Posted by The Port Harcourt Telegraph on
Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State turns 57 today. Although there are o indications suggesting a big bash is underway, the governor has already started receiving goodwill messages on the occasion of his birthday.
Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State turns 57 today. Although there are o indications suggesting a big bash is underway, the governor has already started receiving goodwill messages on the occasion of his birthday.
At Mbaise later today, Odili would be honoured on a day he was born by his in-laws and the people of Imo State with a chieftaincy title.
The journey to state and national reckoning has been such a tortuous one beginning with his election as a member of the constituent assembly.
While at the Constituent Assembly, which fashioned the 1999 Constitution, Odili emerged as the leader of the Rivers delegation and later emerged as the deputy governor of the old Rivers State during the NRC/SDP era.
After the military sacked that political dispensation Odili became a member of the constitutional conference put together by General Sani Abacha.
It is on record he headed the powerful committee on state and local government creation, but his committee's report was thrown aside by the Abacha administration and take his first lessons in party administration as National Secretary of DPN.
Governor Odili was sworn in as executive governor of Rivers State in 1999.
mid way into his tenure, he came under attack by his critics and a section of the vocal Port Harcourt Press for what they said was his lack of focus and his concentration on a second tenure bid.
In 2005, Odili blazes a trail that shows he has the focus and dream to take Rivers State to higher heights.
On the cards, is a befitting State House of Assembly complex, which in the future would become symbol of democracy.
A new Government House is similarly sprouting from a point where the old one was stood.
New road projects are ongoing while the independent power generation scheme introduced by the man that his admirers describe as the golden governor has become a national model copied by the central government.
At 57, Odili has not said he has an eye on the presidency of this country, but across the land, rightly or wrongly, there are many who have come to believe that if there is any one the South-South who may have the nod to go for the presidency, chances are the person would be the Rivers governor.
At 57, Odili soldiers on but has a security threat that he must deal with in order to assure an era of plenty and hope for the ordinary Rivers people who pray for better times, and a peaceful environment in which they can exploit the latent energy that the creator has given them for the benefit of this generation and generations unborn.