achievements thus far. You cannot pretend to love Senator Dickson better than Senator Diri or those of us who also had the privilege of serving our state under our great and respected former governor. All attempts to put a wedge between these two leaders have failed so far and will continue to fail.
Senator Diri is not an accidental leader and so far he has proved that he is the right man Bayelsans need as governor. On November 11, he will be overwhelmingly re-elected to your shame and that of your sponsors!
