Rivers A’smbly promises to improve the lives of repentant cultists in the state

The Rivers State House of Assembly has reassured cultists who have embraced the state amnesty programme that the Wike-led administration would ensure that their lives were improved.

Making this assertion in Port Harcourt on Thursday when he led members of his committee to meet with the ex-cultists in Bori and Eleme, the Chairman of the House Committee on Peace and Security, Hon. Tonye Smart Adoki, assured them that he would meet with the governor of the state, Barrister Nyesom Wike to work out modalities in setting up a task force that would comprise of the different cult groups, for a surveillance job.

Hon. Adoki pleaded with the ex-cultists to drop all their differences and join hands with the government to bring lasting peace, saying, ”we have come to talk nothing but peace. We have come as members of the Rivers State House of Assembly to preach peace, we have not come to discuss politics, but to see how we can make lives better for you.

“We have come to beg you people to stop the crisis and bring crime and criminality to an end, stop all forms of kidnapping, armed robbery, theft and the rest. It won’t be better after all said and done we start hearing that you have commenced hostility again,” he said.

The lawmaker also pleaded with the repentant cultists not to hesitate to clearly make known their challenges as government was prepared to attend to them.

He said: “If it is employment, if it marginalization by companies operating in your area, whatever you know that you are being deprived of, tell us, let us know, and we promise you that we have the capacity to call any person who is trying to deprive you of your rights to order.”

The House Committee Chairman assured them that they had a better future ahead of them and so they should shun all manner of crime.

Speaking earlier, some of the ex-cult leaders who stated their grievances also complained of marginalization and unemployment by companies operating within that axis.

One of them, comrade Alloy Ejor, lamented that most of the multinational companies such as Total, Mobil, Intels, NOTORE, did not employ them and that whenever they employed “one or two” they did so on contract with meager salary.

Another leader of the repentant cultists known as ‘Italian’ wondered why they should lack in the midst of plenty. He then thanked the House Committee for the gestures and promised that the area would be peaceful “if we have jobs to do.”

The leaders of the former cult groups namely ‘Dey Gbam’ and ‘Iceland’ promised to drop their differences, unite, and work together with the law enforcement agencies in the fight against crime in the state.