The governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, has increased the number of his Special Assistants on Political Unit Affairs from 100,000 to 200,000.
This was made known by Governor Wike during the inauguration of the second and last batch of the newly appointed 100,000 Special Assistants from the Rivers East Senatorial District on Friday at Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium, Omagwa, in Ikwerre Local Government Area.
Wike said he decided to increase the number to accommodate more people who had shown a willingness to work for him.
The first batch of 45,000 assistants from Rivers South-East and Rivers West Senatorial Districts were sworn in by the governor on Thursday.
Stomach infrastructure: The governor, who said the gesture was part of the stomach infrastructure he promised the state, asked local government chairmen to return to their domains and identify more people for appointments.
Governor Wike, who has been having a running battle with the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and the party hierarchy, first announced the appointment of the unprecedented number of aides on October 11 with an initial figure of 14,000.
The number doubled to 28,000 the next day, then later to 50,000.
During a recent media chat, Governor Wike announced that the leaders of the PDP in Rivers State have discussed and agreed that the number of appointees as special assistants be increased to 100,000.
Appointments based on even representation: Appointees were selected evenly with each of the political units across the 319 Wards in the 23 local government areas of the state represented, and their job is to send honest feedback from the people at the grassroots to the state government.
They are to communicate the feelings of the people towards the Wike administration through the 319 Liaison Officers at the ward level, who will then report to the 32 state constituency liaison officers for transmission to the Office of the Governor.
The 319 ward Liaison Officers and 32 State Constituency liaison officers were sworn in earlier this week.
