The Rivers State governorship candidate of the Action Alliance for the 2023 elections, Dr. Dawari George, has said he left his former party, the All Progressives Congress because he was hungry for service.
George, an erstwhile Rivers State Commissioner for Energy and Natural Resources under Rotimi Amaechi as Governor, is also a former member of the House of Representatives.
George, while speaking during an interactive session with newsmen in Port Harcourt on Sunday, said there was no new challenge for him in his former party.
While noting that he had engaged the leadership of his former party before quitting, he said he wanted a platform where he could be more productive and where he could use his talent and all that God had endowed him with.
He said, “I left the APC for several reasons. But summary of it was that I left for service. I have been in the APC and I felt I was no longer productive and was no longer challenged.
“The productivity I am talking about has to do with my service, my intellect. It has to do with the deployment of my talent, my endowment and how God has worked on me, giving me exposure and experience over the years.
“I had no space to deploy these. And that was why I left. It was not just about governorship ticket in the APC, it was not about the issue of empowerment and all that.”
He further said his exit from the APC was borne out of a sincere conviction that Rivers State at this time in history deserved the best, saying his years of exposure in the public and private life places him above his rivals to add value to governance and bring decency to office of the Governor of Rivers State.
The former commissioner said, while in the APC, there were very deep and fundamental issues that affected his delivery of thoughts, plans and vision for Rivers State, saying, “The AA provided the platform without any encumbrance that will allow me to act independently.”
George revealed that knowing his intellectual depth, experience and passion for service, some political parties had approached him to be their candidate, but he opted for the AA because it was the right platform that he could best deliver his message to the Rivers people.
He further said, “Rivers State must get back to the path of planned development and peaceful coexistence. This was the course charted by His Royal Majesty, King Alfred Diette-Spiff, the first governor of the old Rivers State.
“As a development expert with research and private sector experience in third world development, I have developed workable models of development that suit the peculiarities of our beloved state.
“These form the major policy thrust in our blueprint of governance, and I would be sharing them with the electorates when the ban on political campaigns is lifted.”
