“As governor we inherited insecurity n social economic problem” – Amaechi

Anybody who visited Rivers State when we served would testify that we worked to bring back the old glory of Port Harcourt as the Garden City and as a third leg in the economic tripod of Nigeria.

As governor, we inherited a state that was comatose and with the problem of insecurity. Our immediate task was, therefore, to restore security and improve the social and economic well-being of our people.

These were the two pronged approach: physical and fiscal security.

By fiscal, I mean putting money in the hands of Rivers people. While we confronted criminality with aggressive enforcement measures, we embarked   on what we called massive social   and infrastructural development.

They are there for record purposes; we declared emergency  in education and guaranteed   free and compulsory education up to secondary school level.

During my tenure as governor, we awarded contracts for the construction of over 500 primary schools and completed and furnished 3014 of these to 100 percent completion, while others were virtually completed by the time we left office in May 2015. We undertook the training   and re-certification of teachers already on the payroll   of the state and employed over 13,200 teachers.

Our efforts and investment in the education sector did not go unnoticed, as Port Harcourt won the UNESCO world competition in 2014. We competed against cities like Moscow and Oxford. In the area   of healthcare, it is on record that our government built 140 health centres and we employed a total of 400 medical doctors. When we came in, there were only 200 doctors   in the employ of the government and we employed a total of 400 medical   doctors.